After 10 Old Trafford years, the winger tells Daniel Taylor that his best is yet to come
Ryan Giggs has a contract worth millions of pounds binding him to Manchester United, but he can still remember the days when the club that is now the richest in the world would not even give him a Vauxhall Astra.
“I was 17 and I’d played about 20 to 25 games in the first team,” the Wales winger recalls. “There were a lot of people getting club cars so I went up to Bryan Robson and Steve Bruce and said: ‘Do you think I would be able to get one?’
“They were like: ‘Yeah, yeah, no problem. You deserve one now, so go to see the gaffer.’ God, they stitched me up.
“I knocked on the gaffer’s door and gave him my best speech. ‘I’m playing regularly now, I’ve done well and I think I deserve a car.’ He killed me: ‘A club car? One of the club cars? More like a club bike, you mean.'”
Giggs can smile at his youthful impudence now, because the hot blast of Sir Alex Ferguson’s notorious hairdryer treatment taught him a valuable lesson about the mechanics of England’s premier club. “It’s fair to say I understood the position after that,” he says. “Put it this way: I never went into his office again.”
It is 10 years since Giggs offered Old Trafford its first tantalising glimpse of his precocious talents. This slip of a lad, all bony elbows and lung-bursting acceleration, had the air crackling with anticipation, although he could not prevent United going down in a 2-0 defeat to Everton.
In his next game, two months later, he had the audacity to score the only goal in the Manchester derby. Time and again he slalomed through City’s bewildered defence with the grace and carefree abandon that sets apart the select few for whom elegance comes naturally. “The new George Best,” roared the red-tops, and the public was smitten.
From that opening bud, a hardy perennial has bloomed. Apart from Denis Irwin, Giggs is now the longest-serving player on United’s payroll, with a testimonial to come next season. It has been a remarkable decade. United have been transformed from a club wondering when their next championship would be achieved to one dominating the skyline of English football.
It has brought him a life among the glitterati, a fleet of high-powered cars and a picture-book house. But most important to the 27-year-old whose placid exterior conceals a smouldering ambition it has brought the sort of treasures that money cannot buy: a European Cup, six league titles, three FA Cups and one League Cup. “The last 10 years have been the happiest of my life,” he confessed.
Ferguson can still recall vividly the gnawing sensation in the pit of his stomach telling him he was witnessing something special when, on the recommendation of an Old Trafford steward, he first went to see the 13-year-old Giggs in a junior match. “A gold miner who has scoured every part of the river or mountain and then suddenly finds himself staring at a nugget could not have felt more exhilaration than I did watching Ryan that day,” he says.
The respect is mutual. “There’s going to be a massive hole when the gaffer retires,” says Giggs. “It will be strange, not seeing him every day, not having his team talks, everything really.
“The good thing is that everything is in place for whoever takes over but, yeah, he’s going to be missed. I’ve been used to him being around for 10 years now and I remember him from right back when I was playing for Salford Boys. We were based right next to the Cliff on Lower Broughton Road and I still remember the excitement when he used to come and watch.”
Presumably it will not have escaped Giggs’s attention that with next year’s European Cup final to be played at Hampden Park there lies an opportunity to present the man from Govan with the ideal retirement gift.
For the time being, however, Giggs has other things to occupy himself. He is revelling in “consistently the best form of my career” and, with United bossing the Premiership and through to the Champions League quarterfinals, 2001 promises to be another year in which the bunting will be aired.
They will miss the FA Cup, be sure of that, but there is also no denying that United had other priorities anyway. “The Cup had a special meaning to me this year, with the final being held in Cardiff for the first time, but we let ourselves down against West Ham and we have to put that result behind us,” he says. “We proved two years ago that we’re good enough to win the European Cup and after doing it once the next step must be to do it again.
“That’s what the really great teams do, rather than basking in the glory and standing still. It’s nice to look back but you can do that too much and we have to set our sights as high as possible.
“I know we can do it because, to me, this has got to be the best United side since I’ve been here, not only because of what we have already achieved but because of the potential that’s still there. People shouldn’t forget that a lot of the players will be really reaching their peaks over the next two or three years.”
Giggs belongs to that group himself and he agrees with Ferguson that his best has yet to come, especially now the worst of his hamstring problems seems to have passed though, ironically it has sidelined him again recently. “I don’t mind admitting the injury situation used to get me down,” he says. “It’s your livelihood, so I suppose it’s inevitable that you are going to go home and worry about it. But you don’t realise just how much you are losing in confidence and fitness by missing the odd week or two here and there.”
The number of one-club players may be diminishing but United are in the luxurious position where, after Old Trafford, the only way is down. Giggs says he has never contemplated leaving the champions, and it is easy to believe him.
Indeed it is not impossible to think that 10 years from now he may be sitting at Carrington, United’s training hideaway, looking forward to his second testimonial. “Just look at him,” says Ferguson. “He has won everything there is to win and yet he still wants to win more.” The rest of the Premiership should take a deep gulp.