Ryan Giggs and cup semi-finals will always mean Villa Park,
Arsenal and 1999, thanks to the extra-time goal-from-heaven he
scored in a replay to settle one of the greatest FA Cup ties,
weaving from his own half past opponent after opponent like Nureyev
on skis. If someone needs convincing of Giggs’ extraordinariness,
show them that strike. If footage is not to hand, statistics will
do instead.
There is no shortage of amazing numbers connected to the
Welshman’s career and here is another. Giggs has been going so long
he has appeared in one fifth of the Manchester derbies played.
Ever. That’s going all the way back to 1891, when Manchester United
were called Newton Heath.
“I didn’t realise. All these stats just mean I’m old. Thanks for
that . . .” said Giggs, laughing. The Manchester City strand is
another remarkable plotline in his story. Giggs, of course, began
his connection with professional football by training with the City
youth team in his early teens. “Right from day one I hated it,
absolutely hated it,” he once recalled. “It wasn’t that City were
hard on me or not nice people . . . there was no getting round it,
I was a United supporter.” He would wear a red top to training at
City’s Platt Lane practice ground and the coaches there would make
him take it off.
Giggs’ first senior start came in the Manchester derby — and so,
in the same game, did his first official goal, even though Colin
Hendry got the final touch after Giggs had connected with a Brian
McClair cross and it should (as Giggs later acknowledged) have been
credited as an own goal. That’s going all the way back to 1991 and
May of that year — a time so distant that there would still be
three months before the collapse of the Soviet Union.
On Tuesday, Giggs hopes to make his 30th appearance in a
semi-final match at club level and his 31st in a derby and — though
he understands Sir Alex Ferguson, United’s manager, has to be
sparing about using him these days — he is as keen to be involved,
if not keener, than any United player.
“Earlier in the season, when City came to Old Trafford, there
was the biggest build-up to a derby I’d probably ever known,
because of the money City have spent. It will be the same case
leading into this game and for the next few seasons. I love all
that.
“The games don’t mean as much to me as they used to — they mean
more and more,” Giggs said. “The older you get, the bigger
responsibility you have and the more you savour the big
matches.”
Giggs’ continuing zest for the major challenges is such that the
FA Cup encounter with Leeds made him reflect how much he misses
having one of United’s bitterest rivals around in the Premier
League. “I know it’ll sound funny but I used to love playing at
Elland Road. The atmosphere was electric, especially when Eric
(Cantona) was in the team and they had a very good side,” Giggs
said.
So, there is nothing jaded about his mentality. That his body
retains freshness at an age — 36 — when other players begin seizing
up like over-flogged engines, is down to a regimen involving a
carefully managed balance between training, playing and rest; diet
and yoga. He had 24 hours off from the latter on December 25 but
otherwise — even on New Year’s Day — it is part of a daily
routine.
“You have to keep it up no matter what, even if you don’t want
to,” said Giggs. “It’s served me very well, so I’ll carry it on
right to the end of my career.” The yoga helps keep him loose and
give elasticity to muscles, especially his hamstrings, which were
prone to injuries as a younger player, and has brought such results
that several of the United players — including the likes of Wayne
Rooney — join Giggs for sessions. “I tend to do the yoga after
training and there’s a few of the lads who do it sometimes with me.
Sometimes it’s with them, sometimes it’s on my own. I like it when
the lads join in because it’s not as intense, but actually I enjoy
it.
“The first year I dreaded it. Every day I was hoping Sarah, my
yoga teacher, wouldn’t turn up at the training ground. I’d see her
come in and my heart sank. But after about a year it’s still tough
but you begin to like it. People think it’s all about breathing and
relaxing but, no, it’s hard. You use muscles you don’t normally use
and if you don’t want to go running or on the gym machines it’s a
good way to stay fit.” Teammates are obviously used to it now, but
was there banter in the United dressing room when Giggs started a
pursuit some still regard as woolly and New Age? “Oh no,” he
grinned. “Because Roy [Keane] started it . . . and nobody was ever
going to give Keaney stick.”
After the defeat by Leeds, and some unexpected recent Premier
League struggles, Ferguson will beef up the youthful side he has
used in previous Carling Cup games and indicated Giggs may be among
the experienced players brought in.
“I’ve got mixed views about the game now. I think we’ll have a
mix. It won’t be the same team as against Burnley (in the
quarter-final),” Ferguson said. “The derby is a fans’ game really
and we have enough players who know about that, such as Giggs, Paul
Scholes, Gary Neville, Darren Fletcher and Wes Brown.”
He is reserving judgment on whether City have been transformed
by Roberto Mancini (“they have had some easy games, haven’t they?”)
and remarked that the semi-final is a bigger deal for City than
United “because it’s been quite a while since they last won it or
were in a final”. He continues to have “no regrets” about Carlos
Tevez’s defection from Old Trafford to Eastlands though continues
to regard City’s use of the striker in a Welcome To Manchester
poster as “petty”.
Giggs noted “it’s a weird season. Everyone’s beating each other
and United have had more losses than in the whole of last season”,
and Ferguson is aware that if City continue to flex their wealth,
the football landscape will keep getting stranger. “I read
somewhere they were going to bid for Lionel Messi,” he said. “They
could offer a billion for Messi and it wouldn’t affect them too
much.” Then the barb. “Whether it would give them any joy or not .
. . but given the money they’ve got, anything’s possible.”
Giggs’ special date
When Ryan Giggs runs out at Old Trafford in March he will look,
in the front row of the South Stand beside the players’ tunnel, for
a very special spectator.
Amy Dutton, 24, was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma last year
and is undergoing treatment at Manchester’s Christie Hospital,
where she met Giggs recently. Giggs’ visit was to help cement a
partnership between the hospital and the Manchester United
Foundation, which is raising £250,000 to fund extra rehabilitation
for young patients.
Two full-time nurses are being paid for through the project and
via the foundation, young cancer sufferers are able to go United’s
Carrington training ground and use its state-of-the-art
hydrotherapy pool. Giggs, whose mother is a nurse and who lost his
stepfather to cancer, said: “Everyone knows someone who’s had
cancer and more or less the whole of the north of England uses
Christie’s.”
Amy, a United season ticket-holder, has been unable to watch her
team since beginning a six-month chemotherapy course in September
but intends being back in her seat at Old Trafford by March. “I’ve
been sharing my season ticket and it’s hard watching my boyfriend
go off to the game every weekend,” she said. “We’re always in the
front row and I’ve told Giggs he’s got to wave to me.”
ON TV TUESDAY
Manchester City v Manchester Utd
8pm (ko
8.05pm) BBC1
Ryan Giggs: Manchester derbies
Giggs made his first derby appearance – and scored his very
first United goal - as a 17-year-old in May 1991. United ran out
1-0 winners that day and to this day the goal scorer is still
disputed, with many crediting it as a Colin Hendy own goal. If
Giggs plays on Tuesday it will be his very first League Cup
appearance against City but his 31st appearance overall, making him
comfortably the record appearance holder in Manchester derbies. To
date he has started 22, made eight substitute appearances and
scored 3 goals.
Ryan Giggs v Manchester City
P30 W18 D7 L5
League: 20 apps (8 as sub), 3 goals
FA Cup: 2 apps, 0 goals
League Cup: 0 apps, 0 goals
Total: 22 apps (8 as sub), 3 goals
