My mum and dad were sitting up in the stand and, at full-time, I looked up towards them and felt the tears welling up inside of me. Wembley held so many memories for us, going back as far as the first time Dad took me. I can still remember going to a schoolboy international one Saturday afternoon when I was only seven and having to stand on my seat to be able to see. Dad kept telling me to get down. I kept getting back up. Eventually, the seat gave way and I fell and knocked out my two front teeth. There was blood everywhere and Dad had to take me home.
Wembley always meant the Cup Final, too: we were there for that amazing 3–3 draw between United and Palace in 1990, which had every bit of drama you could hope for, with Ian Wright coming on as a substitute and almost winning them the game. I remember not being able to go to the replay because it was a school night and going mad at home, jumping off the settee and dancing round the front room, when Lee Martin scored the winner. Every time United got to a final, I’d hang a flag in my bedroom window, with a picture of Bryan Robson stuck next to it, so everybody could see from the street who I supported. I don’t know who said it first, but it’s true: kids don’t dream about playing for a team that wins the League. Every schoolboy’s dream is about playing in the Cup Final. As we celebrated at Villa Park, I knew – and my parents knew – that dream was about to come true.
Wembley was six weeks away and we had Premiership games we had to win but, in the back of my mind, was the thought that I had to stay fit and keep playing well enough to make sure I was in the team against Liverpool. As it turned out, it was close. Steve Bruce told me later that the manager had been thinking, just before the final, about leaving me out. Liverpool played with three centre-halves and the boss and Steve and the coaching staff met to talk about matching their shape – playing with wing-backs – which would have meant I’d have been on the bench. At the time, and I’m glad about it, I didn’t know any of that. All I had to think about was beating Liverpool and doing the Double.
For me, the FA Cup Final had always seemed like a very special occasion. It was for the club I was playing for, too. Manchester United have been in more finals – and won more of them – than anyone else. The club and the gaffer knew how to do it in style. We travelled down to London a couple of days before the game, all fitted out in new suits, and stayed at a lovely hotel down by the Thames, near Windsor. As well as training, there were things like clay-pigeon shooting organised, which obviously weren’t part of the regular routine before an away game. It was all about building us up to the game but making sure we were relaxed as well. I think us young lads were just wandering around with big grins on our faces the whole time. Playing for United in the Cup Final? We were pinching ourselves.
It’s amazing how often it’s sunny on Cup Final day. In 1996, I remember being surprised how hot it was, even before we got started. I was sweating during the walkabout on the pitch an hour or so before kick-off. The Liverpool players were strolling around Wembley like it was their own front room: they’d been fitted out in white Armani suits. Some of them were just wearing trainers. Michael Thomas was filming it all on a camcorder. I looked up towards where my mum and dad were going to be sitting. I knew, even then, that the day was going to mean as much to them as it meant to me.
The game was really tough. Tiring, too: the pitch was very sticky because the grass had been left quite long. Things might have been different if someone had been able to get a goal early on. That might have opened up the game. I had a chance in the first five minutes but David James saved my shot and it went out for a corner. Liverpool tried to stop us playing. We tried to stop them playing. And, well into the second half, it looked like neither team was going to score.
I’d almost missed out on a place in the starting line-up. And I was almost taken off just before the moment that won the game. The boss told me later that he had been about to make a substitution. He’d not been pleased with my corners all afternoon: ‘crap corners’ he called them. But before the board went up for the change, we won another. I ran over to take it and, as I turned my back on the crowd to put the ball down, I was somehow able to hear this one United supporter’s voice above the din:
‘Come on, David! Come on!’
I swung it into just the right area, a yard or two outside the six-yard box, towards the penalty spot. David James came out, didn’t hold it, and when the ball fell to Eric, a few feet outside the Liverpool area, he volleyed it straight back past James and into the goal. That moment was up there with any I’ve ever experienced, as intense as the feeling the night the goals went in to win the Treble in Barcelona. A surge of joy and adrenalin just rips through you when you see the ball settle in the back of the net. I think the whole team got to Eric inside a split second and it seemed like he lifted the lot of us off the ground and carried us back to the halfway line. It was the story of that whole fantastic season, right there.
When it came to walking up the steps to get the Cup, I made sure I was just in front of Gary Neville in the line. Eric held the trophy above his head, the roar went up from the United end, and I turned round and looked at Gary:
‘Can you believe this is happening to us?’
It was chaos in the dressing room afterwards. We’d won the Cup and, even better, we’d beaten Liverpool to do it. I don’t know if the boss or Brian Kidd or any of the players tried to say anything, either congratulations or summing the whole day up. You wouldn’t have heard a word of it anyway. The elation just took over. People were spraying bottles of champagne everywhere, diving into the huge Wembley bath, screaming, singing and laughing like lunatics.
We stayed over at the hotel that night, before going back to Manchester on the train in the morning. A big celebration dinner had been organised for everybody, win or lose. That whole weekend, the club had made sure our families had been involved. My girlfriend at the time, Helen, and my mum and dad were with us. It made the occasion even sweeter, if that was possible. Early in the evening, the wives and girlfriends were upstairs getting changed and the players had arranged to meet in the bar for a drink before we ate. I remember, just before leaving my room, the adrenalin of the afternoon wearing off and the heaviness creeping into my legs. It had been some day. Some season. By the time I got down, Dad was already there in the thick of it. He was absolutely in his element, sitting at a table, chatting with Eric Cantona and Steve Bruce. It was probably why he’d pushed me so hard, and towards Man United, through so many years. He’d wanted the chance to be doing exactly what he was doing right at that moment. I laughed out loud I was so happy. Dad told me later that Eric thought I was a good player and a good listener. Every time Dad tried to talk to me that evening he seemed like he was about to get overwhelmed by it all. It felt like I was giving him – and Mum – something back at long last.
In my time at United, there was never a moment for stopping and thinking back on what was happening. We were always pushing on towards the next game or a new season. And, as time passed, I came to realise that there was always something else, even more amazing, waiting round the corner to happen. After that first Double season I had a wonderful summer. I was a United player and it felt as if, in my eyes, in my mum and dad’s eyes and in the eyes of United supporters, we really had achieved something. Gary, Phil, Nicky, Scholesy and myself all had the first medals of a professional career to prove it. I went off on holiday to Sardinia and, to be honest, forgot all about football for a couple of weeks. There wasn’t a television in the bedroom and so I didn’t even see most of the Euro 96 tournament that everybody was glued to back home. I just swam, lay in the sun and ate pasta until it was coming out of my ears.
If any manager is going to make sure players don’t get distracted by dwelling on the past, it’s Alex Ferguson. We were back for training in what seemed like no time. And, all of a sudden, a new season was about to get underway. It was at Selhurst Park in 1996. We were playing Wimbledon