I scored the goal but Kevin Moran got the headlines, recalls Whiteside
NORMAN WHITESIDE, RECORD BREAKER FOR CLUB AND COUNTRY, ON FA CUP FINAL GLORY AND HAVING TO RETIRE AT 26
WHEN Manchester United invited Pele to open their museum someone at Old Trafford thought it would be a good idea if Norman Whiteside hosted the top table.
‘I had it all clear in my mind,’ says Whiteside. ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s my pleasure to introduce you to Martin Edwards, our chairman, and Alex Ferguson, our manager, who wasn’t Sir Alex then.
‘I would like to introduce you to Sir Bobby Charlton, one of the legends of Manchester United and England, and I would like to introduce you to our guest of honour, the second-youngest player ever to play in a World Cup.’
Whiteside laughs and admits the punchline was never delivered because he was committed to an engagement in Belfast on the same night and had to decline the offer.
‘It’s a shame. I’d love to embellish this story. Maybe I should lie and say it happened.
‘I don’t know who did it but they couldn’t have had that line, could they? No one could. No one else in the world can say that to Pele.’
Whiteside’s sense of humour is still intact. So are a couple of his most impressive records. More surprisingly, perhaps, so is the knee which gave him such grief and ultimately curtailed his career.
‘OK at the moment,’ he says, flexing the joint. He was 53 last week and has not kicked a ball since the day he quit at the age of 26.
No legends tours or five-a-side football. Instead, Whiteside delved into study and a podiatry career which is now over and hosts in the hospitality suites of Old Trafford.
‘United were a rollercoaster Cup team until Fergie brought in the consistency to win leagues and breed confidence,’ says Whiteside over pasta and red wine at Tre Ciccio in Altrincham.
‘Since he left, we’re back to being the Cup team we were. Is that enough for United supporters? It used to be. Then Fergie had his run and we won’t be alive when someone beats his 30-odd trophies.
‘It’s up to Jose Mourinho to get us back winning league titles but we’re on the rollercoaster again.’
It is 40 years since Whiteside arrived in Manchester from Belfast and into football’s fast lane. He made his debut at 16 as a substitute at Brighton — United’s youngest player since Duncan Edwards.
‘I was on £16 a week and the win bonus was £800,’ said Whiteside, with a glance to the heavens. ‘Ray Wilkins got the winner. Cheers pal. A lovely guy.’ Wilkins died last month at the age of 61 and will be honoured at Wembley when United and Chelsea, two of his former clubs, contest the FA Cup final.
‘For the next two weeks I was a sub and then made my full debut against Stoke at Old Trafford, when I scored. We won all four games and I was paid £3,200 on top of my £16 a week.
‘I was a multi-millionaire and I’d only played 102 minutes. I bought a sheepskin coat and a pair of gloves. Then I went to the World Cup and played five games in Spain.’
At 17 years and 41 days he was selected by Billy Bingham to start Northern Ireland’s first game of the 1982 World Cup against Yugoslavia, breaking the record held by Pele since 1958.
Eight tournaments later it remains unbroken. ‘It might take some beating that one,’ says Whiteside, for whom the abiding memory of Spain ’82 is the relentless demand for interviews.
‘When David Beckham went to LA and half the pitch was full of press, that’s what it was like. Hundreds of journalists from every single country around the world were coming to interview me.
‘All with the same question: How does it feel to break Pele’s record?
‘There was no media training and no press officer. Billy was probably up in his room. I was on my own. In at the deep end.’
Nothing much fazed Whiteside. Growing up in Shankhill he played for East Belfast LFC, a boys’ team with Liverpool affiliations, before signing for United.
This triggered inevitable comparisons to George Best and his breakthrough launched him into a bracket with prodigies such as Edwards and Pele.
‘We’re talking about absolute legends,’ he shrugs, rejecting his right to exist in the same company. ‘It’s ridiculous to think like that, you’re not in the same category.’
Whiteside, though, had plenty of talent: a sweet left foot and vision, aerial power and a physical presence and temperament mature beyond his years.
‘You have to be capable of filtering what you want to hear,’ he said. ‘If they’re shouting, “Norman you’re the best,” I can hear that. “Norman you’re a **** ,” I can’t hear that.
‘I was always in control, even when I was ruffling a few feathers. We played Arsenal and Viv Anderson squared up to me, right in front of the dug-outs at Old Trafford.
‘David Rocastle had been sent off
Big Ron tried to sign me for Sheffield Wednesday but I had one leg by then!
for kicking me and Viv was swearing his head off. We were nose-to-nose and under my breath I’m going, “Go on, punch me — I dare you to punch me.”
