Artikel menarik tentang Manchester United

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Manchester United's most influential Eric speaks – no, not that oneEric Harrison, the man responsible for the talented boys who became men of glory at Old Trafford, explains his methods

The name Eric will forever be synonymous with the onset of Manchester United's modern glory era but opinions differ as to whether M Cantona or Mr Harrison proved the greater catalyst.

There is no argument that Eric Harrison has exerted the more enduring influence. As United's youth coach he was the off-field genius who not only supplied Alex Ferguson with a band of young players capable of sustaining the team's success post Cantona but moulded some of *English football's brightest individuals.

The most famous, David Beckham, faces Ferguson at San Siro on Tuesday when he hopes to help Milan dash his former club's Champions League ambitions. Still close to Beckham, Harrison will watch on television.

"It's a bit cold in Milan but I'm going over in the spring," said the 72-year-old who was also responsible for producing Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs, Nicky Butt and the Neville brothers.

Together that group reached successive FA Youth Cup finals in 1992 and 1993 before collecting full sets of senior medals after bursting into Ferguson's first team. Small wonder they banded together to give Harrison a wonderfully generous gift – details of which he wants to keep private – when he retired as United's full-time youth coach 12 years ago.

"But they were all frightened of me, they had to be," says a man who learnt much about psychology playing for Brian Clough at Hartlepool. "I had to make them scared. In the first team they were going to have to cope with Sir Alex Ferguson – and Roy Keane. Anyway, I'm ashamed to say I've always been a very, very bad loser and I did sometimes give them the hairdryer treatment. Occasionally I had to apologise.

"One Saturday morning my wife came and watched us train before going shopping. 'You're a disgrace,' she said. 'The way you treat those kids.' I had to explain there was method in the madness and, if I wasn't like that, it was going to be very, very difficult when they began playing for Sir Alex and found themselves on the wrong side of him. They needed mental courage."

It was tough love but Harrison's man management was far from one-dimensional. In an important departure from convention he devoted several hours a week to talking to each boy individually. Moreover, at a time when some increasingly regimented coaches frowned on self-expression, he actively encouraged on-pitch improvisation.

"Youth coaching is 10% about kicks up the backsides and 90% about arms round the shoulders," he said. "You have to let boys use their imaginations and relax. You can't play good football if you're tense – but you can be relaxed and hard-working.

"We worked hard on team play. Some youth coaches don't do it but I was preparing them for Manchester United's first team and they needed to learn football wasn't all about glory on the ball.

"The group became so close and had such strong telepathy Sir Alex and I decided to keep them together playing Under-18 football for an extra year. We wanted to really bond them – and eventually they went virtually straight into the first team having played very few reserve games.

"They had unbelievable desire, fed off each other's energy and were all totally dedicated. Not one of them ever got into trouble with drink, drugs or anything. To get such magnificent players together at the same time was incredible. Coaching them was fantastically exciting."

Yet when the first team beckoned, Harrison counselled modesty. "I told them to just give the ball to Eric Cantona because he would always take it in the tightest spots," he said. "I think they really blossomed when Eric left."

No one bloomed quite like Beckham. "I still don't look on David as a global superstar. I just see a very, very nice man who has been very good to me," reflects Harrison, a regular visitor to Madrid during Beckham's Real days. "But it's not a fluke David has played for three of the world's biggest clubs.

"It's about 100% talent – David has really got the X factor – plus respect. David has always respected, and commanded the respect of, his team-mates and the fans."

Harrison regards respect as a two-way street. "I was a big believer in talking to young players one to one, telling them how incredibly talented they were and letting them know if they were going to play for the first team," he said. "It was a massive motivation.

"I'll always remember asking Paul Scholes how he was doing and, typical Paul, he gave me a one-word reply: 'Alright.' I said, 'You're doing more than alright, you're going to play for the first team.' The look on his face was amazing. Just seeing it light up was like winning the lottery."


sumber:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/feb/14/eric-harrison-manchester-united-champions-league

[rondwisan]

Andy Mitten column
Menchester Evening News - November 17, 2010



If you formed your opinion of football fans from watching Sky Sports, you could be forgiven that anyone who goes to the match is a tourist wearing a jester hat.

At least they are at the game. If you based it on listening to radio phone-ins, you’d be staggered at the number of callers commenting on matches they have listened to on the radio. Empty vessels always make the most noise.

When I stand outside Old Trafford and sell fanzines, the vast majority of people who walk past are local and have gone to the match for years. They don’t feel the need to paint their face and dance in front of the cameras, they just enjoy watching the team they’ve always supported, a cherished release from everyday life.

With average crowds of 75,000, United have more of every type of fan. More monied executives, more disabled, more hooligans, out of towners, locals and clowns who call the team ‘Man U’.

Despite increased ticket prices and awkward kick-off times, football remains a great social leveller. One fan is a professor at Cambridge – the world’s pre-eminent thinker on Dante no less – and he watches United home and away. A lad he goes to games with is a pornographer.

I took a coach from Manchester to Villa Park on Saturday and the variety of the people on board was staggering.

A man talked excitedly of his forthcoming trip to Blackpool away. He’s going for six days and will stay in a caravan. In December.

Across the aisle, a lad in smart casual gear may have looked like the leader of a hooligan firm but he read The Economist and delighted as much in the release of Aung San Suu Kyi as in Macheda and Vidic’s late goals. And you would have never guessed that the man in the black coat from Moston was an executive with responsibility for hundreds of fast-food restaurants.

There was the boyfriend and girlfriend who watch their team home and away. I’m not sure what she made of the conversation four rows behind, a surreal juvenile discussion among boys about whether they’d lend their girlfriend to a player for the night if it meant United getting three points at an away game. Given that United have drawn six of the seven away games so far this season, you could applaud their concern, if not the proposed solution.

Others asserted that the Evening News was ‘a Blue paper’. Funny that, because the Blues I spoke to at the derby last week think it’s a very different colour.

After arriving 90 minutes before kick-off, some fans made straight for the pub, others basked in the November Brummie sunshine inside the ground. A 20-something reserved the kind of love a mother would show her newborn child for his flag as he spent an age making sure his ‘RED ARMY’ banner was perfectly positioned behind the corner flag.

Villa couldn’t sell all their seats and the great old ground was 3,000 short of capacity, but the locals still boasted that they were supporting their local team and that the United fans ‘only live round the corner’.

Local

If Manchester was only around the corner that might be true, but the vast majority of the 2,448 Reds who had paid £43 a ticket came from Greater Manchester. United proudly boast a worldwide support but the local heart still beats strongly.

