‘I’m still on Fergie time even after all these years’
Brian Mcclair tells Sam Wallace what he learnt in 27 years with United as a player and coach
There are few more authentic witnesses to Manchester United’s modern history than Brian Mcclair, who lived through Sir Alex Ferguson’s transformation of the club from Division One mediocrities to the kings of the Premier League – first as a player and then as a coach.
It is 30 years since his first season at Old Trafford, when he scored more league goals in a campaign than any United player since George Best. He was there for Ryan Giggs’s debut, Eric Cantona’s arrival and he has the assist for David Beckham’s 1996 Wimbledon halfway-line goal. In 14 years working at the academy, he oversaw the development of every bright young thing from Gerard Pique and Paul Pogba to Marcus Rashford and Scott Mctominay.
He says he can even remember the first time anyone in the United squad sent a text message – and not least because it was him, the story being a good example of his famously laconic dressing-room wit. “My brother-in-law was a BT engineer and explained to me how to text before anyone else had. People at the club were getting scared because they thought they were getting messages from the dark side. I used to text them, ‘Life’s s--- and then you die’.”
At 54 he sports a fulsome grey beard and lives in Edinburgh, where he relocated when he quit United in 2015 for a short-lived spell with the Scottish Football Association. He loves to walk for
‘No one would have taken Lingard at 16. He had the skeletal age of a 13-year-old’
miles a day and old conventions die hard. Late for our meeting in Manchester, he mentions the Scot who brought him to United.
“People talk about ‘Fergie time’ in the sense of him always pointing at his watch but, for me, Fergie time is not being late. I’m late today and I feel embarrassed about it. If I arrange to meet someone, I get there 10 minutes early because I still think if I’m late I’m going to get a row for it. Because at United we would get a proper row for it. I didn’t want to ever leave Manchester United, so I didn’t want to give the manager any excuses, other than me trying to run about on the pitch.”
He is self-deprecating but no one lasts 11 years under Sir Alex Ferguson, as Mcclair did after signing from Celtic in the summer of 1987, without some talent. Of no less importance to the nine major trophies he won as a United player is what he achieved after he retired, as youth and reserve team coach and then academy director. He helped to launch scores of careers at United and elsewhere, including many flourishing in Jose Mourinho’s current side.
“No one would have taken Jesse Lingard when he was 16 because he had the skeletal age of a 13-year-old,” Mcclair says. “We allowed him to take that opportunity. Scott Mctominay had all sorts of problems with his growth. He was growing too fast and his body had to catch up and
he missed time through injury. You support them in a different way. At one point, we decided to tell him he has got an extra year because he’s fretting about it all the time.
“Jesse was one of the best players all the way through in each age group. He was brave. You just have to wait for them. They are always going to grow, you just don’t know when. They have all the other attributes. The biggest thing is to be patient with them. You have to be. They are going through all sorts of stuff.
“A few have a stellar rise later but you can ask who were the best players in the youngest age groups and the coaches will say Marcus, Mctominay, Jesse – even at seven or eight. We had to believe that would continue. The biggest challenge for any young boy is getting through puberty: looking at themselves in the mirror, styling their hair, putting smelly stuff on and noticing girls. If they get through that and still love football, they have a chance.”
Mcclair is just as delighted for David Gray winning the Scottish Cup with Hibernian as he is with Pique winning the World Cup. He mentions Michael O’neill seeking him out once to tell him that the heart of his Northern Ireland team were all United boys – Jonny and Corry Evans, Craig Cathcart, Paddy Mcnair, Oliver Norwood – and valued for their leadership as well as their ability. Mcclair remembers nutmegging Chelsea’s Danny Drinkwater in training “for my own amusement, but he learnt something”.
We try to list all those United academy graduates but there are so many. Darren Fletcher became a United stalwart and a fine professional. Ryan Shawcross captains Stoke City. Tom Heaton is an England international.
Mcclair is also sceptical of the view that the enigma that is Ravel Morrison should be regarded as a failure. “He’s had an adventure. He comes from Stretford, and he’s had a period of time in London, Rome and now he’s in Mexico. Don’t think he ever thought of that as a kid kicking a ball around.
“He’s a good lad but just a bit misguided at times. He had various things we couldn’t resolve and the manager decided it was best for him to leave. Ravel loves football. That is what he has always been about. We’d find him playing in pub car parks.”
Mcclair describes the United academy as “a workers’ cooperative” – “I got the