‘Fergie was right there, watching it all, then afterwards he said, “I quite like Viv Anderson, he stood up to you,” and he bought him. Viv still says thanks for getting him the move.’
Whiteside was reminiscing before the shock of Ferguson’s brain haemorrhage and explained how he had become ‘brilliant mates’ with his former manager.
‘I walk past his office and he calls me in and we talk football,’ he said. ‘He’s an honest guy. We had our arguments but next day, end of story.
‘I never got the hairdryer treatment in the dressing room. Only once privately. Fergie was great with me. I went up in the car with him to play Hartlepool reserves in his very first game and we had about six internationals in the team and were 6-0 down at half-time.
‘He went ballistic, saying, “Right, apart from Norman Whiteside, you’re all a bunch of this that and the other.”
‘Chris Turner, the goalkeeper, stood up and said, “Boss, you’re out of order singling Norman out.” He went straight over to him, going purple and shouting, “Don’t you tell me my job.” I’ve never seen him like that. He threw teacups, everything. His first game.’
Their previous encounter came when Northern Ireland and Scotland boarded the same flight home from the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, and Ferguson was in charge of the Scots.
‘They’re in business class and we’re at the back of the plane,’ said Whiteside. ‘So I’m up the front, chucking Charlie Nicholas out of his seat and telling Graeme Souness to move it, having a laugh, saying, “Come on, out, we’re Northern Ireland.”
‘We’re pouring drinks and giving it large and Fergie and Archie Knox are sat there watching all this. In October, he got the job, came in, smiled and said, “How’d you enjoy your trip back from Mexico?” He’d clocked it all.’
The glory moments for Whiteside came under Ron Atkinson, however, when he developed a knack for goals on the big stage at the end of an astonishing first full season.
He became the youngest to score in a domestic cup final, aged 17 years and 324 days, against Liverpool in the 1983 League Cup.
Although the day ended in tears with United beaten in extra-time, his winner against Arsenal in the FA Cup semi-final at Villa Park soon fired them back to Wembley.
‘We’ve got a brilliant photo up on the wall of that goal taken by Albert Cooper,’ said Whiteside.
At 18 years and 18 days, he headed in the second of United’s four goals in the FA Cup final replay win against Brighton.
‘We were lucky in the first game, with Gordon Smith’s miss,’ he said. ‘Gary Bailey said it was the best save in the world but I think it was a bad miss. Ray Wilkins’ goal that day was different class. He couldn’t believe it. He did a lap of Wembley before he got back for the kick-off.’
Two years later and Whiteside was a goal hero again, this time with a fabulous winner for 10-man United, curled past Neville Southall in extra-time against Everton, only to find it overshadowed by Kevin Moran.
‘Kevin had all the glory,’ said Whiteside. ‘The back pages were all about the first player to be sent off in an FA Cup final.’
Everton were already champions and seemed set for the Double until Mark Hughes found Whiteside wide on the right.
‘I raised a gallop towards the edge of the box and looked up,’ he said. ‘I could see Neville holding on to the post and he could see me.
‘I threw my leg over the ball and hit it the instant Pat van den Hauwe stepped back. I used to practise it in training, using the defender as a screen.
‘A decade later, Dennis Bergkamp came to Arsenal and did it in every game. I’d laugh and say it’s good to see Dennis was watching that day.’
Whiteside had celebrations in hand, having befriended an executive from Guinness a few weeks earlier at Loftus Road, unable to play on QPR’s plastic pitch because of his bad knee.
‘He sent 10 barrels of Guinness to the hotel,’ said Whiteside. ‘We were drinking and loving it. He was great, Ron. Dead easy going. He tried to sign me for Sheffield Wednesday when I was at Everton but I only had one leg and it just wasn’t happening.’
Whiteside conceded defeat in his fitness battle soon after his move to Goodison Park. He played for 10 years with no cartilage to absorb the bone-on-bone impact in his right knee.
‘I refused injections. There’s no pain when you’re playing football for United against Liverpool or City but I’ve been maxed-out on anti-inflammatories all my life.
‘The day after I packed up, I woke up in a nice house and looked out of the window, nice day, nowhere to go, jumped back into bed and cried my eyes out.
‘I picked up an old United programme recently and they had something about the youngest players to reach 200 games for the club. I was top, 21 years and three months, and then it was Bestie and Cristiano Ronaldo and Ryan Giggs. That’s some going.’
Hundreds of journalists all had the same question: How does it feel to break Pele’s record?