One lad, slightly under-dressed in a T-shirt and tea-cosy hat, sang “S-A-L-F-O-R-D, Salford Reds and MUFC” throughout. That was far better than the arrogant ‘We’re Man United, we do what we want’ chant which Reds fans have taken to airing.

Another told me how he’d just come out from a five-year stretch in a Greek jail – where he’d managed to watch virtually every United game on TV, surrounded by Albanian gangsters and psychotic Panathinaikos fans.

He’s rejoined this disparate travelling community, many who only know each other by face or a simple ‘Alright mate’.

Like proper fans of any club, they stomp around the country and beyond, spending a fortune to watch players who earn a fortune. They sing, moan, laugh and despair. But when their team get a late equaliser and several players dive into the away end to celebrate, it all seems worthwhile.

baca juga comment2xnya di sini yaa

http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/sport/football/manchester_united/s/1371475_andy_mitten_column

[rondwisan]

21/11/2010 19:47 - ManUtd.com, David Stowell
The allure of English football


MUTV's David Stowell ponders the beautiful game...

It's mid-November in the Barclays Premier League and, with international fixtures dominating the midweek calendar, plenty of football fans have had time to step back and assess the general state of play.

What's new? Well, the title race is still truly billed as United v Chelsea. There are a couple of stray horses in the leading pack but if you believe the papers one is expected to lose ground and the other its jockey. Elsewhere, Liverpool are still in transition, Joey Barton is still getting into trouble and Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes are still comfortably two of the best midfielders in the country, if not Europe. My point? Some things never change.

That's not true on all counts, though. This season has thrown up a few interesting surprises: Andy Carroll is now a full England international, Bolton are currently a top-five club and United are unbeatable but have found a lot of games unwinnable. All this certainty and uncertainty beautifully illustrates why football is the unofficial eighth wonder of the world.

Credit must go to some of the top flight’s new faces. From Asamoah Gyan to Rafael van Der Vaart, many of the transfer-window signings have been inspired. Team-wise, West Brom have been boinging around impressively to try and shake off the yo-yo tag, Spurs have flirted with the spectacular in Europe and while City break the bank, Blackpool have broken the mould with bargain signings and a barmy boss.

Allow me to dwell for a second on the effervescent Ian Holloway, without doubt the most entertaining star in the top flight. He's football’s boy done good, a verbal West Country pin-up, if you will. You never know what’s going to happen next when the Blackpool boss is around, but you can guarantee you’ll be entertained. His pre and post-match honesty has been as refreshing off the pitch as his team’s fearlessness on it. I, for one, hope they stay up. What's more, they’ve rekindled my love for tangerines.

From a United perspective, I know Sir Alex's men are frustrated they haven’t closed out more matches. Vida and Berba have both told me in the past that this unpredictability is what brought them to these shores in the first place. At a club like this, the challenge is to force normal service to resume when the unthinkable happens.

And while you can rely on some things in England’s top flight, others can jump up and bite you where it hurts, and when you least expect it. Let's hope there are no more nasty surprises for United between now and Christmas. I, like most United fans, expect nothing short of six points from our next two league games against Blackburn and Blackpool. Even if Holloway stands in our way for the latter fixture.

[rondwisan]

Andy Mitten: Don't take Fergie for granted
MEN - December 08, 2010



Sir Alex Ferguson will surpass Sir Matt Busby as Manchester United’s longest-serving manager later this month when United play at Chelsea.

Ferguson has been in the job for almost a quarter of a century – well, 24 years, one month and 14 days by the time of the battle of Stamford Bridge.

When I mention Ferguson in interviews to players and managers around Europe, there’s a reverence bordering on disbelief that he’s been in the job so long. It simply does not happen in the other leading football nations, though Auxerre’s Guy Roux was in charge for 44 years.

What sets Ferguson apart, they reckon, is consistency. United have not finished outside the top three since 1991, when the Reds were sixth – a place behind City. That was the last time the Blues finished above United.

Such consistency is now taken for granted by many United fans. They are wrong to do so – and a quick look around Europe’s major leagues shows why. Bayern Munich are currently seventh in Germany’s Bundesliga.

European and Italian champions Internazionale are sixth in Serie A, ten points off the leaders and their great rivals AC Milan. In Holland, former European champions Feyenoord are 14th in an 18 team league and lost a game
10-0 recently. Being a great club does not guarantee great results.

In France, Lyon won just one of their first seven games this season and trailed Brest, an unfashionable promoted team whose manager Alex Dupont has been dubbed ‘Sir Alex’ in homage. In England, Liverpool haven’t won the league since 1990.

Suffered

Reds haven’t suffered such mediocrity from United for close on 20 years. Ferguson has led United to 11 league titles, five FA Cups, four League Cups, a Cup Winners’ Cup, two World Club championships, a Super Cup and enough Charity Shields to put Oxfam out of business. Oh, and two, brilliantly won European Cups.

I don’t like the Sky influenced statistics which start with the formation of the Premier League or the Champions League. Football didn’t start in the early 90s, but United have amassed more points in the Champions League than any other team. More than Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Milan and Juventus.

Maybe Ferguson would have hoped to have won more European Cups: Milan and Madrid have both won five since Ferguson took charge at Old Trafford, three in the Champions League era.

Barca and Real Madrid have won three each since the 90s.

But such is Ferguson’s consistency, often when people are predicting his demise, that it would be churlish to find fault in his management.

The most criticism you’re likely to hear about Ferguson is actually from United fans. It’s partly because people are harder on their own, because United fans have been completely spoilt by success and because Ferguson’s support for the club’s unpopular owners has alienated some who wanted him to make a stand.

Foreign coaches and players don’t pick up the minutiae and nuances which form opinion on a local level, they just see a manager they consider to be peerless, even compared with the greatest.

A City fan I spoke to at the weekend winced when I mentioned Ferguson.

“I hate him,” he said. “And my life would have been so much better without him. But he’s a brilliant manager. I can’t wait for him to finish.”

I can’t see Ferguson retiring any time soon. The United manager says that he will continue for as long as his health remains good. He turns 69 on New Year’s Eve and I can see him staying until he’s 75. See him continuing to prove cynics wrong time and time again, in spite of new challenges to United’s hegemony. Continuing to win more trophies and make unpopular decisions which prove to be correct.

World champions as recently as two years ago, United are not the best team in the world any more. The Barca side I watched destroy Real Madrid 5-0 last Monday are a level above anyone at the moment, but United’s first XI are so hard to beat that the one team all the European giants want to avoid is Manchester United. And that’s largely down to Ferguson.

[novanprihasa]

sipp mantap..

