After 23 years coaching some of the greatest youngsters in football at Manchester United, the son of former Busby Babe and United manager Wilf McGuinness is ready to go again. He talks to Andy Mitten about his life in football.

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“I was born in 1966 and at the age of five or six I can remember going to Manchester United’s Cliff training ground to see my dad (Wilf), who was then United’s manager. I remember going to Old Trafford too and climbing the staircase to Sir Matt Busby’s office, where he had a swivel chair. There was a big bath in the home changing room, it seemed so huge to a little kid. Old Trafford also had a very distinctive smell and opponents used to comment on it. It was a medicinal smell from Five Oils, the rub which players used for massages. Visiting teams used to say they could smell it Manchester United.

There was some upset in my family when my dad left the club in 1970 and the subject remained a conversation at home when we went to Greece where he became manager. We lived in Salonika and I went to an American school with my sister. Dad moved to another Greek club in 1974 for a season where there was no English school, so he had a teacher shipped over from Manchester specially. Home schooling had advantages and disadvantages. When I came back to Manchester I was probably a year behind in some subjects and couldn’t speak any French. I vividly remember being asked to stand up and talk in French, aged eight.

Back in England I used to play football whenever possible. We played Knock-out Wembley, a game from which you can learn so much. It creates goalscorers, it helps you learn to dribble and take a man on. I went to Wembley itself for the first time in 1976. For such a legendary place, it was a real let down – and not only because United lost the FA Cup final to Southampton.

I didn’t go a year later when United won the FA cup. By 1977 we were living in York, where dad was now manager of York City. That meant another new school, where dad told me to tell the other kids that I was a centre forward. Because the kids weren’t as good in York as Manchester, I was fine up front. I scored a hat-trick in the first half of my first game, but the other kids couldn’t understand why I wore trainers and not boots. Dad promised me boots if I scored a hat-trick in the second half. I did that and dad brought some boots home a few days later. I was lucky; I had a choice.

With my new boots I scored loads of goals and felt like a king. After one game in which I scored ten goals, dad took us in his Jag to York’s ground where I was allowed a bath in the first team dressing room. The back seat of the car was covered so I didn’t get it muddy. I lay back in the bath and recalled every goal. Life was wonderful, but I had a shock coming. I hadn’t cleaned the bath properly and received such a rollocking. It was a test, the first of many, to keep my feet on the ground.

My aim was to play for Manchester United and to also be a PE teacher. Mum had told me to get something else behind me because dad had broken his leg playing for United which ended his playing career. We moved back to Manchester and I got into the Manchester schoolboys team. I had trials at Middlesbrough, Leeds and Nottingham Forest – but I also stayed at school to do A Levels. United invited me to do evening training. I was older than most of the young players but worked really hard. I played on the bench for the youth team but didn’t quite follow dad into playing for the youth team, but United offered me a year as a pro after my A levels.

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