I first saw him play in a youth match at Sunderland. He had touched the ball only a few times before I realised the hairs on my neck were standing up. I concluded, ‘It doesn’t matter how big he is, he has the ability, he has the vision.’ Most impressively of all, he had the talent to pass the ball through the eye of a needle, the most vital of assets when you are trying to break down a packed defence. In his maturity, Scholes does it so well that he reminds me of the player who I always thought had mastered the art more completely than anyone I had seen: Michel Platini of France.
Paul is so good now that it is always the greatest disappointment for me when I do not see his name on the team-sheet. His absence makes me despondent as I wonder, ‘Who is going to do the clever stuff, the short, acute passing that cuts open a defence?’ Young stars like Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney have displayed brilliant natural talent in recent seasons, of course, but the key to a great career is a deepening understanding of your own skills, and a consistent ability to produce them at times of maximum pressure. In this, Cristiano and Wayne have the perfect example in Paul Scholes.
His emergence, along with David Beckham, the Neville brothers and Nicky Butt was the most spectacular reward for Ferguson’s immediate attention to the scouting department when he first came down from Scotland. He saw what I had seen in that reserve match at Bramall Lane, Sheffield; there had been no planting, so how could we hope for a harvest?
Ryan Giggs, prised away from Manchester City, came on a year earlier than the rest of the pack. I will never forget the first time I saw him. Alex had invited me to the training ground to watch the summer trialists and, when I arrived, I couldn’t see the manager. ‘Oh, he’s down on pitch eleven, watching some kid he really likes the look of,’ I was told. As I walked down, I saw from a distance something quite extraordinary. A small, slim, dark-haired boy went on an irresistible run, then provoked a brilliant save from the goalkeeper. When I got to the touchline I asked Ferguson, ‘Who is that little lad?’ His eyes narrowed and then glinted with a small smile. ‘His name is Ryan Wilson – and we signed him this morning.’
Because of family troubles, Ryan Wilson changed his name to Ryan Giggs – but, down the years, nothing else has changed beyond the inevitable loss of a little pace. He is still as fresh and as ambitious to play outstanding football as he was on that summer morning when he made me catch my breath.
The fact that Alex Ferguson was able to show such a hand of youth, one which so quickly won a title under the influence of the talisman Eric Cantona, will maybe prove in the long run to be his supreme achievement. At a time when any other club had every reason to congratulate itself if it brought through an outstanding young player once every two years, here was an explosion. Gary Neville was smart and versatile, his brother Phil a tremendous force wherever you played him, and if Nicky Butt suffered at times from a loss of concentration in his passing, he was tough and aggressive, a fact which he announced to me quite dramatically in a game at Chelsea. On one run he was hit with a series of crunching tackles, but he never gave an inch and he kept hold of the ball.
And then there was David Beckham. When he came to my soccer school, the first thing I thought about him was that I had probably never seen a lad who wanted to be a footballer quite so much. He just couldn’t get enough of the ball, and in this he reminded me of myself at his age. He was small and polite and I thought he had special skill – though when I expressed this opinion to one of the staff coaches, who also scouted for a First Division club, he said, ‘I don’t rate him. He’s not big enough, not strong enough.’
I didn’t agree, but I could see the point. Though he had good pace, and could always turn a game with a free kick or a spectacular shot on goal, he needed to develop his passing game because it was clear he lacked the capacity of a conventional winger to get by a full back. Really, it was the only flaw in his game, but he compensated marvellously. He learned ways of controlling the ball that were quite exceptional, and as he progressed through the United youth team the range of his talent became increasingly obvious.
His graduation to the first team was natural – and almost immediately he made his splash. His goal against Wimbledon at Selhurst Park announced ambition without limits. When he saw the goalkeeper off his line, he struck the ball home so beautifully, from such a distance, there was no doubt that here was more than a gifted young footballer. He announced an extraordinary presence, and it was something that, I noticed, struck Cantona powerfully. When the Frenchman offered his congratulations, the expression on his face was quite eloquent. It said, ‘I wouldn’t have minded doing something like that myself.’
David Beckham could do everything in a game, it seemed, except dribble and tackle and be content with the idea of being just another leading footballer. On the field he had demonstrated an ambition to be spectacular – when he scored that goal at Selhurst Park, you had to wonder,