[gixz]

The Redemption of Eric Cantona: The Double Double of 1995-96 Part II

http://therepublikofmancunia.com/the...995-96-part-ii

Cheer Up , Kevin Keegan

On course, for United to now go on to win the Double, having secured their place at Wembley, much depended on how Newcastle handled the pressures of the league run-in.And we got a very significant clue only a few days after the semi-finals, in one of the all-time great Premiership matches, on 3 April, 1996. This was a passionate end-to-end encounter in which the lead repeatedly changed hands before Liverpool finally beat Newcastle 4-3 with virtually the last kick of the match, from Stan Collymore. The Toons had been leading 3-2 with only 20 minutes to go, and it was no wonder that Kevin Keegan was seen slumped over Anfield’s advertising hoardings in despair at the end. ‘Kevin Keegan hangs his head, he’s devastated’, cried the commentator, knowing Newcastle had just thrown away one of their two games in hand, leaving United still at the top of the Premiership, three points clear. Mind you, with my capacity for pessimism over United I had a horrible fear at this point that Liverpool’s dramatic winner would be just the boost they’d need to overhaul United and win the league. Worse, as FA Cup Finalists the Double was now suddenly a possibility for them too. What a nightmarish thought.

The Title run-in

If Newcastle had been nervous, United had their moments too. Listening to them on the radio on Easter Saturday, things began well as United took the lead against Manchester City at Maine Road only for them to surrender the lead not once but twice. Meanwhile,with Liverpool and Newcastle both initially falling behind in their matches only to draw level things were getting tense, especially when Newcastle dramatically took the lead while United were marooned at 2-2. But then came United’s clincher, a stunning 20 yard pellet from Ryan Giggs, whose contributions in this marvellous season sometimes get forgotten. Where Newcastle had folded under the floodlights at Anfield, United had kept their nerve against their closest traditional rivals.

The Red Devils now had five more league games and the pressure was undoubtedly enormous with intensive media attention, especially focussed on Eric Cantona, who seemed to attract comment at every turn, although, in sharp contrast to the way he had been reported in past years he was now getting praise on all sides. Even non-football folk seemed aware of his new maturity which had certainly not detracted from his star quality and marketability. People talked about him, they had opinions on him, they could show how au fait with popular culture they were by going ‘Ooh Aah’, and they could even speculate on whether he would deliver a second Double, just like he had in 1994.

Olympic Diaries

In one way this new centrality of sport in celebrity culture was an advantage to my department. Over more than twenty years we had hardly ever got any commissions on BBC1, where the frontline ratings competition is greater. We’d had a run of a ‘people’s journalism’ series, Private Investigations under executive producer Debbie Christie, which I was proud of, but then in ’95 we got a potentially high-profile BBC1 commission, a series of ‘Olympic Diaries’, in which a number of British competitors in different fields would record their lives and preparations in the year leading up to the 1996 Olympic Games.

We’d got beefy rowing titans Steven Redgrave and Matthew Pinsent, yachtswoman Shirley Robertson and the runner Kelly Holmes among others and it was a very exciting project to be involved in, scheduled for transmission in the week before the Games would open in the Summer of ’96. The series producer was Sue Davidson, who went on to have one of the most successful and wide-ranging careers in television of anyone connected to my old department, including stints on The Apprentice. But Olympic Diaries was plagued from start to finish by it’s inadequate budget and low staffing levels, making for enormous stress on everyone. It was a huge relief to us all when Alan Yentob liked the early roughcuts we showed him, ensuring we kept our slots in the schedules.

That was always the thing I most enjoyed about my job, viewing programmes at various stages in editing suites, seeing them take shape, sometimes after frighteningly poor beginnings. I always saw it as my job to help programme-makers make the most of whatever material they had and do so in a way that didn’t undermine anyone, editor or director, if things weren’t working at some stage. Directors get very defensive and resistant at times to outsiders, so that takes careful handling . (Whether I was successful in that is not for me to say, but I tried). Sometimes a film looks brilliant all the way through different versions until the final rough-cut and then it mysteriously falls down for no very clear reason , which can be scary. Or for days nothing works and everything gets very fraught and directors get very stressed.It requires strong nerves to overcome a situation like that, with the clock to transmission perhaps running down.

I used to love that process as a producer myself and still did so as head of department. I was lucky that as chief of a small outfit I could see everything before transmission, sometimes several times, which is why I’m a great believer in ‘human scale’ structures for creative enterprises. I knew everyone and everyone knew me, enabling me to give full attention to problems, whether programme-related or more personal. Mark Thompson told me at that time that our department had the best ‘programme quality control’ in BBC TV, which was down to execs like Debbie, Sue, Bob Long and the Video Nation producers Mandy Rose and Chris Mohr, not forgetting Ian Macrae, editor of the Disability Programmes Unit, Gazza’a cousin and a Newcastle supporter.

Unfortunately our small scale was completely against the grain in the BBC which went for bigger and bigger aggregations in successive restructurings, as I found to my cost the following year, regardless of the generous applause my department had received in Performance Review in 1996. Of course I couldn’t know that then, and I was very proud of some of the things we were doing, such as a Video Diary with a man in India who campaigned against the exploitation of child labour, and went on child-slave rescue raids, all captured on video, helped by a courageous young producer, Kuldeep Dhadda working alongside him shooting material herself as the children were plucked from harm’s way.

Blood on the pitch and grey shirts

Success at work only made it more satisfying that United were doing so well. They beat Coventry 1-0, with another Cantona goal, but that match is most remembered for the tragic accident that saw the midlanders’ David Busst carried off with a sickeningly bad leg-break, which caused the shocked Peter Schemiechel to throw up at the sight of blood in his penalty area. Busst never played again, a chastening experience for everyone who saw the horrific TV images, not all of which were shown initially on Match of the Day. The only consolation was that it was a total accident with no malice, and no recriminations as United players went to see the injured man in Salford Hospital.

After Coventry, United had their first major set-back since the astonishing 4-1 hammering at Spurs on New Year’s Day, when Southampton surprisingly beat them on 13 April, helped by the wondrous ball-juggler Matthew LeTissier strutting his stuff. This match will long be remembered because United famously came out in new colours after going in 3-0 down at half-time. Fergie blamed the grey strip United were wearing, colours they never used again, saying the players couldn’t pick out team-mates against the crowd background. Despite the shirt-shift United still lost 3-1, sending shudders down Red spines everywhere. Oh no, it’s not going to be a late season implosion like 1992 is it?

Fortunately not.

Things that really matter

At the same time things were going from bad to worse in the Middle East where we were hoping to get our Israel / Palestine Video Nation project under way. In retaliation for Katyusha rockets pounding Northern Israel from Hizbollah enclaves in Lebanon, the Israelis launched a massive retaliatory attack on Southern Lebanon, causing a mass displacement of around 400,000 people, accompanied by countless deaths, including women and children. Soon after there was an unconnected Islamist terror attack in Cairo, killing 18 tourists.

