It was in the spring of 1995 that Sir Alex Ferguson decided to put his faith in the Class of ’92.
Little did he know that his own Manchester United future would come to depend on teenage tyros like Ryan Giggs, David Beckham, Paul Scholes, Nicky Butt and Gary and Phil Neville.
Mark Robins’ FA Cup winner at Nottingham Forest in January 1990 has become steeped in legend as THE goal that convinced United’s directors not to sack the man who would become the most successful manager in the club’s history.
But the reality is that, just five years later, the Scot found himself facing another make-or-break moment when his bosses answered his demand to be given a new long-term contract with a question of their own.
“Have you taken your eye off the ball?” asked Professor Sir Roland Smith, after Fergie had been summoned to the chairman’s Isle of Man home to discuss his request for a six-year deal.
Smith’s suggestion that Ferguson should come back next year was not what the 54-year-old was hoping for.
And chief executive Martin Edwards added insult to injury by warning Ferguson there would be no cushy boardroom job for him at the end of his tenure.
“We don’t want a repeat of the Matt Busby syndrome,” Edwards is reported to have said. It is fair to say that Ferguson was not in a good place. His bid to become the first manager to defend the Double had ended in failure.
A 1-1 draw at West Ham on the final day of the 1995 Premier League season meant that Blackburn, led by boss Kenny Dalglish, were crowned champions – despite losing at Liverpool.
And, six days later, United were beaten 1-0 by Everton in the FA Cup Final.
In the desolate dressing room at Wembley, Ferguson warned that any players who had let their team-mates down would not be around much longer.
Just a few days earlier, the manager had shocked his board of directors by announcing that he planned to sell Paul Ince.
The England midfielder might have been at the top of his game, but Ferguson felt he had literally become too big for his boots.
Ince had christened himself ‘The Guv’nor’. His nickname was even stitched into his Predator boots.
As Ferguson explained in his autobiography, Managing My Life: “I had observed Paul closely for the past five months and decided his attitude and performances had altered to a degree that I could not tolerate.
“This Guv’nor thing should have been left in his toy box.”
So Ince was sold to Inter Milan for £6million – and fans’ favourites Mark Hughes and Andrei Kanchelskis were to follow through the exit door.
Ferguson wanted to keep Hughes, but the Welshman was now 31. He had been left on the bench in the crucial game at Upton Park, with his place taken by new £7m signing Andy Cole.
Ferguson was on holiday in the United States when he was told that Hughes had decided not to sign a new contract and had joined Chelsea instead.
And the new season had already kicked off when Kanchelskis’ £5m departure to Everton was sealed.
After turning down Kanchelskis’ transfer request, Ferguson took the advice of club solicitor Maurice Watkins to sell him, following a meeting with agent Grigory Essaoulenko that had ended with a barely veiled death threat being put on the negotiating table.
United had lost three key players, and the club’s directors weren’t the only ones who felt Ferguson had lost the plot.
When the opening game of the season was lost 3-1 at Aston Villa and Match of the Day pundit Alan Hansen declared United would win nothing with kids, thousands of fans voted in a poll run by the local evening paper asking whether Ferguson should be sacked.
But there was method in his madness.
Giggs had not long graduated into the first team and in September 1994, when United travelled to Port Vale in the League Cup, Ferguson unleashed the rest of the club’s 1992 FA Youth Cup winners.
Ferguson recalled: “After that night at Port Vale there were protests in the House of Commons. One woman MP said I should be banned for life for not playing my strongest team when people had paid their £10 to get in.”
United prevailed 2-1 at Vale Park – thanks to two goals by Scholes.
And, two months later, when United were battered 4-0 by Barcelona in the Champions League, with Eric Cantona and Peter Schmeichel sitting in the Nou Camp stands because of a restriction on foreign players, an idea began to form in Ferguson’s mind.
“It was clear I now had youngsters equipped to play at the highest level,” he said.
In May 1996, United reclaimed the Double – and Ferguson once again crossed the Irish Sea to speak to Professor Sir Roland Smith.
