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‘What if we go out and prove the lot of you wrong?’

There weren’t many better players in their positions anywhere in Europe; but Mark Hughes, Paul Ince and Andrei Kanchelskis were leaving Old Trafford. During the summer of 1995, we read about it in the papers like everyone else: Alex Ferguson had decided to sell three of United’s biggest stars. Andrei was a fantastic player but there’d been a problem between him and the boss. Stories on the back pages claimed that Paul had started acting as if he was bigger than the club itself. I know the gaffer wouldn’t have stood for it, but I never saw Incey like that: he was a big personality who drove the team on, like Roy Keane does now. Incey was as good a player at that time, as well.

He might have been in his early thirties but, to this day, I think it was a mistake letting Mark Hughes go. Just ask Chelsea supporters. Mark went to Stamford Bridge and they’ll tell you what a great player he was for them. I have to admit that I’m biased. I was a fan back then and I’m a fan now that he’s manager of Wales. If it was up to me, Mark Hughes would probably still be playing for Manchester United. After Bryan Robson, he was my big hero when I was a teenager and that was still true when I had a chance to play alongside him. I was really disappointed he left: how were we going to win anything without Sparky in the team?

I still remember how upset I was when I found out that Mark, in particular, was leaving. I was surprised, too: like most United supporters my first reaction was to wonder what the manager was doing. You knew there had to be something going on for him to be letting such important senior players go. But the boss wasn’t saying anything. Then the penny dropped: Andrei Kanchelskis was a right-sided attacking player. And so was David Beckham. What had Eric Harrison always told the young players before we sat down at Old Trafford to watch the first team play? Watch the man playing in your position. One day, you’re going to take his place. When Andrei left Old Trafford, I couldn’t help wondering, could I?

When we joined up for pre-season training, most of the younger players were waiting to see who the boss would sign to replace the big names who’d left. A couple of months later, with us all in the side, we were still assuming he’d have to bring in new players. How could he stick with just us young boys? Manchester United are a massive club, and you can understand that the fans expect success straight away. At the back of our minds, though, there was the hope that we’d get the chance to prove ourselves. Nowadays young players are different: they’re more confident in themselves. In the situation we were in, you’d expect someone to say it straight out: ‘Are we going to get a game here, or what?’ Myself, the Neville brothers, Nicky Butt and Paul Scholes weren’t like that. None of us asked and the boss didn’t tell us. He just went ahead and started the new season with the youngest United side anybody could remember since the Busby Babes.

First game of the season, away to Aston Villa, we got hammered. I was on the bench and by the time I got on in the second half we were already 3–0 down. I scored: Denis Irwin chipped the ball forward for me. I got a good first touch on my instep, let the ball run forwards a little and then shot from the edge of the box. A slight deflection took it past Mark Bosnich, who was in goal for them. I remember celebrating almost on my own. We were still a couple of goals down, of course, and John O’Kane, who’d also come on as a sub, was about the only player who came over and hugged me.

For the remainder of the game I ran around all over the place trying to make a difference. I was quite pleased with myself afterwards. But the gaffer wasn’t. I was devastated. He had a right go at me in the dressing room, telling me how important it was for the team that I stay in my position. After that defeat at Villa Park, the media were ready to write off United’s season. The manager seemed to be putting his faith in a group of youngsters and the pundits weren’t having any of it. They were all saying the same thing. Unluckily for him, Alan Hansen was the one who said it on Match of the Day:

‘You’ll win nothing with kids.’

I was sitting in front of the television that night. I’m sure the other lads were, too. Coming back from Birmingham there might have been doubts in some minds. As a group, we had risen to any challenge put in front of us. But on the coach that evening I think there were a few of us wondering if this was too big a step up and too soon. There were probably a few thousand United supporters headed back from the game who’d been wondering the same thing. But by the time we’d all got home and were hearing the experts write us off, I’m sure I wasn’t the only one getting riled by the criticism. It had just been one game, after all. What if we go out and prove the lot of you wrong?

The next game was at home to West Ham and, for all that he’d criticised me after the Villa match, the gaffer named me in the team. Plenty of things rushed through my head, especially the realisation that starting the game meant I would be lining up opposite Julian Dicks. I don’t know why but I found myself remembering a boy I’d been friendly with at Chingford High, Danny Fisher, who was a mad, mad West Ham fan. I’d always looked out for their results, too, even though I was a Manchester United supporter, and the two of us talked and argued about football all the time. What would Danny be thinking now when he saw me lining up against West Ham and against Julian Dicks? I knew what I was thinking: this bloke’s a really hard player.

