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       2 The Man in the Brown Sierra

       ‘So, what have you got to tell me about this young lad?’

      ‘What’s the matter, Mum?’

      ‘Lucky you had a good game today.’

      ‘Why?’

      I’d been playing for my District side, Waltham Forest, away to Redbridge. I must have been eleven. My dad had been working and couldn’t come to watch, so Mum had taken me to the game. The ‘good game’ was probably one of the best I ever had for that team, and afterwards I remember coming out of the changing room with the rest of the boys. Mum was waiting for me. We got to the car park and I put my bag in the back of the car. It was only then that I noticed she had tears in her eyes.

      ‘Just lucky you had a good game.’

      ‘Yeah. But why?’

      ‘That man over there: he’s a Man United scout. They want to have a look at you.’

      I can still remember the rush of joy and excitement. There was relief in there too. I burst into tears on the spot, just cried and cried. I couldn’t believe how happy I felt. I’d wondered for such a long time if I’d ever hear those words. He’s a Man United scout. His name was Malcolm Fidgeon. He came back to the house and talked to my parents and explained the club wanted to give me a trial in Manchester. The next thing, a few days later, Malcolm was turning up in his brown Ford Sierra to drive me up north.

      I owe Malcolm a lot. He was United’s London scout and the person who took me up to the club and looked out for me until I moved there permanently. I went up that first time and then back for two or three other trials. I loved it, staying up in Manchester for days or a week at a time, playing football and talking about football from morning until night. I did everything I could to make the right impression and worked as hard as I could. Eventually, we were told they’d be interested in signing me. One evening at home, the phone rang and Dad answered it. A minute or two later, he came back in with this look on his face, like he couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. Of course, this was his dream as well as mine beginning to happen.

      ‘That was Alex Ferguson.’

      Everything went quiet.

      ‘He phoned to say they’d enjoyed meeting you, that you’ve got talent and that they think your character is a credit to you, and to me and Mum.’

      And there was more.

      ‘He said you’re just the kind of boy Manchester United are looking for.’

      That was the first contact I had with the man who became the driving force behind my career. Thinking back, for all my worrying about whether they would want me or not, maybe I wasn’t surprised United came in when they did; or that the manager knew who I was. The summer before, I’d already had my chance to play in front of a capacity crowd at Old Trafford.

      I was ten years old when I attended the Bobby Charlton Soccer School for the first time. I had seen a feature about it on Blue Peter. Playing football in Manchester? With Bobby Charlton? I suppose Mum and Dad’s only choice in the matter was how they were going to fund it: I think Grandad paid in the end. It was a residential soccer school for that first summer, with hundreds of kids from all over the world staying in the university halls of residence while the students were on holiday. It lasted the whole week and I played plenty of football, but the rest of the time I felt a bit lost. Mum and Dad came up and stayed with relatives near Liverpool, and I was on the phone to them every evening. I had toothache. I was homesick. And the week just passed me by a little.

      I was desperate to have another go, so I went back the following summer. Things went a lot better. There were skills competitions on each of the courses, which used to run all through the summer, and the winners each week went through to a Grand Final back in Manchester in December. I made it through to that final and it turned out to be a fantastic weekend, for all of us. Mum and Dad stayed with me at the Portland Hotel in the city centre. I had my own room, twenty floors up, with this huge plate-glass window overlooking the city below. I think they were a bit nervous about that. On Saturday morning, we had to register and then go over to United’s old training ground, the Cliff, for the first part of the competition which was held in the indoor sports hall: ball-juggling, target shooting and short passing. I think I was in the lead already by the time we broke off for lunch.

      The second part of the competition was staged out on the pitch at Old Trafford. I was so nervous I don’t think I’d eaten for a couple of days. Mum and Dad were there, probably feeling worse than me. That afternoon, United were playing Spurs, and by the end of the competition there must have been about 40,000 supporters in the ground. I was so excited to be out on that pitch, I wasn’t even thinking about winning. They introduced each of us to the crowd before we did the dribbling and then the long passing. I can still remember when they announced ‘David Beckham’ and said I was from ‘Leytonstone’ – all the Tottenham fans started cheering. Then the guy on the tannoy said: ‘And David is a massive United fan’. All the Spurs fans started jeering and the rest of the ground, the home supporters, began applauding. To be fair, I got a decent reception from both sets of fans when the announcement was made that I’d won.

      We went up to the Europa Suite in the main stand where Bobby Charlton was doing the presentation. It was all quite an experience for an eleven-year-old. I know Mum and Dad were very proud; people were coming up to them saying how well they thought I’d done. Maybe, though, it didn’t overwhelm me completely. I think the function was still going on, but I drifted away into a corner because the game had started and I wanted to watch it on one of the televisions. It had been some afternoon. It was some prize too: a fortnight’s training with Barcelona at the Nou Camp in Spain.

      I couldn’t wait to get over there. Terry Venables was the Barcelona manager, while Mark Hughes and Gary Lineker were on the playing staff. Me and two other lads were joined by Ray Whelan from the Bobby Charlton Soccer School. The four of us were put up in what looked like a farmhouse – a pretty luxurious one – at the heart of the Nou Camp complex. I think that building had been there even before the football club was and you could sense the history of everything that had happened since: there were pennants and memorabilia on the walls, dating way back, alongside pictures of famous players from Barcelona’s past. This was a place where legends had been born.

      The farmhouse was right next to the first team’s training ground, in the shadow of the stadium itself, and we stayed there with the boys from other parts of Spain who were with Barcelona’s youth team. I was still only eleven and saw one or two things that I wasn’t used to from life in Chingford: in the

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