Luke Shaw, Tom Heaton of Manchester United at Carrington Training Ground
As Alex Ferguson unveiled the plaque at the redeveloped training ground to the long-serving receptionist, Kath Phipps, celebrating “the welcoming heart of Manchester United for 56 years”, the club’s greatest manager recalled how she would sort the letters on his messy desk. One pile of them, Ferguson chuckled, consisted of abusive ones.
Ferguson was in charge when United opened Carrington. “It was state of the art, back in 2000,” said chief operating officer Collette Roche. United believe it is again now, after a £50m revamp, paid for by Jim Ratcliffe, opened this week. “I’d be interested to see any other training grounds that are as good as this,” said Roche. It is within the same building, but a far cry from the facilities that Cristiano Ronaldo claimed were stuck in time when he returned to the club. The ground floor, Ratcliffe said damningly, “was a slightly gloomy place, a gloomy rabbit warren. It felt like you were in a hospital in the basement.” Perhaps United’s injury list in recent seasons compounded that feeling.