In my early United career, I think there were doubts about whether I’d ever be physically tough enough to cope with first-team football. As an eight-year-old playing Sunday League football, I believed I was good enough then to have been playing for United. I know other people were concerned that, even at seventeen and eighteen, I hadn’t really grown: It was talked about at the club and I also remember talking about it with Dad. I worked with weights to make me stronger but the spurt that took me up to six foot didn’t happen until much later. But, whatever anyone else said, I wasn’t worried about my size. I was determined it wouldn’t hold me back, anyway. I’d always played football against people who were bigger and stronger than me. Julian Dicks, though? The manager had a word with me in the dressing room before kick off:

‘When you get your chance, run at him or get your cross in. But watch yourself. If he can whack you, he will.’

And he did early on, down by the corner flag. But Dicks could play, too, and I knew I needed to keep going because, if he got the better of me, he was the best passer of the ball in West Ham’s team. The United fans were fantastic that night. They might have been nervous about the stars who’d left in the summer. But I think they loved watching homegrown talent doing well for the club. Gary and Phil Neville, Paul Scholes and Nicky Butt were all Manchester boys, which gave the fans an extra sense of pride. I still wonder now whether the Old Trafford crowd had the same feeling towards me, a Londoner rather than a local lad like the others. I’d like to think they did. Against West Ham, and all that season, it certainly felt like it. And that made a big difference. We won our first home game of the season 2–1; and I don’t think I lost my own battle with West Ham’s left-back.

For a young team, every game meant that we would find out more about ourselves, about what we could and couldn’t do. We believed in our own ability but that didn’t mean we didn’t have a lot to learn from week to week. Ten days after the West Ham game, we went up to Ewood Park for one of the biggest fixtures of the season. Three months earlier, Blackburn had won their first Premiership title, finishing one point ahead of us despite losing at Anfield on the last day of the season. If we had won at Upton Park instead of drawing that day, we would have been champions. It had been that close. They had a strong, experienced team, with Chris Sutton and Alan Shearer up front. Going there, so early in the season, made it a very big night: the boss didn’t say it, but I think it was a match we thought we couldn’t afford to lose.

I remember two incidents really clearly. Early on, I tried a long ball that didn’t come off – a Hollywood pass, probably – and Roy Keane had a go at me about it; in fact he absolutely ripped me apart. Before I knew it, I was having a go back at him. Sometimes the passion of the moment can take you by surprise. Roy does it to his team-mates all the time. It’s part of his game and what people need to understand is that there’s nothing personal about it. It doesn’t matter to Roy if you’ve been playing for United for ten years or just ten games; if he thinks he needs to, he’ll hammer you. It’s all about wanting to win. That night at Ewood Park was the first time I’d been on the end of one of those volleys. It worked. It always works: Keano having a go fires you up because you know he’s doing it for a reason, not just for the sake of losing his rag. Whether he’s right or wrong, he always gets a reaction.

Later on, with the score at 1–1, I remember Lee Sharpe went into a challenge on the edge of their penalty area. The ball rolled out towards me and I swivelled to line myself up and then curled a shot into the top right-hand corner. That goal was the winner. To do something like that, in a game as important as that, was a really big thing for me. And the goal and the result were just as big for the club. That game was in the middle of a run of five straight wins that followed us getting beaten at Villa. Win nothing with kids? I think United supporters, at least, were starting to wonder if maybe we could.

Not that anyone got carried away by my goal up at Blackburn, or by anything else. Personally, I still couldn’t quite believe I was playing for the first team. I was just as excited by that as I was by scoring. As a group of young players, we weren’t the kind of characters to go round shouting the odds. In fact, the dressing room during that season was probably as quiet as a United dressing room has ever been. Aside from Gary Neville, none of us young lads were great talkers before and after a game. The older players weren’t shouters even when they were saying what they needed to say. It was just the gaffer who, every now and again, would make us all sit up and listen. The atmosphere did change, though, as the season wore on and our confidence grew.

As well as the manager, the senior players kept us going. The likes of Steve Bruce and Gary Pallister had been through all this before. Peter Schmeichel was a huge influence, quite apart from the fact that he was the best goalkeeper in the world back then. Peter was the kind of person you could talk to any time, about your game, about opponents or about what was going on in your life. And he was merciless in training. Score past him and you could score past anyone. You could only improve. At the end of every training session, we used to practise crossing, which meant Gary Neville and I would be out on the right, Ryan Giggs and Denis Irwin would be out on the left. Peter used to give Gary a really hard time. His crossing wasn’t as good then as it is now and some of the improvement, at least, must have been down to those sessions. Peter would knock Gary and then knock him again. Gary would get his head down, work harder and fight back. And when he did send over a decent cross, Peter’s praise really counted for something.

