Beckham (8 page)

‘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—and especially since I've been a captain—I've come to understand how important it is to communicate on the field. Obviously you have to let a team-mate know if someone's coming to close him down but, if someone 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 United or 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 the time, though, I thought Cas was talking just for the sake of it. It was like lining up alongside a commentator.

He used to get on my nerves when we played together, but Cas and I were good mates too. He was one of a small group of us who went away on vacation together. My mum and dad were the first people to
meet Joe Glanville: they'd always run into him at games. Joe was Maltese, and United mad. They got to know each other and, the next thing I knew, my parents were telling me we were going on vacation to Malta. Everything was being taken care of at that end and we just had to get ourselves to the airport at the right time, with our bags packed.

We had a lovely time that summer. Joe and his friends put us up in a nice hotel. We'd wake up in the morning and someone would be there to take us wherever we wanted to go: down to the beach, into the village, or round the island. It was a great set-up and the Maltese loved their soccer. The next summer I went back with Cas, Gary and Ben Thornley. It was a lads' vacation; or, at least, as laddish as it was ever going to get with us—a couple of beers and a little romance but nothing 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't mentioned anything. The place was terrible. There was no air-conditioning and Malta, in the summer, is stifling hot. Gary and Ben grabbed the one room that had a fan in it and Cas and I just sweated away, all day and all night. Those were really good times, though. I loved it so much I went back the next six summers on the trot. Gary even got himself his own place over there.

The four of us used to knock about in Manchester, too, along with Dave Gardner, who was younger than us but always knew the best places to go. Our regular night out together was on a Wednesday, usually to a place called Johnsons, which was in the center of town but slightly tucked away. We were sensible lads—Ben, I suppose, was the most outgoing—and we knew when to stop; when to go home and when to get out of a place if it seemed dodgy. We also had Gary with us, who's one of the most paranoid people ever. He'd drive us mad sometimes. 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 way it 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 his parents and his room was right up at the top of the house: a big room but absolutely freezing. Ben, of course, would be tucked up cozy in his bed. Me, Gary and Cas would be lying on the floor, shivering. I miss those nights out: I couldn't do anything like that now, after all.

Like all young players, we had our jobs to do around the training ground. I remember Cas and I being put on the first-team dressing room, which meant we had to scrub the baths and showers and clean the 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 showers were hosed down. Cas was too slow off the mark and got left with the mud and rubbish in the dressing rooms. We had a bit of a row about that one, and almost ‘got the ring out', which was when we'd wrap towels around our hands and have mock boxing matches to sort out an argument. To make it even worse for him, we swapped jobs around Christmas. That meant I was assigned to the dressing rooms, looking busy cleaning boots, and ready to pickup the bonuses from the senior players 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 close to 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 Chris Casper sometimes. But I think back to when we were teenagers and the four of us were together all the time, and got on so well: once Ben and Cas moved on, that all finished. It's a shame but, perhaps, it just goes with the territory: you have to focus on the players who are in the dressing room alongside you at the time.

Even though I was occasionally homesick, it was a fantastic life. Mum and Dad were great, coming up to watch me play every weekend
without fail. And day to day at United was everything I'd imagined it would be. It hadn't taken long for me to become friendly with the lads; or for us to start winning soccer matches together five-or six-nil. Because I was smaller and, at first, Keith Gillespie used to play in my position on the right, I did worry that I wasn't getting in the team for some of the bigger games. That first season, most of the players we were competing against were a year older than us when it came to FA Youth Cup matches 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 front so I could play wide right. I was competing with Robbie Savage for that position as well, but Robbie got injured during that season. I've found out since that United hadn't won the Youth Cup since 1964, when George Best was in the team, so what we achieved in 1992, with most of us in our first full year at the club, meant something special as far as history was concerned. At the time, though, none of us were really aware of that: it was just the excitement of playing and winning games for 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 Crystal Palace 3–1 down in London. The game almost never happened: it had hammered down all day and the field was waterlogged but, just as they were deciding to call it off, the rain stopped and we went ahead. Nicky Butt scored two and I got the other—a volley, left foot, from the edge of 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 Ryan Giggs, who was a year older than most of us, as captain.

That second leg at Old Trafford was a huge night: there were 32,000 United fans there to watch, which made for a bigger atmosphere than any of us had ever experienced before. You always get supporters who want 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 club had found a particularly good group of young players. I think we were
aware of what was going on, but we never really talked about it amongst ourselves. Over the two or three years we were coming through, Alex Ferguson said just once: ‘If we don't get a first-team player out of this lot, we might as well all pack up and go home.' Other than that, nobody inside the club mentioned that there might be something special happening. The focus was always on that day's training session or on that afternoon's game.

We got to the Youth Cup Final the following year, too. I can still remember the semi-final against Millwall. We'd heard that they had something planned before the game. Sure enough, out they came on the night of the first leg at Old Trafford, and every single player had his 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 even for a Youth game—and we won 2–0 to go through to the final, where we played Leeds United.