Fortunately there was eventually an Israel/ Lebanon ceasefire, but after such carnage it raised the eternal questions for both sides, do they really think all this killing is part of the ‘peace process’?

While the international scene darkened, I had further problems at work, with the Broadcasting Standards Council upholding complaints against one of our series, My Secret Life, a matter they regarded as so serious they were taking it up with the BBC Board of Governers, just when a new Chairman was taking up his post, which is why I was pretty nervous about the whole thing, despite the fact that the films had been approved through the referral-up system in advance. That may well have been what troubled the BSC, that no-one had stopped our outrageous films, all of which I stood by, of course. In fact I remained vocally unrepentant over all the programmes, on drug taking and other controversial matters, although it did add to the anxiety over Secrets of the Paranormal, which I was still having to defend on a weekly basis.

I was very grateful for Mark Thompson’s support at that time. He calmly told me as if describing a force of nature at the BBC, ‘Sometimes a door opens and you are showered with a huge heap of **** and there’s nothing you can do about it’

It was also encouraging when the heads of publicity and PR came to see me to discuss ways of capitalizing more on the success of Video Nation, which were perfect examples of openness and accountability to our public in the way we gave voice to such a wide diversity of individuals within British society. Luckily the Governors loved the project and often invited Nation contributors to their conferences to enable ‘ordinary people’, as they’d condescendingly put it, to have a say in policy debates. (At one such Governors’ meetings one Nation regular, a black guy called Conrad told me that at first he thought I was ‘quiet and aloof’ but now he’d got to know me he could see I was actually ‘loose and easy-going, a hippie but also a bit square’. Not far off, I’d say.Well, maybe not ‘square’…)

It was good to know there were crucial levels of support for what we were doing in the BBC, but nevertheless at times staff in the department itself would get quite twitchy, unsettled by, say, attacks on the Paranormal or Secret Life, worried about their own jobs and futures, understandably enough. I was thus grateful to those colleagues who did shape up and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with us.

On the buses

The exec producer of Paranormal, Bob Long went out of his way to thank me for so frequently and publicly defending his series, to the point where opinion within the BBC was beginning to shift. We invited him over for a meal and had a very entertaining evening with Bob regaling us with some of his many tales, such as the one about a certain perma-tanned daytime presenter who was having an affair with a woman Bob knew. Apparently he’d rush round to her flat, burst in and shag her against the wall in a frenzy, calling out ‘What a cunt! What a cunt!’ I hope he shaved you-know-where.

Bob’s coming to dinner necessitated him going on the bus, as I did every day, something he hadn’t done for nearly a decade, so it was quite an experience for him. As it happens a few days later the IRA exploded a bomb under Hammersmith Bridge, bang on my daily route. Only a mis-fire prevented a massacre and massive damage to the bridge, although a tiresome detour was imposed for months while they repaired it.

Love it, love it…

Meanwhile, against all these tragedies in the world, and all the aggravations of work – and the pleasures too, of course – it might seem odd to return to Eric Cantona and United but there was good news for both, celebrated with almost excessive glee by me. First United beat the old enemies Leeds United 1-0 in a tough encounter, prompting Fergie’s comments about hoping Leeds would try just as hard when they played Newcastle, which poor old under-pressure Kevin Keegan took so much exception to, apparently cracking-up live on Sky Sport (‘I’d really love it…etc, etc’)

Soon after it was announced that Eric Cantona had been voted Football Writer’s Player of the Year, the first United player to get the award since George Best in 1968. What a turn around.

All this seemed seemed to have some sort of liberating effect on the team who were in superb, championship-winning form in their last two matches.

28 April 1996: Man United 5 Notingham Forest 0

Before watching this match on TV round at some friends I scanned all the papers to see if there were any more attacks on Paranormal, but the previews were all good so I could relax, or rather I couldn’t, not with so much at stake in the Premiership. United now led Newcastle by three points but had played one game more, although United had the better goal-difference.

What added to the tension was the fact that when United collapsed in ’92 it was Forest who did much of the damage with a shock 2-1 away win. In the early, nervous minutes it felt like it could all happen again.

But then things suddenly took off, with Ryan Giggs flying down his wing like a gazelle in the outback. He slung a cross into the Forest box and there was Paul Scholes, who scores goals, as he now did, flicking the ball into the net nervelessly, instantly vindicating the manager’s decision to select him in favour of Any Cole. Just before half-time it was the kid David Beckham playing a man’s role, firmly heading United’s second (Heading? Becks?)

Now we could start to relax, and sure enough Beckham finished off a scintillating movement with his second goal, followed not long after by one from Giggs. To round things off in style it had to be Eric the King who scored an imperious fifth, chesting the ball down before lashing it unstoppably past the stranded keeper from close-range. Old Trafford erupted with mounting fervour as each successive goal went in, with much waving of French tricolours. It really felt like we could win the league, and who knows, maybe that elusive Double Double too.

My host for the match was the actor David Dixon, with whom I have shared many a tense couple of hours watching football on TV, reaching a certain unforgettable peak in 1999. He’s no United fan, but was always fair-minded, despite one son being a Newcastle supporter. I stayed chatting after United’s victory about how work was going. David is most famous as ‘Ford Prefect’ in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and on this weekend he was awaiting the result of an audition for The Bill. He’d sometimes done voice-overs for us and had been sorry to hear that one of the producers he’d liked had been made redundant. It can be a cruel world at times.

United’s trouncing of Forest put us in a very strong position, made even better when Forest stirred themselves in their very next match to hold Newcastle to a draw in midweek. My brother was watching on TV in a pub in London and he later told me ruefully that the whole pub groaned loudly when Forest equalised . Everyone knew that meant United would almsot certainly win the title. ABU’s the lot of them.

Thanks to Match of the Day, and thanks to a Liverpool supporter

Confirming my feeling that the Paranormal storm was abating somewhat, Uri Geller’s programme was well-received at the Weekly Programme Review meeting, when senior staff discussed the week’s output. I thanked Sport for the co-operation given by Match of the Day, which was graciously accepted, no doubt helped by the generally favourable response to the programme. Many reviewers had a bit of fun over John Motson’s somewhat leaden commentary about bending Cups and spoons.