Every good team needs a strong leader. We’d had Bryan Robson at United in the past. More recently we had Roy Keane. That season, though, the man who made us tick didn’t come back into the side until early October. Eric Cantona had been signed from Leeds in November 1992 after he’d won the championship with them the previous season. I’d watched him play a couple of times and you could see he was a good player then but, once he arrived at Old Trafford, something more started to happen. In no time at all, Eric had become this player that the rest of us wanted to be. As a person, he had an aura about him: when Eric walked into a room, everything stopped. He was a presence. And he brought that same quality to being a Manchester United player.

In all the time we played together and trained together, I don’t think I ever had a conversation with Eric about football. To be honest, beyond a few words here and there, I never had a conversation with him about anything. I don’t think many people did, he was that private about his life. After training, and after games, he’d just disappear. We accepted that he had his own life and his own way of doing things. He’d turn up for training, driving this little Vauxhall Nova, and lever all six foot four of himself out from behind the steering wheel. He’d do his work. Then, when we’d finished, he’d squeeze himself back into the thing and be gone. Amazing, really, when you think about the impact he had not just on me and the rest of the players but on the whole club. We didn’t talk to him but we talked about him almost all the time.

Eric could do no wrong in my eyes. And I think the gaffer was a bit in awe of him as well. One evening we were at a premiere of one of the Batman films. It was a club invitation so we were all supposed to turn up in black tie. Eric arrived wearing a white suit and his bright red Nike trainers. I laugh about it now, after the ear bashings I used to get from the boss about the clothes I chose to wear. Eric was special, though. The gaffer knew that and so did all the players. We never begrudged him being treated differently to the rest of us.

Eric was a class apart. If anyone tried it on, he made sure you knew that. Not that people risked it very often. There was one evening, after a game, when we’d arranged a ‘team meeting’: it was just a night out with the lads but calling it that meant you knew everybody had to be there. We’d planned to meet at a place in Manchester called the Four Seasons at 6.45 and then go on from there. By 7 o’clock, only Eric was missing. He eventually strolled up and Giggsy pointed to his watch:

‘Seven o’clock, Eric.’

Ryan was doing his best to sound like the gaffer if you were late for training. Eric looked over:

‘Six forty-five.’

Giggsy looked at his watch but, before he could say another word, Eric hitched up his sleeve and showed us the face of the most beautiful Rolex watch any of us had ever seen:

‘Six forty-five,’ he smiled.

End of argument. How could that watch, or the bloke wearing it, possibly be wrong about the time?

Watching Eric was a football education, especially in the way he used to practise. Every day, after training, he would be out there on a pitch at the Cliff, working on his own. He’d be taking free-kicks, doing his turns and little tricks, just as you might expect. But most of the time he’d be practising the simplest things. He’d kick the ball up in the air as high as he could and then bring it under control as it dropped. He’d kick the ball against a wall, right foot then left foot. Eric was one of the best players in Europe and he was doing the same stuff I’d done with Dad in Chase Lane Park when I was seven years old.

Once you’re playing football as a professional, you have to spend most of your time preparing for two games a week. It doesn’t leave much opportunity for the basics: controlling and striking the ball. My dad had always tried to make sure I understood that control was the most important skill of all. It didn’t matter what else you learnt, a good first touch was the key. Which was why Eric, an established international, always made sure he found time to work on that. If you’re comfortable receiving the ball, it gives you the room in your game to see what you need to do next. The gaffer has told this story about Eric on the eve of the 1994 FA Cup Final. He saw him outside in the hotel grounds, just practising on his own, and realised then that Eric was a player who set his own standards higher than anybody else could set them for him. He was an example to all of us, the boss included.

It wasn’t that he set himself up as a leader. Before he came to England and while he was at Leeds, I don’t think that part of Eric’s character particularly stood out. Once he got to United, everything changed. It was as if he’d found the place he belonged and the stage he thought he deserved. In a United shirt, what he did was amazing right from the start. It was Eric’s arrival three months into the season that was the key to United winning the League in 1992/ 93, putting an end to all those years of waiting for the club. Then the following season, he helped United to our first Double.

I didn’t play in the first team during those two seasons, but when we did eventually play together, I could tell Eric must have been the spark that made it all happen. He led. The rest of us followed. It’s a rare quality: a born captain, who hardly needed to say anything, to us or anybody else. You didn’t hear Eric leading the team. Just seeing him on the pitch, standing there with his collar turned up, ready to take on the world, was enough.