People have said since that it was strange how we had so many future first-team players in our side and yet hardly any of the Leeds boys came through. In those two games, though, they played very well and were really fired up. We lost 2–0 at Old Trafford and then went to Elland Road for the second leg. There, it wasn't just the players who were up for it. We'd had a 30,000 crowd again in Manchester. When they announced that Leeds' home crowd was even bigger on the night, you'd have thought a goal had been scored. Their fans really got behind them and they beat us again, this time 2–1.

We'd played a lot of games that season and I remember being very tired, but losing that final wasn't such a bad thing. For most of us, it was the first big disappointment of our soccer-playing lives and perhaps it made us stronger, having to experience it together. You want to make sure you don't feel that down again in the future. And you certainly don't ever want Eric Harrison getting mad at you again like he did in the dressing room after we'd lost at Elland Road.

By then, the 1992/93 season, the players in our age group were starting to get involved, and to get games, with the first team. As early as September, I got called into training with the senior players and, a couple of days later, the manager told me that I would be traveling to Brighton for a League Cup tie. Gary, Nicky Butt and Paul Scholes were coming as well. We flew down on this little seventeen-seater plane. It was a horrible flight: the noise, the bumping, the cramped seats, and it seemed to go on forever. Maybe that was why I got such a great night's sleep once we'd finally arrived. I woke up to the news that I was going to be one of the substitutes.

About twenty minutes from the end, the manager told me I was going on in place of Andrei Kanchelskis. I was so excited I jumped off the bench and cracked my head on the roof of the dugout: a great start to a first-team career. The boss wanted to have a look at me and I think I did all right. Mum and Dad were at the ground and they were as surprised as I was that I actually got a game. Seventeen minutes as a United player, but I still felt really young. What was I? Just seventeen? More like the boy who'd been on the bench at West Ham as a mascot than a man ready to be in United's first team. The manager had a little go at me in the dressing room afterwards. I don't remember having done anything wrong. He was probably just trying to make sure I didn't get full of myself: a sign of one or two difficult times, maybe, that lay ahead for us further down the line.

It was a long time before I got another chance. The Youth Cup side had all moved up to reserve team soccer: we'd won the ‘A' League and then the Central League, the first time the club had done that in over twenty years. I played in some League Cup games again early on in the 1994/95 season, when the manager rested his first-choice players. Back in the early nineties, United struggled a bit in Europe because of the Overseas Players Rule, which meant you could only play three foreigners in the European Cup. It wasn't that we didn't have a strong squad, but the changes the boss had to make would disrupt the rhythm
of the side. That particular season, we were already as good as out of the competition but had a home game against Galatasaray still to play. It was early December.

The first I knew about the possibility of me being involved was an article in the
Manchester Evening News
saying the manager was thinking about giving some youngsters a chance to try European soccer. On the day, he told a few of us we'd actually start the game that night. I don't know about the others, but I went into it not having a clue what to expect. About half an hour in, I scored my first senior goal for United. The ball rolled out to me, in front of the Stretford End, and I remember thinking: if I catch this right, something could happen. Even though I didn't really connect properly, the ball bobbled in somehow and I turned and ran away to celebrate. Eric Cantona was the first player to get to me. I was buzzing that much, he was having to fight me off in the end. I just wouldn't let go of him.
I've scored a goal and I'm celebrating with Eric Cantona
.

I really enjoyed myself. I think Galatasaray had left out some senior players, too, and the game wasn't as difficult as it might have been. We played well, and the fact that there were so many of the younger boys in the team made it even better. Starting the game had made a difference, too. I felt a lot more at home at Old Trafford that night than I had during my seventeen minutes down at Brighton, two years before. For us boys, it felt like the European Cup Final, never mind that United were eliminated whatever the result. As it was, we won 4–0, which is a decent score in a European game whatever the circumstances. The manager didn't say anything afterwards. He was disappointed to be out of Europe, but seemed happy enough with how the young lads had played.

That first start in a big European fixture was an exception for me. I still had work– and filling out—to do. The thing that has kept United and the players at the club driving on is the knowledge that if your standards slip, there's someone waiting to take your place. As a
teenager, the doubts about whether you'd still be there in a week, a month, or even a year's time, were even more intense. It was back to the reserves after my start in the Galatasaray game. Back to wondering whether I was good enough to take the next big step: establishing myself in the first team by getting games in the Premier League. Sometimes in a career, even if you think you know what you need next, you have to be ready to make the best of what comes along.

It wasn't every day I got called in after training to see the manager in his office:

‘Preston North End have asked if they could take you on loan for a month. I think it's a good idea.'

Straight away, I put two and two together and made five. I was nineteen. Nicky Butt and Gary Neville were already getting games on a fairly regular basis. I'd been involved with the first team, but I wasn't progressing as quickly as them. Had United decided I wasn't going to be strong enough to make it? Was this a way of easing me out? I couldn't get the thought out of my head.
They don't rate me. They want to get rid of me
.