Legendary manager Sir Alex Ferguson has revealed that Manchester United's Carrington training complex could be be turned into a potato field due to an extreme legal clause.
In a recent interview, the former United boss detailed the story of when his side moved from The Cliff training ground to Carrington in 2000, and the move included a bunch of extremely uncommon clauses that the club had to agree on in order to buy the land.
One of the clauses inserted in the paperwork included leaving areas untouched for Canadian geese and voles, as well as turning their training ground into a potato farm if war were to break out.
Although extremely unlikely, United could be legally bound to comply with the agreement if ever required.
The former United boss went into detail on The United Podcast about the move from The Cliff, to Carrington, now known as the Aon training complex in 2000 while he was in charge.
Ferguson said: "The Cliff was great when I first came, but then the club grew. We had to put an extension in the indoor place for the boys to dress because we had no space in the actual building.
"So, then I started to wander around Manchester looking for a piece of ground that we could build a new training ground on. We were hunting everywhere, in North Manchester in particular.
"[Former chief scout and academy director] Les Kershaw came to me and his friend worked for Shell.
"He said ‘Shell are trying to sell some of their ground over at Carrington’... so we went to see.
"The size of the land we were getting, I think it was 28 acres or something, but there were restrictions which I can’t understand today."
Ferguson went on to explain these strange restrictions, as he revealed: "Part of the restrictions were, in the event of war we had to turn the ground into potato fields, and up at the very end, there had to be an acre or two acres for Canadian geese.
"There were moats and we couldn't change them because voles were living in them. We couldn’t do anything really."
However, despite Ferguson staying loyal to the terms of the agreement, he added that this had been completely ignored since his departure in 2012, as Louis van Gaal made his mark on the training ground after David Moyes was sacked.
Ferguson said: "Then I went down after I retired and Louis had put up floodlights and stands and everything!"
United were frustrated again at Old Trafford on Saturday as Everton came from behind to draw 1-1, with the Red Devils dropping points at home yet again.
However, despite suggestions the United hierarchy is losing patience with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, the current head coach's role isn't believed to be under any threat.
