Opinion | Manchester United and Alex Ferguson celebrate Paddy Crerand’s 80th birthday – here’s to a lovable (and fiercely loyal) legend

Hong Kong Stadium, July 2013 and Manchester United are about to play Kitchee in a friendly. As United boss David Moyes speaks to the media about transfer targets, Paddy Crerand, the legendary European Cup winning United midfielder, sidles up next to this writer. Crerand is travelling on the tour in his role as a Red-eyed observer for MUTV. He puts his hand over his mouth well before it became the norm for footballers to do, furtively checks that nobody is looking and whispers: “What’s happening with Cecil?” “Cecil?” “Fabregas,” comes the irate response. “He’s not called Cecil, he’s called Cesc.” “Whatever he’s called. Is he coming or not?” United had been linked heavily with Barcelona’s midfielder. It was the highest profile transfer story of the summer, unavoidable every day … and Crerand thought he was called Cecil. Crerand turns 80 on Tuesday. He still goes to the vast majority of United games home and abroad, his enthusiasm for life as vast as that for the team he’s supported since he moved to Manchester from Glasgow in 1963. Mike Phelan: Ferguson’s consigliere and a vital cog in Manchester United’s engine room for almost 20 years Crerand has time for fans before and after games, just as he used to have time for regular Sunday telephone conversations with Liverpool boss Bill Shankly. “I would be about to go to Mass, but I couldn’t get Bill off the phone,” he said. “He would grill me about the team we had played the day before, wanting information about formations and how well each man had performed. A message for the birthday boy from none other than Sir Alex! See more in #MUTV's special one-off show dedicated to Paddy Crerand at 18:30 GMT: https://t.co/jzdanEU2wh pic.twitter.com/lTV7GpQIkF — Manchester United (@ManUtd) February 19, 2019 “He rang one morning when I had already left for church, so he spoke to my wife Noreen instead. She knows nothing about football, so I was surprised a few weeks later when he said that my wife knew football inside out. “She told me that she said two words in the entire conversation – ‘yes’ and ‘no’. She must have said them at the right time because he was impressed.” Ole Gunnar Solskjaer welcomes Alex Ferguson back into Manchester United family made by Matt Busby In 2007, I ghosted Crerand’s autobiography Never Turn the Other Cheek. The project didn’t get off to the best start when I arrived at his house at the agreed time and he wasn’t there. Better still, he’d not told Noreen he was doing a book and she didn’t know me and told me to return later on. I could hardly call him on his mobile phone since he’d thrown it in the nearby river. It’s not very often that Paddy Crerand is lost for words… Big thanks from the man himself! #MUTV pic.twitter.com/XnyhPMMIDm — Manchester United (@ManUtd) February 19, 2019 Crerand’s home phone was enough and his number is carefully written down inside his glasses case should he need to pass it to anyone. Things picked up and Noreen, a Glasgow beauty queen in 1958, was later full of apologies. Born in Glasgow to Irish parents originally from County Donegal in Ireland, Crerand lost his father when he was one after a Luftwaffe bomb hit his workplace at John Brown’s Shipyard on the River Clyde. Crerand’s mother, a driving force in his life, gave birth to his sister the day after losing her husband. There would be further heartbreak. Crerand’s brother John died at 12. “They brought the coffin to the house because there was nowhere else to take it,” he recalled. “It wasn’t a big coffin, just a small thing. I missed John terribly.” Life in Glasgow’s Gorbals was tough. The teenage Crerand became left-leaning and deeply proud of his Irish roots. Like his father, he got a job in the shipyards, but he hated it and became more determined to become a footballer. He did that via Junior football, Celtic and then Manchester United, for whom he played 397 times, one game less than Peter Schmeichel and three more than David Beckham. European players of the year George Best, Denis Law and Bobby Charlton were the stars of Sir Matt Busby’s great 1960s United side, Crerand was a dogged and beautiful passer who was slower than a snail and thought diplomacy was the English word for a chemist. When Paddy played, United played. He was man of the match in the 1963 FA Cup final, United’s first trophy after the Munich air disaster. Crerand won league titles and the European Cup, but he was more than that. As he was a trusted confidante of Sir Matt Busby a wayward George Best – Crerand thinks the Irishman’s life would have been very different had he not been so good looking – came to stay with the Crerands who sought to provide a stable family environment. Best duly moved into the box room in their three-bedroom semi-detached house and even slept there for a few nights. It didn’t quite work out, though the United-mad Crerand children were delighted to have their idol living there. Along the way Crerand had a gun pulled on him by a sneak thief in United’s team hotel in Australia – things always seem to happen when Paddy is around. Crerand would return to Donegal each summer. On one trip across the border, a soldier stopped him to speak to him at a checkpoint. Manchester United’s Champions League humbling by PSG shows Ole Gunnar Solskjaer must overhaul threadbare squad “He was about 18 and a United fan from Manchester,” he recalled. “I was with an uncle and we had to get out of the car so that it could be searched. While we waited, the soldier asked me about United’s chances in the league. I just chatted along being friendly, but I could see that my Uncle Hughie, who was driving the car, was absolutely raging with anger. He called me over and asked what I was doing talking to a British soldier. I told him that it was just a kid from Manchester.” They agreed to disagree. In the World Cup summer of 1970, Crerand was invited on football’s first television pundit panel, his combative style welcomed. He was assistant manager to Tommy Docherty at Manchester United, then tried management at Northampton Town in 1976 but failed and admitted it wasn’t for him. The 1980s were spent running a rowdy pub in Altrincham, the ’90s and noughties back in the spotlight as a staunch and passionate supporter of all things United, the man to defend Eric Cantona’s kung-fu kick when so few would. And he’s still going, still calling out perceived slights and injustices against the team he loves. Only two weeks ago at Leicester he considered kicking a former Liverpool player up the backside – vintage Crerand and why so many United fans love him.