Now, out there, they have this belief that everything is predestined. My club would send a driver to pick me up. Whoever they sent, they all called me captain, and they all hared around the roads like mad. They’d drive like lunatics.

I’d be shouting at them: “Slow down, we’re going to be killed!”

The response was always calm, always the same.

“Captain, it’s not our time.”

Whatever was going to happen was going to happen.

I’m a great believer in that. So I suppose, in that sense, I was always going to make my United debut in the way that I did.

When I joined the club in July 1956, I’d never seen United play. Hardly knew any of the players. I knew some of the names from television, but that was it. Pretty much the only one I’d seen play was Duncan Edwards, because I used to skip school to watch England games, which were played in the daytime back then because there weren’t any floodlights.

Suddenly I was sharing digs with Duncan and Billy Whelan.

Duncan had such an aura. He was a big, strong chap with this way about him. Tremendous, smashing bloke. Bill too. I was this 15-year-old lad who had just joined the club, but they didn’t look down on me at all, even though they were both international footballers.

So we knew each other, but we didn’t train together. I hadn’t trained with any of the first team because I was so young. I was goalkeeper for the fourth or fifth team at the time. I turned 16 at the start of October 1956 and when I wasn’t training I was working on United’s groundstaff. I’d tried to work in Trafford Park as an electrical engineer. Your parents always say you need a trade or whatever, but because of my training commitments at United, the club asked me to go on the groundstaff, so I did.