When people talk about Eric, they’ll always refer to the sendings off, and worse, during his career. The way I see it, though, all great players have an edge to their character and to their football. That edge is what makes them more than the ordinary. And if you go through a whole career with that quality, you’re bound to have trouble with the authorities sooner or later. It may sound strange but despite the bookings, sendings off, bans or whatever, it would never have occurred to me to criticise Eric. We played football together and that was what my relationship with him was all about. I’d think about him, about what he brought to the dressing room and the team: his ability, his passion and his commitment. Nothing else bothered me. He played the game and lived his life the way he was driven to and he made things special for the rest of us by doing that. How could I have even started to think badly of Eric Cantona or anything he did? David Beckham owed him a lot and Manchester United owed him even more.

I was at Selhurst Park that night in 1995 when Eric jumped into the crowd. I wasn’t on the bench but was in the stands, with a couple of the other lads, watching the game. I don’t remember much about the game itself against Crystal Palace, but I remember the incident. Eric got sent off after a tackle on Richard Shaw and, as he was walking along the touchline, you could see this bloke force his way down to the front of the crowd. He was goading Eric, shouting things at him. And next thing, Eric was in the crowd, kicking and punching: the whole thing flashed by in a couple of seconds and then Eric was being hurried towards the dressing room. I think it was just an instinctive reaction, a natural thing to do. Anybody getting that sort of abuse in the street would have reacted in the same way. Just because Eric was a professional footballer, in the spotlight, didn’t stop him behaving like anybody else might have done. I’m not saying what Eric did was right but you have to remember that, in any other circumstances, if someone was screaming that stuff at another person, you’d be surprised if there wasn’t trouble.

There was no big fuss about what had happened in the dressing room after the game. It was quiet and the boss was really calm about it all. He just said that none of us should speak to the press. Obviously, nobody realised then what the consequences would be: Eric was banned from football for the best part of eight months. We ended up not winning anything that season; others can probably decide what effect losing Eric had on the team. As a player, you just had to get on with your job. Eric went home to France for a few weeks but then came back to Old Trafford and we would work and train with him every day, although he couldn’t be involved in the games. He was still very much part of everything at the club but we wanted him playing. After the community service and the FA suspension, he was back in the side a month and a half into the 1995/96 season. From that October onwards, you couldn’t quite say that Eric Cantona went on and did the Double on his own. But I’m absolutely certain the rest of us felt that we wouldn’t have done it without him.

Talking about that season, it’s almost a cliché to say that, during it, we grew up as players. When I think back, though, what I really remember is how much growing up as a person I was doing at the same time. For a start, after sixteen years with Mum, Dad, Lynne and Joanne and then three years in digs that were family homes in their own way, I got my own place. Ryan Giggs had already moved into a house in Worsley, North Manchester, and he told me there was another three-storey townhouse nearby that was coming up for sale. It was perfect. Worsley was a nice, quiet village, the house was brand new and barely ten minutes from the training ground: now I’d never have an excuse for arriving late for work.

I’d grown up in a suburban semi on the outskirts of London, in a house just about big enough for the five of us. Now here I was, collecting the keys to a proper bachelor pad and making it my own: a den with a pool table, a leather suite in the front room, a Bang & Olufsen television and music system, and a great big fireplace. The top floor was just one huge room, my bedroom. I had wardrobes made for it and, when the joiners put them in, I got them to build a cabinet at the bottom of my bed. You pressed a button and the television would come up out of it. When we first started going out together, Victoria used to rip me apart about that. And I had my mate, Giggsy, living next door, as well: what more could any boy ask for?

Even then, Ryan was a legend at United. He was only a year older than me and we’d played in the same Youth Cup winning side, but it seemed as if he was already a star when I got to Manchester. Giggsy was a first-team regular by the time he was eighteen. He was a hero to the younger lads and he was also great to work alongside. Once I moved in next door, I got to know him really well. And that meant getting to know all his mates at the same time: the so-called Worsley Crew. We’d all meet up at the local pub, the Barton Arms, for lunch. I felt like I was keeping Manchester’s coolest company.

Giggsy and I have stayed close ever since. He’s still someone who can win a game on his own, still a player every opposing defender will tell you they hate playing against. Think back to the ‘New George Best’ tag he grew up with. Giggsy’s had his ups and downs at United like any other player but, over the past twelve years, he’s had the ability and strength of character to live up to all the expectations people had of him. I hope Wales make it to Germany for the World Cup in 2006: it would be great to see Giggsy on that international stage. Whatever happens, by the time he packs it in – and there’s not much chance of that for a long while – he’ll go down as one of United’s all-time greats.

