learning new tricks. If Eric spotted a weakness in your game, you couldbe sure he’d do his best to confront it. I don’t know if ‘Headers’ wasdesigned just to make me suffer, but some mornings it felt like it. As aforward player, you need to be strong enough to hold your ownphysicallyagainst bigger and tougher defenders. Heading and tacklingweren’t exactly my strong points, especially as I was smaller than mostof the other lads. ‘Headers’ was Eric’s way of toughening up youngplayers like me. There were two teams: midfielders and forwards linedup against defenders. The ball was chipped up and you could onlyscore with your head. That would have been fine, except it was aninvitation to the likes of Gary Neville and Chris Casper to come crashinginto you from behind in order to stop you. Gary was the worst. You’dend up bruised all over, wondering what you’d done to annoy him. Idreaded those sessions then but, four years later, by the time I waslining up in the Premiership against the likes of Stuart Pearce and JulianDicks, I was grateful that the first serious whacks I’d taken had beenfrom my own team-mates.It wasn’t just when we were doing that particular routine that Garyand Chris Casper did their best to give me grief. Busy they were, thepair of them. Cas was very big and strong for his age. His dad, Frank,had been a player with Burnley when they were a top side in the sixties,and Chris had obviously picked up habits from him. He had this verygrown up, professional attitude. And, when we were playing together,he talked non-stop through every single game. Sometimes Cas playedat the back; he ended up playing center-back as a professional. Othertimes he’d get a game in central midfield, which meant I’d be playingalongside him. He’d be shouting encouragement, telling me who topass to. And not just me: he’d be telling anyone within earshot. He evenused to talk to himself. After ninety minutes, I’d have a splittingheadacheand what made it worse was that Dad thought it was good to belike that.‘You should be like Cas, you know. You should be talking like him.More than him, even.’I’d be thinking: I prefer silence. As I’ve got more experienced – andespecially since I’ve been a captain – I’ve come to understand howimportant it is to communicate on the field. Obviously you have to leta team-mate know if someone’s coming to close him down but, ifsomeone can’t see a pass for himself then, by the time you’ve told him,the moment’s probably gone anyway. If you’re playing for Man Unitedor for England, do you need your mate telling you, minute by minute,if he thinks you’re playing well? Of course you have to talk. Half thetime, though, I thought Cas was talking just for the sake of it. It was likelining up alongside a commentator.He used to get on my nerves when we played together, but Cas andI were good mates too. He was one of a small group of us who wentaway on vacation together. My mum and dad were the first people tomeet Joe Glanville: they’d always run into him at games. Joe wasMaltese, and United mad. They got to know each other and, the nextthing I knew, my parents were telling me we were going on vacationto Malta. Everything was being taken care of at that end and we justhad to get ourselves to the airport at the right time, with our bagspacked.We had a lovely time that summer. Joe and his friends put us up ina nice hotel. We’d wake up in the morning and someone would bethere to take us wherever we wanted to go: down to the beach, intothe village, or round the island. It was a great set-up and the Malteseloved their soccer. The next summer I went back with Cas, Gary andBen Thornley. It was a lads’ vacation; or, at least, as laddish as it wasever going to get with us – a couple of beers and a little romance butnothing you’d need to keep a secret from your mum.We’d told Joe beforehand not to book us a fancy hotel or anything,although when we got to our apartment block we wished we hadn’tmentioned anything. The place was terrible. There was no air-conditioning and Malta, in the summer, is stifling hot. Gary and Bengrabbed the one room that had a fan in it and Cas and I just sweatedaway, all day and all night. Those were really good times, though. Iloved it so much I went back the next six summers on the trot. Garyeven got himself his own place over there.The four of us used to knock about in Manchester, too, along withDave Gardner, who was younger than us but always knew the bestplaces to go. Our regular night out together was on a Wednesday,usually to a place called Johnsons, which was in the center of town butslightly tucked away. We were sensible lads – Ben, I suppose, was themost outgoing – and we knew when to stop; when to go home andwhen to get out of a place if it seemed dodgy. We also had Gary withus, who’s one of the most paranoid people ever. He’d drive us madsometimes. We’d all walk into a place, then turn round and see Gary,standing there bolt upright.