Next up in our series of Carrington interviews are
Alec Wylie and Ian Buckingham who help ensure the Reds are properly
suited and booted…
So tell us about life in the kit room at Carrington?
AW: It’s certainly never dull and every day is different.
Ian and I help [kit manager] Albert [Morgan] and our other kit man
John Campbell on a daily basis with the players’ training kit and
boots. I’m with Albert for first team home games, European aways
and tours, with the rest of my time spent with the Reserves.
IB: I look after the club’s under 11-16 teams and
the Academy side. I also cover Reserve games when Alec’s away with
the first team and help him and Albert pack the kit for Champions
League trips and drive them to the airport.
AW: One of our main jobs is to help Albert order
the new kit each season, something we actually do a year in
advance. We also order new kit whenever it’s needed.
What do you take in your kit bags to Reserve games?
IB: What don’t we take?! As well as the actual match kit,
there’s the warm-up strip, two bags of balls, a numbers board [for
substitutions], medical bag, tactics board, refreshments, iPod and
speakers… everything you can think of. And not only do we organise
the kit, we put our waiter hats on for the long journeys back from
away games and serve the lads dinner on the way home!
Do you ever worry you’ve forgotten something?
AW: I’ve woken up in the middle of night many times
thinking exactly that! During a Reserve trip to Italy I left all
the shin pads at the hotel. We were already on our way to the game,
but thankfully the hotel manager was due to come too and he brought
them in his car!
IB: I’ve been on Reserve trips when the kit has
ended
up on a different flight or it’s just not turned up at baggage
reclaim and I’ve had to go back to the cargo centre the next day!
But we always manage to sort things.
There’s clearly great camaraderie amongst everyone at
Carrington – what are your funniest memories so far?
IB: Brian McClair once asked me if I’d give his hair a
quick trim but I couldn’t get the trimmer to work properly, so
Brian tried himself. He shouted and asked if I’d messed with the
guards on his trimmer. I said no... then he turned his head,
pointed and said ‘Look!’ He’d tried trimming one of his sideburns,
but had shaved it off and had a huge bald patch!
AW: The funniest for me is scoring twice for the
Reserves. I’d travelled with the team to a pre-season friendly at
Prestatyn Town in North Wales [in July 1996] and we’d literally
just taken 11 players. The manager at the time, Jim Ryan, told me
to stick a kit on just in case and with about 20 minutes to go our
centre-half Ross Millard got injured which meant I was coming on!
Jim shuffled things around and stuck me up front and I scored with
virtually my first touch. A few years later [August 2002] I came on
during a friendly against Selkirk in Scotland, as did Neil Hough
[assistant head physio] and he set me up to score again.
Finally, what’s this we hear about you working for the
opposition at OT…
AW: We looked after the kit for the European XI United
played in a special UEFA charity [in March 2007]. It was a great to
work with the likes of Gattuso, Pirlo, Maldini and Henrik
Larsson.
IB: Assistant manager Gianluca Vialli really made
us feel part of the team, but it was strange being sat in the away
dug-out.
AW: There was some great banter - the lads
were calling us traitors and we were shouting offside whenever
United went forward!