I suppose lots of young lads in my situation would have been living on takeaways and looking for a phone number for a good cleaner. I’ve always been what you might call domesticated, though. Even when I was a boy, living at home, I can remember getting up early on a Sunday morning and cooking a full breakfast for my mum and dad. Not because I had to but because I wanted to: cooking was something I’d always enjoyed. Don’t get me wrong. I’m no Gary Rhodes or Jamie Oliver. Mum will tell you that when I was at home I’d cook the same thing every time for an evening meal. Chicken stir-fry. When Mum and Dad came up to the new house and I cooked for them in my own home for the first time, I don’t think they were all that surprised at what I’d made: chicken stir-fry. Not that what we were eating was all that important. I was really proud, being able to take my parents to my own place on a Saturday night after the game. I think they were pretty proud too.

What’s more, I could drive Mum and Dad home in my own motor. As a boy, when I wasn’t thinking about football, it was because I was thinking about cars. I got a Scalectrix one Christmas and drove the thing into the ground through into my teens. As well as imagining myself playing for Manchester United, I’d spent plenty of rainy afternoons thinking about the car I might turn up at Old Trafford driving one day: how about a Porsche? When I passed my test, though, that kind of fantasy car was a long way out of my range. Instead, I bought Giggsy’s old club car, a red Ford Escort Mexico. Three doors, one previous owner and a full service history – that first car set me back about £6,000.

A little later, when I was going out with Deana, I needed something a bit less laddish so I bought a brand new VW Golf. I used to get slaughtered by the other United players because of the number plate M13 EKS – which, with the letters bunched up, I had looking like M BECKS. Most of the lads have probably forgotten that. The one they never left me alone about was my first sponsored club car. At the time, United had a deal with Honda to supply the young players with a new Prelude once they’d played twenty first-team games. Gary and Phil and the rest all got theirs before I did, having been involved with the senior squad more often over the previous couple of seasons. By the time I was ready to pick up mine, I’d worked out exactly what I wanted to do.

I chose one in a very dark grey. Then I paid extra to have them fit a leather interior, a new CD player and big alloy wheels. That was money I didn’t really have to throw around at the time and – because the cars would go back to Honda, eventually – it was money that I was never going to see again either. Of course, my new Prelude looked completely different to everyone else’s. And I loved it because it was just how I wanted it. We’d often take it in turns to give each other lifts into training. That particular model was pretty cramped in the rear seats, which is probably why Gary – an old man, you see, even then – changed his for a four-door Accord. One day at the Cliff, after we’d finished training for the day, I was getting ready to drive out of the car park and I already had someone in the front passenger seat. David May came running over and asked if he could jump in the back. Well, I’d just got this beautiful new car and I said no. David swears to this day that what I actually said was: ‘No chance. I don’t want you to scuff the leather.’

It took about half an hour for everyone at the club to hear about it; and then several years for me to stop hearing about it. I don’t remember saying it but – if I’m really honest with myself – I can imagine I did. I am particular about looking after the things I like and, in a football club dressing room, whether it’s on Hackney Marshes or at Old Trafford, that can get you into trouble. Footballers will always find each other’s weak spots and, once they do, they’ll never leave it alone.

I’ve always had a streak in me, which might seem flash if you don’t know me, of being particular about the things I want and of valuing individuality, even if I get stick because of it. When I was about six years old I remember a family wedding where I’d been invited to be a pageboy. We all went along to get fitted for our outfits and I got my heart set on a particular look: maroon knickerbockers, white stockings up to the knee, a frilly white shirt, a maroon waistcoat and a pair of ballet shoes. My dad told me I looked stupid in it. Mum said she needed to warn me that people were going to laugh at me. I didn’t care. I loved that outfit and I just wanted to wear it. Never mind at the wedding: I wanted it on all the time. I think I’d have worn it to school if they’d let me.

Along with being very particular about what I like, I’m very careful about looking after what I’ve got. My mum will tell you how, when I was at school, I used to come in and change but would only go out to play football after I’d folded up my dirty clothes. I’m still tidier than almost anyone else I know. When I first arrived at United, the other boys of my age weren’t convinced about me, and maybe put some of my character, as they saw it, down to fancying myself a bit too much. The truth is, though – whether you’re talking about a pageboy outfit, a club car with leather seats or a tattoo or a sarong, come to that – it’s got nothing to do with one-upmanship or with making a point. My friends and my team-mates know that now, just as my family always have: I’ve got my own tastes and if I can indulge them I will, whatever other people might say. I’ve always been the same: knowing what I like is just part of who I am.

Everything that was happening away from football just added to the excitement at Old Trafford during my first season as a regular. I’d wake up every morning hardly able to believe what was going on around me. I’d drive into training, thinking to myself: I’m a first-team player. I’m doing my work on the main pitch at the Cliff. I’ve got my own spot in the car park, with my initials there in white paint. When I went to the training ground for the first time as a boy, those white lines marked out with the initials of the United players I idolised seemed to represent everything I dreamt of achieving for myself. Now, I belonged and it might have been easy to get swept away with it all. People at the club, though, and the manager in particular, didn’t let that happen. They didn’t suddenly start behaving differently towards me and the other young lads just because it said ‘DB’ on the tarmac and me, Gary and the rest were on the teamsheet every week.

