United’s Class of ’92 owe huge debt to coach and mentor Harrison

WE would hear the door pushed open at the top of the stairs that came down into the gym at the Cliff and all of us Manchester United apprentices would look up in expectation because, if it was our coach, Eric Harrison, then we had better make sure we looked busy.

The game of head tennis in the corner would end abruptly, the effort being put into the weights would increase noticeably and, by the time Eric reached the bottom of the stairs and strode across the floor, we were all training hard.

The gym at the Cliff, United’s training ground up to 1999, was nothing like you see these days – more like something out of ‘Rocky IV’ – and Eric (right) headed straight for the bench press. He did not bother changing the weights – he just lifted the whole thing, rack and all. He did it just the once and he would let out a roar as he did so.

It was a reminder that he might be a bit older than all of us, and no longer a professional footballer, but he was strong and woe betide we forget that.

The death of Eric at 81 is a sad day for all of us who benefited from his great knowledge as a coach and also from his natural toughness. Eric was a very hard Yorkshireman who liked to tell us that he played for Halifax Town regardless of injury, weather, or the state of the pitch. A player who squared up to him learned very soon that he would take on anyone.

But he had a soft side to him, too. And, as we made our way in professional football, we also saw his kindness. We were just boys, after all, and he knew when we needed support.

I joined United at 14 and was straight under his care. He was the manager of the ‘A’ team, as it was then, where the best players from the youth team would progress, via the ‘B’ team, managed by Brian Kidd. Eric was constantly trying to take us out of our comfort zone, to show us schoolboys that we had to keep improving if we wanted to make it.

One of his favourites was the ‘one to eight run’ which was gruelling. The apprentices were more used to it and could complete the run. For us younger ones, as our lungs burned and our legs ached.

I was a year older than my fellow Class of ’92 apprentices – Gary Neville, Paul Scholes, David Beckham and Nicky Butt – and by the age of 15 I was already in the reserves.

Eric played me as a centre-forward and I recall one trip to non-League side Marine, on Merseyside.

The centre-back marking me was a tough non-League veteran – it was a man against a boy. I am certain that Eric instructed our goalkeeper

to knock the ball long that day to test my appetite to battle with my opponent.

It snowed one day at the Cliff and Eric refused to cancel training. He got a rugby ball out and insisted we play with that instead, which was fine for me as a Welsh lad who knew the game well.

Some of the others, less familiar with the rules, had to be told they could not pass it forward.

Eric insisted on full intensity and full contact. Yet for all his toughness, Eric’s teams played good football.

Behind the main pitch at the Cliff, we had a small area with one set of goalposts. We called it ‘Wembley’. It was there that we practised crossing and shooting in the afternoons.

Eric was desperate to win the FA Youth Cup. When I was a schoolboy, we lost in the semi-finals twice – to Tottenham and Sheffield Wednesday.

By the time Becks and Scholesy were in the side, I was in the first team but just as desperate to win it. There was no question of me not coming back and I played in the semi-final and then the final against Crystal Palace.

We were not the first group of players whom Eric had developed. He had brought through a great early 1980s generation, including Norman Whiteside and Mark Hughes, and another in the late 1980s.

That so many of us from the Class of ’92 became United players, and for so long, was a great achievement for Eric. We owe him a huge debt. (© Daily Telegraph, London)