Utd Unscripted Mick Clegg on Darren Fletcher

That wasn’t always the case, though. We had a couple of run-ins when he was a young lad just making his way to the first team. Being firmly aware of the benefits of gym work, my early impressions of Darren were that he needed to spend more time in there. He was tall, skinny, you could even call him gangly, and to me that was going to compromise his talent on the football pitch because he would be easily outmuscled. It didn’t matter how good he was with the ball if he was just going to be constantly levered out of possession, I reasoned. I told him, quite forcibly, on more than one occasion, that he needed to be spending more time in the gym because he wasn’t strong enough to be a top-level footballer.

I won’t forget the day he proved me wrong and taught me a valuable lesson.

Football wasn’t the only sport that took place at Carrington during my time at the club. Basketball was a regular activity, especially among the goalkeepers, and so were table tennis and short tennis. There were also occasional games of hockey, which took place on the caged pitch, and it would be a mixture of players and staff taking part.

I was no hockey player by trade, and I was in my 40s, but I was in good shape at the time. Every time I went through a one-on-one session with a player, I’d do the workout with them, so I was pretty strong, pretty quick and had a good engine. So, on this particular afternoon, I fancied my chances of being able to run rings about this wispy young Scottish lad who was as thin as his hockey stick.

I’m a little fella, so I thought I’d be able to nip in and get the ball from him at will. Not only could I not get anywhere near the ball, I ended up being flung around like a ragdoll. Darren showed me a different kind of strength that day: functional strength. He could use those long arms and that tall frame to ensure that I got nowhere nearer the ball than arm’s length. 

He won my respect that day and I had to apologise for not seeing him for who he really was.