I was excited every morning about going in to train with Eric Cantona, too. We’d made a good start without him during that 1995/96 season, but the captain being back at the club and back in the team counted for a lot. I don’t know about the other players but, if Eric was in the dressing room, I’d find myself watching him: checking what he was doing, trying to work out exactly how he prepared for a game. If he was there, I hardly seemed to notice anything else that was going on. I’ve always been a fan: a Manchester United fan. And I still am. When I had my first chance to go into the dressing rooms at Old Trafford as a boy, I asked where Bryan Robson sat and then walked across to sit there myself. I was the same about Eric and couldn’t quite get over the fact that I was sitting alongside him in the build-up to games, never mind that we’d be playing together later that afternoon.

We played some great football that season. I remember one night at Old Trafford when we played Bolton and won 3–0. It could have been ten. Paul Scholes scored twice, Giggsy got the other and we absolutely battered them. When the team was flying, Eric Cantona was usually at the heart of it. The difficult games, though, were the ones in which he really left his mark. After Christmas, we had a run of 1–0 wins. United supporters didn’t even need to check: it was always Eric who scored. I remember one game against QPR down at Loftus Road. We were terrible and they were winning 1–0. I’d actually been substituted and the injury time at the end just dragged on and on. The home fans were going mad and then Eric arrived in the penalty area right on cue to equalise. Goals like that – results like that – turn a whole season.

We spent month after month chasing Newcastle United, who were twelve points ahead of us going into 1996. We went up to St James’ Park in the spring and Eric – who else? – scored the only goal. From then on, we knew that we could do it. The penultimate game that season, at home to Nottingham Forest, was the night I realised we actually would. We beat Forest 5–0. I still remember the two goals I scored. Eric hit a volley which skewed off target and I headed in as the ball came across me. Then, I received a ball just inside the area which I turned on and hit under the keeper. In the end, we had to win our final game at Middlesbrough to be absolutely sure of the title, but everyone – players and supporters – at Old Trafford that night just knew we were going to be champions.

We’d just kept coming in for training, turning up for games and were all on the kind of high which has you half-expecting things to go wrong at any minute. In the United first team? Winning the Premiership? There had to be a catch. But there wasn’t. Instead, it got better and better. We weren’t just on our way to winning the League. How many FA Cup Finals had I been to at Wembley with Dad? Every time, both of us imagining what it would be like for me to play in one? And now, March 1996, here were United at Villa Park for a semi-final against Chelsea, who had Mark Hughes in their side. I didn’t know if I’d ever have a better chance.

I couldn’t wait, although I promised myself I’d stay well out of Sparky’s way when the day came. I’m really friendly with Mark now. We see quite a lot of him, his wife Gill and their three children, who are the nicest, politest kids you’ll ever meet. I always used to say to Victoria that they were how I hoped our children would be. I knew back then, though, that it didn’t matter how well I knew Mark or how close we were off the pitch; on it – if he had to – he’d smash me as soon as he’d smash anybody else. He was one of those players whose character changes when they go out to play. Mark Hughes would fight for the ball, and fight anyone for it, all day long, which is why supporters and team-mates loved him like they did. I’ve seen games where he didn’t just bully the centre-half he was playing against, he’d bully the entire opposing team.

Chelsea took the lead on the afternoon, Ruud Gullit scoring with a header. Then Andy Cole equalised for us. Well into the second half, one of their defenders, Craig Burley, misplaced a pass. Steve Bruce, who was on the bench, shouted: ‘Go on, Becks!’ As the ball came towards me, I took a touch and it bounced away a bit off my shin. That took me wider of the goal than I would have wanted. But the keeper came out – we actually caught each other’s eyes for a split second – and I slotted it past him into the corner. I ran off to celebrate: I jumped up in the air, threw my fist up and, I swear, at that moment I felt like I could have reached out to touch the roof of the stand, like I could have hung there till the final whistle went. I remember being desperate, as we played out time, for that goal – my goal – to be the one that took us to Wembley.

My mum and dad were sitting up in the stand and, at full-time, I looked up towards them and felt the tears welling up inside of me. Wembley held so many memories for us, going back as far as the first time Dad took me. I can still remember going to a schoolboy international one Saturday afternoon when I was only seven and having to stand on my seat to be able to see. Dad kept telling me to get down. I kept getting back up. Eventually, the seat gave way and I fell and knocked out my two front teeth. There was blood everywhere and Dad had to take me home.