It’s sometimes claimed that there’s institutional hostility to United at the BBC, some allegedly emanating from Brian Barwick , the Liverpool-supporting head of Sport who later became chief executive at the FA, and whom many blame for the inadequate celebration of United’s Treble in the 1999 Sports Review of the Year. All I can say is that he knew all about my United allegiance and it was a bond more than a barrier, perhaps because he liked the idea of someone from a documentary department liking football. Regardless, I had cause to be extremely grateful to him around this time when one of our programmes, about boxing, contained a serious error of fact about BBC Sport, such that they could almost have sued us for defamation. I was furious with the producer who’d had detailed instructions to check the facts and had not done so. Brian could have gone public at Programme Review and had a real go at me, just when I was ‘on the ropes’ on several counts but chose not to, and just had a quiet, friendly word about it outside the meeting. He later told a friend of mine it was because I was ‘a top man, a top man’. So here I’ll say a big thank you to Brian Barwick, Top Scouser.

Biteback

Although the Paranormal situation had normalised somewhat, BBC’s viewer feedback show Biteback was doing another big item on the controversy, causing me some alarm, in case it was another inaccurate stitch-up like C4′s Right to Reply, which had left a nasty taste. This time I was interviewed at length and very fairly, all calmly filmed in my office in White City by a self-confessed West Ham ‘obsessive’, which got us talking about that horrendous time a year before when on the last day of the season West Ham had held out for a 1-1 draw, thwarting United’s dream of a Double Double in ’95. He’d loved it.

So, now the Premiership Title again came down to the last match of the season, with all games kicking off at the same time, to avoid anyone gaining an advantage, just like last time.By this time it was United or Newcastle for the title. Who’d blink first?

Sunday 5 May 1996: Middlesborough 0 Man United 3

As my ‘Dicko’ neighbours were going to watch the Newcastle game I went into the office to watch the title decider. By now I was incredibly nervous, quite unable to do the bits of work I’d hoped to do before kick-off. I phoned Uri to see if he’d had any luck with cup final tickets which he kept promising to get for me from his Reading contacts. I was desperate to get two so I could take Kat, for what I hoped against hope would be an historic victory, making United the first team ever to win the League & FA Cup Double twice. Uri was still trying.

I paced round, went to the loo, ate crap food, drank fizzy water in gulps, fidgetted, looked vacantly at spread-sheets, tried to read scripts, gave up.

United were facing Middlesborough in their swish new stadium, the Riverside. They were managed by, Bryan ‘Red Robbo’ Robson, who’d only left United two years before, after United had done the Double for the first time. The ‘Boro keeper, Gary Walsh was another former United player, plagued by bad luck with injuries.

When the players appeared in the tunnel they looked composed and purposeful, unlike me. But when they kicked off they looked nervous and could easily have gone behind. Gradually they sorted themselves out, keeping a good shape and passing the ball about neatly until after 15 minutes they took the lead through a powerful downward header from reserve centre back David May from a perfectly flighted Giggs corner.

There were some anxious moments as the Boro’s little Brazilian genius Juninho ran at defenders like an eel, but May was in excellent form at the centre of defence in one of his best-ever performances, replacing the injured Steve Bruce. Shortly after half-time Andy Cole came on as sub and instantly proved Fergie right when he scored a lovely goal, flicking the ball into the net over his shoulder from another Giggs corner with such delicate precision I almost missed the fact he’d scored, silencing his critics at a stroke. He was instantly smothered by his teamates in a writhing heap of arms and legs in the goalmouth, with Boro looking on disconsolately.

Shortly afterwards we heard that Newcastle were 1-0 down to Spurs and, to add to the joy, Man City were losing 2-0 to Liverpool, meaning their certain relegation. (In fact in both cases the matches ended in draws but that made no difference to the outcome). United were now coasting, effortlessly in command and I could hear Red fans singing an Oasis song with new lyrics, ‘Man City are so shitty!’ The fact that the Gallagher Brothers were City fans added extra spice to this taunt.

Soon it was all over after Ryan Giggs ran at Boro like a mesmerising sidewinder snake, leaving defenders in his wake before unleashing a whiplash shot from 25 yards, which sailed past the flailing Gary Walsh, as must have happened many times in training when they were both at Old Trafford. He looked rueful as he picked the ball out of his net, knowing like everyone else ‘Down by the Riverside’ that United were rightful Champions again, the third time in four years.

I watched the celebrations with a soppy grin on my face, at long last able to relax, for the first time for months.

I enjoyed it all again later on Match of the Day, suddenly feeling sorry for City fans, and for Kevin Keegan and the legendary Toon Army, and of course my good friend Ian. But not that sorry.

The kids had been amazing in composure and effectiveness in the final push over the line, but at the heart of it all was Eric Cantona, who had such a tactical grip over the team from his central position it was almost like having a second manager, on the pitch. That was part of his educational role too, showing the younger players by example how to make use of space, how to offer angles, when to quicken the tempo, when to slow it down, when to hold back, when to push forward, when to get under the keeper’s nose, when to hang back at the edge of the area. When Eric came to Old Trafford in 1992 the Red Devils were good , pushing for honours, but he had turned them into a far more formidable fighting force in ’93 and ’94, a process thrown into disarray by the Kung-fu madness. Now when he came back in the autumn of ’95 he was something different. It took a little while to establish exactly what he’d become , but by the turn of the year the ‘new’ Eric was uncontainable as an individual, but even more as the catalyst for the whole team, unlocking skills and spreading an aura of invincibility.Cantona helped those famous kids enter a prolonged period of dominance which in the case of Ryan Giggs could still continue next season, an amazing fifteen years later, while Paul Scholes and Gary Neville have only just hung up their boots, both grateful for what they learned at the feet of The King.

Without Eric Cantona it would not have happened in quite the same way as it has. It’s a remarkable legacy. Patrice Evra is correct, he really was The King. If he felt guilt over ‘the Kung Fu moment, his redemption was complete, United were Champions.

Now for the FA Cup. Now for that Double Double

[gixz]

The Redemption of Eric Cantona: The Double Double of 1995-96 Part I

http://therepublikofmancunia.com/the...995-96-part-i/

I love it when Manchester United players show an interest in the club’s history. I want my idols to understand what it means and why it’s important, just like a supporter. That’s why Patrice Evra long ago endeared himself, with his immediate immersion in United’s past when he arrived in 2006, getting out books and DVDs to study the matter.And of course he soon found out just how central to United’s modern identity a certain fellow Frenchman had been: ‘I already knew Cantona was ‘The King’,’ he said recently, ‘but I really discovered who he was when I arrived here’.

It’s extraordinary what a hold Eric Cantona still has over our memories and imaginations, even now some fifteen years after his greatest days. Countless young fans who were hardly born still revere his name and what he stands for, and rightly so.

It’s never healthy to live in the past, but that’s not a reason not to celebrate it, especially when we can see what a powerful inspiration Eric the King still is, for players and supporters alike. It’s not for nothing that the immortal cry of ‘Ooh, Aah Cantona ‘ still echoes round grounds wherever United play.