‘No, lads. I’m not comfortable here. We’ve got to get out. Come on,we’ve got to get out.’All it would take would be one funny look from someone. In a wayit was good, because it meant we never had a whiff of trouble. Later,we’d all end up at Ben’s to stay the night. He was still living with hisparents and his room was right up at the top of the house: a big roombut absolutely freezing. Ben, of course, would be tucked up cozy in hisbed. Me, Gary and Cas would be lying on the floor, shivering. I missthose nights out: I couldn’t do anything like that now, after all.Like all young players, we had our jobs to do around the trainingground. I remember Cas and I being put on the first-team dressingroom, which meant we had to scrub the baths and showers and cleanthe dressing room itself. I got in there first and got the easy half of it:got my shorts on and just splashed around till the baths and showerswere hosed down. Cas was too slow off the mark and got left with themud and rubbish in the dressing rooms. We had a bit of a row aboutthat one, and almost ‘got the ring out’, which was when we’d wraptowels around our hands and have mock boxing matches to sort outan argument. To make it even worse for him, we swapped jobs aroundChristmas. That meant I was assigned to the dressing rooms, lookingbusy cleaning boots, and ready to pick up the bonuses from the seniorplayers at just the right time. Cas couldn’t believe I’d got away with it.It’s one of the sad things about a life in soccer. You get really closeto people and then, when they move to another club, you lose touch.I still see Ben Thornley now and again and I know Gary talks to ChrisCasper sometimes. But I think back to when we were teenagers andthe four of us were together all the time, and got on so well: once Benand Cas moved on, that all finished. It’s a shame but, perhaps, it justgoes with the territory: you have to focus on the players who are in thedressing room alongside you at the time.Even though I was occasionally homesick, it was a fantastic life. Mumand Dad were great, coming up to watch me play every weekend蚂蚁加油更衣室打造完美球迷衫m足球市场-更多更全的球星自传下载mwithout fail. And day to day at United was everything I’d imagined itwould be. It hadn’t taken long for me to become friendly with the lads;orfor us to start winning soccer matches together five-or six-nil. Because Iwas smaller and, at first, Keith Gillespie used to play in my position onthe right, I did worry that I wasn’t getting in the team for some of thebigger games. That first season, most of the players we were competingagainst were a year older than us when it came to FA Youth Cupmatches and, to start with, Eric used to leave me out of those games.Eventually I got my chance. Keith Gillespie got moved to play up frontso I could play wide right. I was competing with Robbie Savage for thatposition as well, but Robbie got injured during that season. I’ve foundout since that United hadn’t won the Youth Cup since 1964, whenGeorge Best was in the team, so what we achieved in 1992, with mostof us in our first full year at the club, meant something special as far ashistory was concerned. At the time, though, none of us were reallyaware of that: it was just the excitement of playing and winning gamesfor United.I remember beating Spurs in the 1992 Youth Cup semi-final. Then,like the semi, the final was played over two legs. We beat CrystalPalace 3–1 down in London. The game almost never happened: it hadhammered down all day and the field was waterlogged but, just as theywere deciding to call it off, the rain stopped and we went ahead. NickyButt scored two and I got the other – a volley, left foot, from the edgeof the box after Ben Thornley cut the ball back – and then we won 3–2 back at our place. The bond in that team was amazing, with RyanGiggs, who was a year older than most of us, as captain.That second leg at Old Trafford was a huge night: there were 32,000United fans there to watch, which made for a bigger atmosphere thanany of us had ever experienced before. You always get supporters whowant to see the local talent come through and so follow the Youth side.But 32,000 of them? Maybe the word was getting round that the clubhad found a particularly good group of young players. I think we wereaware of what was going on, but we never really talked about it amongstourselves. Over the two or three years we were coming through, AlexFerguson said just once: ‘If we don’t get a first-team player out of thislot, we might as well all pack up and go home.’ Other than that, nobodyinside the club mentioned that there might be something specialhappening.The focus was always on that day’s training session or on thatafternoon’s game.We got to the Youth Cup Final the following year, too. I can stillremember the semi-final against Millwall. We’d heard that they hadsomething planned before the game. Sure enough, out they came onthe night of the first leg at Old Trafford, and every single player hadhis head shaved. I don’t know if that was what threw us off our stride,but we lost 2–1. For the second leg we had to go down to their ground– which, being nearly full, had a pretty intimidating atmosphere evenfor a Youth game – and we won 2–0 to go through to the final, wherewe played Leeds United.People have said since that it was strange how we had so manyfuture first-team players in our side and yet hardly any of the Leedsboys came through. In those two games, though, they played very welland were really fired up. We lost 2–0 at Old Trafford and then wentto Elland Road for the second leg. There, it wasn’t just the players whowere up for it. We’d had a 30,000 crowd again in Manchester. Whenthey announced that Leeds’ home crowd was even bigger on the night,you’d have thought a goal had been scored. Their fans really got behindthem and they beat us again, this time 2–1.