Wembley always meant the Cup Final, too: we were there for that amazing 3–3 draw between United and Palace in 1990, which had every bit of drama you could hope for, with Ian Wright coming on as a substitute and almost winning them the game. I remember not being able to go to the replay because it was a school night and going mad at home, jumping off the settee and dancing round the front room, when Lee Martin scored the winner. Every time United got to a final, I’d hang a flag in my bedroom window, with a picture of Bryan Robson stuck next to it, so everybody could see from the street who I supported. I don’t know who said it first, but it’s true: kids don’t dream about playing for a team that wins the League. Every schoolboy’s dream is about playing in the Cup Final. As we celebrated at Villa Park, I knew – and my parents knew – that dream was about to come true.

Wembley was six weeks away and we had Premiership games we had to win but, in the back of my mind, was the thought that I had to stay fit and keep playing well enough to make sure I was in the team against Liverpool. As it turned out, it was close. Steve Bruce told me later that the manager had been thinking, just before the final, about leaving me out. Liverpool played with three centre-halves and the boss and Steve and the coaching staff met to talk about matching their shape – playing with wing-backs – which would have meant I’d have been on the bench. At the time, and I’m glad about it, I didn’t know any of that. All I had to think about was beating Liverpool and doing the Double.

For me, the FA Cup Final had always seemed like a very special occasion. It was for the club I was playing for, too. Manchester United have been in more finals – and won more of them – than anyone else. The club and the gaffer knew how to do it in style. We travelled down to London a couple of days before the game, all fitted out in new suits, and stayed at a lovely hotel down by the Thames, near Windsor. As well as training, there were things like clay-pigeon shooting organised, which obviously weren’t part of the regular routine before an away game. It was all about building us up to the game but making sure we were relaxed as well. I think us young lads were just wandering around with big grins on our faces the whole time. Playing for United in the Cup Final? We were pinching ourselves.

It’s amazing how often it’s sunny on Cup Final day. In 1996, I remember being surprised how hot it was, even before we got started. I was sweating during the walkabout on the pitch an hour or so before kick-off. The Liverpool players were strolling around Wembley like it was their own front room: they’d been fitted out in white Armani suits. Some of them were just wearing trainers. Michael Thomas was filming it all on a camcorder. I looked up towards where my mum and dad were going to be sitting. I knew, even then, that the day was going to mean as much to them as it meant to me.

The game was really tough. Tiring, too: the pitch was very sticky because the grass had been left quite long. Things might have been different if someone had been able to get a goal early on. That might have opened up the game. I had a chance in the first five minutes but David James saved my shot and it went out for a corner. Liverpool tried to stop us playing. We tried to stop them playing. And, well into the second half, it looked like neither team was going to score.

I’d almost missed out on a place in the starting line-up. And I was almost taken off just before the moment that won the game. The boss told me later that he had been about to make a substitution. He’d not been pleased with my corners all afternoon: ‘crap corners’ he called them. But before the board went up for the change, we won another. I ran over to take it and, as I turned my back on the crowd to put the ball down, I was somehow able to hear this one United supporter’s voice above the din:

‘Come on, David! Come on!’

I swung it into just the right area, a yard or two outside the six-yard box, towards the penalty spot. David James came out, didn’t hold it, and when the ball fell to Eric, a few feet outside the Liverpool area, he volleyed it straight back past James and into the goal. That moment was up there with any I’ve ever experienced, as intense as the feeling the night the goals went in to win the Treble in Barcelona. A surge of joy and adrenalin just rips through you when you see the ball settle in the back of the net. I think the whole team got to Eric inside a split second and it seemed like he lifted the lot of us off the ground and carried us back to the halfway line. It was the story of that whole fantastic season, right there.

When it came to walking up the steps to get the Cup, I made sure I was just in front of Gary Neville in the line. Eric held the trophy above his head, the roar went up from the United end, and I turned round and looked at Gary:

‘Can you believe this is happening to us?’

It was chaos in the dressing room afterwards. We’d won the Cup and, even better, we’d beaten Liverpool to do it. I don’t know if the boss or Brian Kidd or any of the players tried to say anything, either congratulations or summing the whole day up. You wouldn’t have heard a word of it anyway. The elation just took over. People were spraying bottles of champagne everywhere, diving into the huge Wembley bath, screaming, singing and laughing like lunatics.