So, in this spirit I’m going to continue the saga of Eric’s finest season at United, following my earlier eyewitness accounts of key episodes in his career (see under Archive), including the Kung-fu kick in January 1995, his imperious return after his 8 month ban against Liverpool in September ’96, and other milestones as United tried to make up for the missed Double Double of ’95 and go for it in ’96, including the magic moment when I was able to take my 10-year-old daughter Kat to see United for the first time.

Magical March 1996

You may remember that I was able to celebrate my 50th birthday in March 1996 with Kat by seeing United snatch a point with a lightning strike last-minute Cantona equaliser at QPR, which took United to the top of the table for the first time, as the Reds gradually reeled in Kevin Keegan’s Newcastle United who’d once held a 14 point lead. This was part of a Magical March when Eric seemed determined to win the lot on his own, and he was at it again in the next match against Arsenal when he thrashed in a ferocious 25-yarder past David Seaman off the underside of the cross-bar at home to win the match 1-0. I was working late at the BBC that night but I kept replaying the TV images in my head as I went to sleep.

The following Sunday Eric scored the winner against Tottenham in yet another 1-0 victory, keeping United top of the table by three points, having played two more matches than the Toons.

What made Cantona the King?

What I found compelling about Cantona at this time was the intensity and focus in his play, with none of the volcanic wildness bubbling up inside that was so much part of his pre-Kung fu persona. Some players at Old Trafford, including Brian McClair, blamed Eric for blowing United’s chance of a Double in ’95 (and a third successive league title, something never before achieved by United) and I believe Eric himself took that implicit reproach on board. The steely resolve in his play following his come-back was genuinely awesome, not just the goals he was scoring, frequently crucial winners in 1-0 victories, but his implacable will-to-win, by fair means, not foul.

As he puffed out his chest, turned up the collar on his proudly worn red shirt, you could sense, even from afar, that he was taking on total responsibility for the team as its hub.If he did feel guilt for what happened in ’95, he was damn sure doing something about it now, as you could see in his eyes, the needle sharp faraway look of a man in the grip of something almost transcendantal. By that time I had been following United for nearly 40 years and I had never seen anything quite like Cantona in this period, at one level so full of ego and individualism, but at another entirely selfless and outer-directed, dedicated to the team he loved, and which he perhaps felt he owed so much.

Another thing I loved about Cantona at this time was the way he nurtured and protected his brood of ‘kids’, the youngsters manager Alex Ferguson had taken such a risk with, following the departure of Hughes, Ince and Kanchelskis the previous summer. All those youth-team graduates, NIcky Butt, Gary and Phil Neville, Paul Scholes, David Beckham, and the ‘veteran’ Ryan Giggs, still only 22, still speak of the influence Eric had on their development, widening their awareness of what it takes to succeed at the top, through dedication, discipline, healthy living and constant practice and perfectionism. In some ways that’s odd given how flawed Eric had shown himself to be in so many ways in his succession of previous clubs in France and even at Old Trafford in his early, red-card-littered days. It seems that he grew up in 1995 in a startling turnabout of self-awareness.

In my own life at the BBC I found Cantona something of an inspiration. Sounds silly and pretentious, but I have always been fascinated by the ingredients of creative success, in whatever field, whether it’s a great band-leader such as the blues-singer Muddy Waters, a charismatic and idealistic movement figurehead such as Martin Luther King, or simply a great television producer. Team or individual, innocence or experience, youth or age, security or insecurity, innovation or tried-and-tested, how do you measure out and balance all these factors when constructing some collective enterprise?

Performance Review

March 1996 was a very intense period for me at the BBC, where I was still head of Community & Disability Programmes, a small TV documentary department. For months the Corporation had been wracked by financial problems and organisational change, making everything feel very precarious and insecure, especially as a swathe of lay-offs cut their way through department after department, including mine. In the spring we had a producer who was appealing against compulsory redundancy which had to go through various stages, eventually reaching the Controller of BBC2, Michael Jackson, our chief source of programme commissions.

This made everyone very edgy, especially as we heard that he knew he could never win his appeal, but was reportedly going to ‘spread as much **** as he could anyway’, presumably in his personal hearing with Jackson.

I wasn’t the only one feeling the pressure, far from it, and I had to laugh when I heard that a fellow head of department, known for his menacing dark suits and black office decor, had been attacked in the street (by his staff??) and was now demanding a bullet-proof car. The idea was apparently supported by Alan Yentob, then Controller of BBC1, but only as long as he had one too.

Each year departments had to go through a rigorous Performance Review, an in-depth investigation into all aspects of how you’d run things, managerially, financially and editorially. It can be very daunting as you face a Star Chamber of the top echelon, the two channel controllers and the managing director, Will Wyatt, in front of you like a row of magistrates, surrounded by their number-crunchers. I was very nervous as I went in this year, but it could not have gone better, with expressions of gratitude all round for what we’d been doing, with particular praise from Michael Jackson for coming up with so many new series formats and innovative ideas, especially against such an unfavourable financial background after years of ‘efficiency savings’. I thanked them all, including my then immediate boss, Mark Thompson, who was then the head of factual programmes. He is now the BBC’s Director General.

Then I took advantage of the positive mood to point out some home truths about what living with endless cuts meant for those at the frontline of making programmes in an already low-budget and efficient department like our’s. I described how often I would find staff reduced to tears of exhaustion and stress from the low budgets, ferocious turn-rounds and lack of ‘downtime’ (the period between projects when you can re-charge batteries and think up new ideas), which no-one had enjoyed in my department for over three years. I said I feared burn-out among the younger , less experienced producers, predicting many of the best and brightest would no longer be in the industry in ten years time, a prediction that came all too true.

Escape from pressure

I suppose I was very lucky to have United and King Eric to give me such a wonderful release from these pressures at work at that time. If you’re not into sport it’s maybe hard to comprehend just what a vital escape it can be, especially when things are going wrong. While United won match after match in the spring of 1996 I not only had work pressures I had distressing problems at home, including the sad realisation that my much-loved Mother-in-Law was suffering from the early, but significant, stages of dementia, which of course added to the pressure on my wife Hilary, who was at the same time trying to build up her own garden design business. I mention all this not to claim any special sympathy because these things happen to us all , one way or another, but these were factors in creating a greater intensity in life for me in general, at the time of Cantona’s supremacy on the pitch. I’m sure that added to the depth of my appreciation of what he achieved.

