Red: My Autobiography Read Online Free PDF Page B

more than me and Becks – and we certainly didn’t share tastes in fashion. He’d go around in the worst purple Ralph Lauren shirts and shell suits with highlights in his hair. I took him to Toni and Guy in Manchester once because I was the one with a car. He had his hair cut too short and when he saw his reflection in a shop window, he burst into tears. He’ll deny it, but it’s true.
    We had a good laugh together. We’d pile into my car and go to the snooker club in Salford.
    Another place we’d hang out was the bookie’s along the road from the Cliff. Keith Gillespie was a gambler even then. Me, Casp and Sav would sit in there for two or three hours just having a laugh, maybe sticking the odd few quid on, but Keith always had a tip and would put money on every race. For us it was social, but he really enjoyed it.
    One day we were in there when a bloke walked in and said, ‘Whoever owns that black Golf, it’s being smashed up by some lads.’ That would be my black Golf. I looked outside and, sure enough, there was a gang of lads on bikes, all shaven heads, smashing the windows and trying to rip out the radio.
    I went outside. ‘Oi, what the fuck you doing?’ That’s when two of them started walking over. Now I might have a big mouth, but I’m no Ricky Hatton. Me and Keith legged it back into the bookie’s until they disappeared.
    People might think from this that life at United must have been a privileged existence for a teenager. But Eric took it upon himself to make us feel like nothing was ever going to come easy. He made us do every job you could think of, like sweeping out the bogs and mopping the corridors, even cleaning all the staff’s boots, including the manager’s.
    On other days you’d be sent over to Old Trafford to shadow the groundsman or help the secretaries in the general office. And that was how Ben and I ended up in Sir Matt Busby’s office one day. We were walking past, going about our chores, when an old Scottish voice called us in. There was Sir Matt sitting behind his desk, puffing on his cigar.
    ‘Hi boys, you OK? How are you doing?’
    I don’t think we managed more than a mumbled ‘Fine, thanks’.
    We knew we were in the presence of greatness, a United god. I remember telling my dad later; he would have killed for the opportunity. If I’d met Sir Matt when I was older and more experienced, I’d have bombarded him with questions. But, to be honest, it was a moment wasted on two young tongue-tied lads.
    Doing those jobs around the club was all good for our grounding, but it was on the pitch that we’d be judged, and Eric tested us in every way there as well. He was brilliant. Standing on the pitch for the first time as apprentices, he’d said to us, ‘You’re all talented players, that’s why you’re here at Manchester United. But you’ve only got one chance and that’s by listening to me. Don’t listen and you’re finished before you’ve started.’
    I didn’t just listen, I hung off every word. If Eric had said, ‘Stand in a bucket for two hours a day and you’ll play for United’, I’d have done it.
    He could be a tough man. In the first year, he’d rip our heads off during training. He’d scream at me and Casp for losing headers, Becks for hitting ‘Hollywood passes’, Butty and Scholesy for losing control of midfield. Of course he’d praise you at times, and when he did it meant everything. But even that was a test. Could we handle a compliment or would we get full of ourselves?
    Eric took boys and turned them into men. He made us better footballers, and, just as importantly, he made sure we would compete. Every second of every training session under Eric had to be treated like a cup final. At an England gathering a few years later some of the other lads were shocked at how hard me, Butty and Scholesy were going into tackles. ‘Come on, lads, it’s just training,’ they said. But Eric’s attitude was that if you weren’t full-on in practice, it