We stayed over at the hotel that night, before going back to Manchester on the train in the morning. A big celebration dinner had been organised for everybody, win or lose. That whole weekend, the club had made sure our families had been involved. My girlfriend at the time, Helen, and my mum and dad were with us. It made the occasion even sweeter, if that was possible. Early in the evening, the wives and girlfriends were upstairs getting changed and the players had arranged to meet in the bar for a drink before we ate. I remember, just before leaving my room, the adrenalin of the afternoon wearing off and the heaviness creeping into my legs. It had been some day. Some season. By the time I got down, Dad was already there in the thick of it. He was absolutely in his element, sitting at a table, chatting with Eric Cantona and Steve Bruce. It was probably why he’d pushed me so hard, and towards Man United, through so many years. He’d wanted the chance to be doing exactly what he was doing right at that moment. I laughed out loud I was so happy. Dad told me later that Eric thought I was a good player and a good listener. Every time Dad tried to talk to me that evening he seemed like he was about to get overwhelmed by it all. It felt like I was giving him – and Mum – something back at long last.

In my time at United, there was never a moment for stopping and thinking back on what was happening. We were always pushing on towards the next game or a new season. And, as time passed, I came to realise that there was always something else, even more amazing, waiting round the corner to happen. After that first Double season I had a wonderful summer. I was a United player and it felt as if, in my eyes, in my mum and dad’s eyes and in the eyes of United supporters, we really had achieved something. Gary, Phil, Nicky, Scholesy and myself all had the first medals of a professional career to prove it. I went off on holiday to Sardinia and, to be honest, forgot all about football for a couple of weeks. There wasn’t a television in the bedroom and so I didn’t even see most of the Euro 96 tournament that everybody was glued to back home. I just swam, lay in the sun and ate pasta until it was coming out of my ears.

If any manager is going to make sure players don’t get distracted by dwelling on the past, it’s Alex Ferguson. We were back for training in what seemed like no time. And, all of a sudden, a new season was about to get underway. It was at Selhurst Park in 1996. We were playing Wimbledon and there was a real sense of anticipation in the dressing room and around the ground, which was absolutely packed with United supporters. Before the game, I was getting stick in the dressing room about my new boots. Over the summer, my sponsors adidas had sent me a pair of Predator boots for the first time, but unfortunately this particular pair had been made for Charlie Miller, a young Scottish player at Glasgow Rangers. The word ‘Charlie’ was stitched on the tongues of the boots and the other players spotted that straight away.

Once the game kicked off, it soon felt like we were picking up where we’d left off the previous May. The team played really well and the game was as good as over by half-time. Eric Cantona was substituted, so he was sitting, watching on the bench. Jordi Cruyff tried to chip the Wimbledon keeper, Neil Sullivan, from outside the box. And I’m sure I heard someone say that, if the shot had been on target, Jordi might have scored. A couple of minutes after that, Brian McClair rolled the ball in front of me just inside our own half, and I thought: why not? Shoot. I hit it and I remember looking up at the ball, which seemed to be heading out towards somewhere between the goal and the corner flag. The swerve I’d put on the shot, though, started to bring it back in and the thought flashed through my mind. This has got a chance here.

The ball was in the air for what seemed like ages, sailing towards the goal, before it dropped over Sullivan and into the net. The next moment, Brian McClair was jumping all over me. He’d been standing there, almost beside me, and along with everybody else in the ground had just watched the ball drift downfield.

Back in the dressing room after the game, someone told me what the manager had growled when I shot:

‘What does he think he’s trying now?’

Eric Cantona came up to me while I was getting changed and shook my hand:

‘What a goal,’ he said.

Believe me, that felt even better than scoring it. Someone from Match Of the Day wanted to speak to me but the boss said he didn’t want me talking to anyone. So I went straight out to get on the coach. Because the game was in London, Mum, Dad and Joanne were waiting for me. I’ve got a photo of the goal at home, of the ball just hanging against the clear, blue sky, and I can actually see my mum and dad in the crowd. I got to the steps of the coach and Dad hugged me:

‘I can’t believe you’ve just done that!’

That evening, I talked on the phone to Helen, who was at college down in Bristol:

‘Did you score a goal today? Everybody here’s talking about it, saying you’ve scored this great goal.’

People were coming up to me in the street all weekend and saying the same thing. I couldn’t have known it then, but that moment was the start of it all: the attention, the press coverage, the fame, that whole side of what’s happened to me since. It changed forever that afternoon in South London, with one swing of a new boot. The thrill I get playing football, my love of the game: those things will always be there. But there’s hardly anything else – for better or worse – that has been the same since. When my foot struck that ball, it kicked open the door to the rest of my life at the same time. In the game, it eventually dropped down out of the air and into the net. In the life of David Beckham, it feels like the ball is still up there. And I’m still watching it swerve and dip through a perfect, clear afternoon sky: watching and waiting to see where it’s going to come down to land.