Strangely around this time I had a vivid dream about United. In it I saw Brian McClair on a motorbike in Barnes, a ‘leafy’ upmarket suburb through which I travelled to work everyday by bus. I flagged him down and showered him with praise for his ‘Choccy’s Diary’ in the official club magazine, which was consistently entertaining in its gentle poking of fun at ‘the kids’. I told him he should bring out a book based on it. (Sadly, now he’s on the coaching staff and more ‘responsible’ his diary doesn’t have quite the same irreverent snap. )

Meanwhile, there was our Kat, growing up fast but still a child, playing with her Barbie dolls one minute, listening to Oasis the next.In fact, one of our favourite jokes at that time was to offer ‘Oasis Soup – You get a roll with it!’ I heard Cantona’s winner against Spurs at Kat’s 11th birthday party involving skating at Brentford Leisure Centre, where I managed to keep up with what was happening at that other leisure centre at Old Trafford via an attendant’s furtively hidden radio.

In this same period Kat became fascinated by what she dubbed ‘The Gang’, a group of slightly older boys who got into all sorts of annoying acts of vandalism in our road, grafitti, scratching cars, tossing things into gardens, smashing bottles in the street, knocking off roof tiles, racing up and down making a racket and so on. I called Kat the Little Sleuth as she would go out with her pal from next door to see who they were and what they were up to. She knew some of them and on their own they’d be OK but when I told policemen who’d caught one red-handed that he was actually ‘a nice boy’ one of the cops drily commented,’They are always the worst, the ‘nice’ ones…’ I think for Kat there was something both alluring and repulsive about the Gang’s transgressive, anti-social behaviour. She has never acted in that way herself, but she’s always had a liking for ‘the street’, and it parallels her enjoyment of a packed football crowd or the buzz in surrounding streets on match day. She was constantly asking when could I take her to see United together again.

The FA Cup was probably the best bet.

If United got to the final, Uri Geller had promised me tickets. We’d worked together on one of the programmes in the highly controversial series Secrets of the Paranormal which involved him using his ‘powers’ to predict results (correctly twice) and help Reading win matches, which he signally failed to do when United beat them in the FA Cup. A high spot had been when Uri astonished Cantona’s Dad and Bobby Charlton by bending a spoon in time-honoured fashion.

United had beaten Southampton in the sixth round and would face a resurgent Chelsea in the semi-final at the end of the month. Annoyingly I couldn’t go as there was a big family party taking place which I really couldn’t get out of.

Sunday 31 March 1996: FA Cup Semi Final: Chelsea 1 Man United 2

I saw this match on TV, but only after the event, being stuck at the party, itching all the time to find a TV, but with birthday speeches and all I couldn’t sneak off in search of one. When folks find out you work for the BBC you get into all sorts of odd conversations which can be hard to get out of politely. I remember once years ago I was asked by a rather snooty woman at a party what programmes I was working on. When I said I was helping produce a series on the blues she said excitedly , ‘How absolutely marvellous! That was my husband’s regiment!’

Anyway, on semi-final day, after desultory chat about Mad Cow Disease and what the BBC should do about it, I got into a far more interesting conversation with a civil servant at the Heritage Department, which then had responsibility for broadcasting. He was a short man with an ominously large forehead, suggesting formidable intellect rather than Cantona-esque heading ability. He was briskly cynical in dishing out certainties in all directions, clearly not used to contradiction by inferiors. He was working on the next broadcasting bill which would sort out the digital future among other issues. He said that the ‘brightest people in the industry’ were those in satellite television , presumably meaning the Murdoch Empire: ‘You only have to say something once’, he said, ‘and they grasp it’. The BBC people were ‘all arrogant and complacent’ while the ITV folks were the least impressive. He said they all take him to expensive restaurants to get him on their side; ‘It’s hard, but someone has to do it!’

Of course, looking back it’s all too redolent of what we now know about how News International operate in their insidious ways. Anyway, I also had a ‘lively’ argument with him about popular drama, which he was snobbishly disdainful of, regarding series like Heartbeat and Peak Practice as ‘returning to the safety of the womb’, while I defended them as embodying certain values of community which people yearn for, sentimentally or not. Then I got onto my hobby-horse, the negative effects of cuts at the BBC and the damaging effect on programme quality, not to mention quality of life for the programme makers. He clearly couldn’t give a toss about that, and didn’t seem to care much abour public service broadcasting either, or how to preserve it in the age of digital proliferation. Maybe I was not one of these ‘brightest people’ he preferred dealing with at Sky.

Anyway, it was all a nice distraction from fretting about the semi-final.

At long last we were able to extract ourselves and head for home.

I was desperate for United to win, not just to keep the Double Double ‘on’, but because of United’s amazing record. If they beat Chelsea they would not have lost a FA Cup semi-final for 26 years, and they would have got to the final three years running and four times in six years. It would also be Fergie’s 8th final in all competitions in ten years with United . Astonishing, really.

United on tape

I tried to be disciplined about not knowing the score before watching the tape (for such it was then, a video cassette) but as I switched on the radio in the car I heard the end of the other semi, with Liverpool beating Villa to face United in the Final.

That at least meant I could enjoy basking in the warm glow of another semi victory without anxiety. It almost added to the pleasure that Chelsea took the lead through the superb Ruud Gullit, Cantona’s only serious rival for Footballer of the Year. He scored with a far post header from a pin-point cross from ex-Red Mark Hughes, whose departure in the summer had caused such heart-searching about United’s youthful line-up. Gullit was a brilliant player, and is quite an entertaining TV pundit these days, but maybe a little weird. Allegedly, as a manager he was known to have insisted on his players all shaving off their pubic hair, it supposedly being ‘more hygienic’. It’s not clear if he makes a personal inspection. Anyway, having had to shave that area myself for a hernia op in ’94 (an injury incurred scoring a goal with a literally cracking volley) it’s not something I’d like on a permanent basis.

Back to United. How nice to know what must come next on the tape. And sure enough, United equalised, through the much-maligned Andy Cole, the one player who didn’t particularly benefit from Cantona’s presence in the team, although on this occasion he created the opening for him to score with aplomb. It was the sweetly innocent-looking David Beckham who scored the winner, with a perfectly placed cross-shot from the right skimming over the rough muddy goalmouth into the far corner of the net. Another win, another cup final, possibly another Double. What could be better than that?

After the match Beckham was interviewed and had that lovely modest manner which has stood him in such good stead in public life, even after the vilification when he was sent off against Argentina in the ’98 World Cup. I thought even then, at the beginning of his career , that David could become a true popular hero of our times, somehow untarnished even by sporting acclaim and great wealth. I think I was partially right.

But of course, well though the kids played, it was King Eric who was the real star. He played with disciplined calm, a superb leader influencing the whole team around him, prompting them with subtle flicks and lay-offs, always with time and space to control the flow of play, with a seeming unhurried effortlessness that only the very best players manage.

