Aspire in the World Fellows Book - 2022

89 88 Three Lions shirt, singing the National anthem, knowing that you are playing in a World Cup. That’s where dreams come true, and that was my dream to represent England on the biggest stage. David, we often hear players and coaches say that it’s the first World Cup game that is the toughest. Would you go along with it? No. Every game is tough. Someone asked me the question the other day, every time that you’ve been knocked out of the World Cup, what’s been the toughest? You just can’t pick. They’re all tough. They all mean the same thing. It’s like, someone turned around to me and said, “You’ve won six Premier Leagues, what was your favorite?” They all mean the same. Yes, the first one is always special, but every time you win one, they’re all special, they all mean the same thing. Every time you win something like that, you celebrate like it’s your first because it could be your last. You enjoy everyone and it’s the same with what you’ve just asked me. Every defeat, every time that you get knocked out of a competition, it’s always tough. Every time that you play one of these games for the first time in a group, I know it’s a cliche and I know we’ve all heard it before, there’s no easy game. You know, people turn around and say, “Well, you’ve got an easy group,” “Well, you’ve got a tough group”. There’s no easy group, in my opinion, because you’re playing at the biggest stage with the best players. The first game you started was the game against Colombia, and that’s where the free kick went in. So, it could never be the worst game for you? No, I must admit I enjoyed that game, and then I got to swap my shirt with Valderrama which was a big moment for me. That was one of my greatest ever memories on a pitch at the World Cup. Everybody remembers the great crosses, the great free kicks, the set pieces, but you worked extremely hard, and many of your peers and your managers have said that over time. Sir Alex Ferguson said that you trained harder than anybody else. Was that important to you? It was the most important thing to me. I was brought up in a working-class family in East London and my parents still work now. My mum was a hairdresser, and my dad was a gas fitter, and they still do it now. I think mostly my dad does it for the social part with his friends, and my mom does the same. My mum used to pick us up from school, make us dinner, and then at eight o’clock at night some old ladies would arrive, and my mom would be doing their hair till 11-12 o’clock in the evening and I’d have to make the tea and bring the cake in. They were always hard-working, and I think that’s how I was brought up. My dad was hard-working, and my grandparents were exactly the same. I think if I was any other way, my dad would’ve had something to tell me. So, absolutely that’s the only way that I felt that I was going make it in the game, with hard work. Yes, you have to have a certain amount of talent, but hard work is the biggest thing. When I’m with young kids and they ask me questions about how do you bend the ball the way you do? Or how do you win Premierships? I always say hard work and practice because I think it’s the most important thing in the game. If you don’t have that, then talent only gets you so far. I was also lucky. I grew up in East London, but then moved up to Manchester when I was 15 years old. I had great coaches. I had Nobby Stiles, I had Brian Kidd, I had Eric Harrison; all these great coaches that were tough. They were tough, but they’re the reason why we went as far as we did. They took us to a certain point and then Sir Alex Ferguson took over and then he took us to the next point. He believed in us as a youth team, and we all grew up together. He would tell us if we weren’t working hard and if we weren’t doing the right thing. I think because we grew up as an academy, our jobs were to be good players, but even better humans. Eric Harrison made sure that we were both of those. It wasn’t just about what we were doing on the field, it was also what we were doing off the field as well. I remember when I was in the lodgings in Manchester when I was 15-16 years old. During the week, the academy children would be training at the Cliff training ground, which was literally 50 feet from where I was lodging, and in the evenings me, Gary Neville, Phil Neville, Chris Casper, Paul Scholes and Nicky Butt would all go into the training ground and coach the kids in the evening, but also so we could do extra training. We were kind of bought up like that and hard work is what I like to think that I took throughout my career, and it’s great to hear that even from players like Roy Keane, and he was tough. Roy Keane was one of the best captains that I ever played with, and he can be a harsh critic. But I think when Roy turns around and always speaks so highly about me, that means so much to me because I know what he is like as a player, as a captain, as a critic. I’ve always worked hard, so whatever has gone on in my life outside of the pitch, on the pitch, I’ve always tried to work hard, and I think when I’ve gone through tough times, like in 1998, that was my way of getting through that. Yes, I was surrounded by Sir Alex Ferguson, the Manchester United fans, my parents, and my friends. The only way I knew to get through that difficult time was to put my head down and work harder. It’s an incredible story. I just wonder, you mentioned the names there, Nicky Butt, Paul Scholes. You were part of that incredible group. Do you remember moments when you pinched yourself and thought, I’m part of something special here? Even before the big successes came. Every time. Every time that I walked into that training ground or stepped onto that pitch at Old Trafford, we realized how lucky we were because that’s the way that we were all brought up. I’m actually like it in my business now, we do something great and then we move on straight away. I always think, why do I not celebrate the moments that I have success in the business? I then take it back to what Sir Alex Ferguson was like. You know, even when we won the treble in 1999, the day after, he was like, “Okay, have you had a good night last night? Now we’re going to do it again next season.” It was always moved on very quickly and I think that’s why we were very lucky and very successful because he never let us settle on what we’d done the season before. It was all about, yes, we’ve done well but we move on. Hard work came from people like Paul Ince, Steve Bruce, Gary Pallister, Mark Hughes, and Brian Robson. We were able to learn from these great players and they were great mentors for us. When we all came into the team, we started to have success, but the foundations were laid by those players. The reason why we were successful was because of the team that we came into, it wasn’t about the class of ‘92. Yes, we had a good team. We had a lot of good young players, but we were only a good team because we came into the team with Brian Robson, Roy Keane, Steve Bruce, Peter Schmeichel. All of these great players that we came into, and that’s why we worked hard because we knew