With a place in the FA Cup Final secured the Double Double was still very much alive. Now it was time to turn attention back to the League.

[alpben]

wah, mantap2 artikelnya!
share yang baru2 lagi ya gan!
ane tunggu

[Igitz]

Daftar Pemain Manchester United kelahiran 1994-1998 :

13 January 1994 - Tom Lawrence (RW/ST)
2 February 1994 - Joe Coll (GK)
15 February 1994 - Luke McCullough (CB)
16 February 1994 - Charni Ekangamene (MF/ST)
2 April 1994 - Tyler Blackett (CB/LB)
14 April 1994 - Gyliano Van Velzen (LW/ST)
18 August 1994 - Liam Jacob (GK)
27 August 1994 - Luke Hendrie (RB/MF)
3 September 1994 - Jonny Sutherland (GK)
29 September 1994 - Kenji Gorré (ST)
14 November 1994 - Jack Barmby (LW/ST)
15 November 1994 - Jack Rudge (MF/RB)
2 December 1994 - Donald Love (RB)
4 January 1995 - Ben Pearson (MF/ST)
7 January 1995 - Declan Dalley (CB)
7 January 1995 - Callum Evans (MF)
11 January 1995 - Joe Rothwell (MF)
13 January 1995 - Matt Wilkinson (CB/RB)
2 February 1995 - Liam Grimshaw (RB/CB)
5 February 1995 - Adnan Januzaj (MF)
2 March 1995 - Mats Møller Dæhli (MF)
14 March 1995 - Nicolas Ioannou (LB/CB/MF)
21 April 1995 - Louis Rowley (LB/LW)
27 April 1995 - Patrick McNair (MF)
23 July 1995 - Sam Byrne (ST)
4 August 1995 - James Weir (MF/LW)
5 September 1995 - Otis Khan (MF/RW/RB)
1995 - Ben Barber (LB/CB/MF)
29 September 1995 - John Pritchard (LW)
1995 - Pierluigi Gollini (GK)
1995 - Elliot Chadderton (GK)
1 December 1995 - James Wilson (ST/LW)
15 December 1995 - Josh Harrop (RB/MF)
1996 - Mikey Starkey (CB/FB)
1996 - Elliot Rokka (RW)
1996 - Ash Fletcher (ST)
1996 - Alex Naylor (AMF/LW)
1996 - Kieran O'Hara (GK)
1996 - Matt Musialowski (RB/CB/LB)
1996 - Josh Brownhill (MF/Wing/ST)
1996 - Shaquille Antoine-Clarke (RB)
7 June 1996 - Ryan Shields (MF/RW)
17 June 1996 - Ben Whiteman (MF/Wing)
30 June 1996 - Luke Daly (RB/MF)
1996 - Cameron Borthwick-Jackson (CB)
1996 - Edward Cole-Fulwood (CB)
1996 - Sam Hart (LB)
1996 - Ben Greenop (ST)
1996 - Joe Riley (MF/RW/RB)
1996 - Devonte Redmond (ST/Wing/MF)
8 December 1996 - Scott McTominay (MF)
1997 - Ollie Rathbone (MF)
1997 - Elliot Watson (RB)
1997 - Kieran Harrison (GK)
1997 - Axel Tuanzebe (CB)
1997 - Dean Henderson (GK)
1997 - Ruairi Croskery (FW)
1997 - Rhain Davis
1998 - Callum Gribbin (FW)
1998 - Joe Van Der Sar (GK)

[alpben]

Originally Posted by Igitz

Daftar Pemain Manchester United kelahiran 1994-1998 :

13 January 1994 - Tom Lawrence (RW/ST)
2 February 1994 - Joe Coll (GK)
15 February 1994 - Luke McCullough (CB)
16 February 1994 - Charni Ekangamene (MF/ST)
2 April 1994 - Tyler Blackett (CB/LB)
14 April 1994 - Gyliano Van Velzen (LW/ST)
18 August 1994 - Liam Jacob (GK)
27 August 1994 - Luke Hendrie (RB/MF)
3 September 1994 - Jonny Sutherland (GK)
29 September 1994 - Kenji Gorré (ST)
14 November 1994 - Jack Barmby (LW/ST)
15 November 1994 - Jack Rudge (MF/RB)
2 December 1994 - Donald Love (RB)
4 January 1995 - Ben Pearson (MF/ST)
7 January 1995 - Declan Dalley (CB)
7 January 1995 - Callum Evans (MF)
11 January 1995 - Joe Rothwell (MF)
13 January 1995 - Matt Wilkinson (CB/RB)
2 February 1995 - Liam Grimshaw (RB/CB)
5 February 1995 - Adnan Januzaj (MF)
2 March 1995 - Mats Møller Dæhli (MF)
14 March 1995 - Nicolas Ioannou (LB/CB/MF)
21 April 1995 - Louis Rowley (LB/LW)
27 April 1995 - Patrick McNair (MF)
23 July 1995 - Sam Byrne (ST)
4 August 1995 - James Weir (MF/LW)
5 September 1995 - Otis Khan (MF/RW/RB)
1995 - Ben Barber (LB/CB/MF)
29 September 1995 - John Pritchard (LW)
1995 - Pierluigi Gollini (GK)
1995 - Elliot Chadderton (GK)
1 December 1995 - James Wilson (ST/LW)
15 December 1995 - Josh Harrop (RB/MF)
1996 - Mikey Starkey (CB/FB)
1996 - Elliot Rokka (RW)
1996 - Ash Fletcher (ST)
1996 - Alex Naylor (AMF/LW)
1996 - Kieran O'Hara (GK)
1996 - Matt Musialowski (RB/CB/LB)
1996 - Josh Brownhill (MF/Wing/ST)
1996 - Shaquille Antoine-Clarke (RB)
7 June 1996 - Ryan Shields (MF/RW)
17 June 1996 - Ben Whiteman (MF/Wing)
30 June 1996 - Luke Daly (RB/MF)
1996 - Cameron Borthwick-Jackson (CB)
1996 - Edward Cole-Fulwood (CB)
1996 - Sam Hart (LB)
1996 - Ben Greenop (ST)
1996 - Joe Riley (MF/RW/RB)
1996 - Devonte Redmond (ST/Wing/MF)
8 December 1996 - Scott McTominay (MF)
1997 - Ollie Rathbone (MF)
1997 - Elliot Watson (RB)
1997 - Kieran Harrison (GK)
1997 - Axel Tuanzebe (CB)
1997 - Dean Henderson (GK)
1997 - Ruairi Croskery (FW)
1997 - Rhain Davis
1998 - Callum Gribbin (FW)
1998 - Joe Van Der Sar (GK)

Joe Van Der Sar itu anak Edwin Van Der Sar????