Matt Dickinson - 1999: Manchester United, the Treble and All That

1999: Manchester United, the Treble and All That

Matt Dickinson

For Helen, Joe and Fin

For Roy, who was among the ecstatic throng in the Nou Camp

And for all the endless joys, thrills and agonies of the game. Football, Bloody Hell!

On the evening of 26 May 1999, the stadium clock showed that we were in the 90th minute of the Champions League final. Up in the press box of the Nou Camp, the first draft of history had been written and dispatched.

Tyrannical deadlines required that we send our copy for the newspapers first editions shortly before the match ended and, in any case, the contest was over. With Manchester United trailing 1-0 and Bayern Munichs ribbons on the trophy, our stories of defeat were already on their way back to England (at least we assumed so this was the 20th century and, on these newish laptop devices sending down analogue phone lines, you never could be sure).

Down beneath us, standing alone near the side of the pitch in a slate-grey Versace suit, Alex Ferguson was also composing words in his head. He was imagining how to tell his players, and the world, about his pride in this team and all they had accomplished.

They had reclaimed the Premier League title and won the FA Cup; a third Double in six seasons. They had come the closest of any Manchester United team since 1968 to recapturing the European prize that was the clubs obsession. Defeat hurt when they were so damn close, especially when it meant missing out on an unprecedented Treble, but they would be back. Keep your dignity in defeat, the United manager told himself.

And then, as the fourth official held up a board signalling three minutes of added time, United won a corner to our left and David Beckham ran over to take it. The most astonishing story in my lifetime of covering sport was about to unfold in front of our disbelieving eyes.

Ferguson would never deliver that speech and we would have to perform the fastest rewrite in the history of Fleet Street. Covering sport is not brain surgery, but the intensity of those few minutes is still talked about, with wonder and battle scars, as an unparalleled frenzy in football writing.

Sometimes we go back in time and find our memories have tricked us. Was it really as amazing as we like to remember? To relive that evening in Barcelona, and the tumultuous year that led up to it, was to be struck by the joyous realisation that the characters were even more fascinating and complex, the feats even more astonishing, the drama even more jaw-dropping than the stories we have told ourselves, and anyone else willing to listen, zillions of times since 1999.

If there is one year in the history of English football that deserves to be retold, it is this one. The greatest season English football has ever known, Ferguson said. You do not have to be a Manchester United fan to know he was right.

It was a privilege to be on the journey as a sportswriter; close enough to feel Fergusons hot breath on the days when he would blow his top; close enough to have David Beckhams mobile number, at least for the 24 hours before he became the dictionary definition of famous; close enough to be intimidated by the furious intensity of Roy Keane, to marvel at the thrilling genius of Ryan Giggs, the relentless drive of Gary Neville to know, in short, we were watching a very rare and special group of footballers. It is no coincidence that, long after they finished playing, these men remain some of the most compelling figures in British sport.

You would struggle to find a dressing room containing more interesting personalities than the Manchester United squad of 1998-99 led by Alex Ferguson, the greatest of British football managers. We have come to know many of them in different guises as outspoken pundits, human billboards or for personal peccadilloes but I wanted to go back and capture them in their athletic prime. I wanted to rewind and celebrate an unprecedented achievement before life and reputations grew (how shall we put it?) more complicated.

There is nothing more fascinating for a sportswriter than watching and studying greatness; trying to comprehend what distinguishes the very best; examining not just the talent but the character of champions; seeing what can be accomplished by competitors who never accept that a cause is lost.

This is a story about the most successful football team, and season, in the history of English football. It is about the most magical sporting drama I have witnessed, and the people who made it possible. But it is also, I hope, about much more.

I wanted to celebrate a time when life had never seemed more thrilling; certainly not for me, who had come to love Manchester. Covering United was a prized job, not just for reporting on the biggest club in the world but experiencing a city so alive with music and nightlife, and much cooler people than me. Was there anywhere better to live in the 90s? It was a joy to relive those exuberant times when, as Jaap Stam remarked after watching some old footage, it seemed like we were all wearing XXL clothes. Manchester made baggy more fashionable than anywhere on earth.

They were formative years for a young reporter, for Manchester and for English football, too. The 90s explosion shaped the game we see today. It was in 1998-99 that United became the richest and most recognisable sports entity in the world. The global acclaim English football enjoys today owes more to this United team, and the glory of 1999, than any side.

It made the reputations of many players, too, and they loved retelling their stories. I lost count of the number of times a member of this United squad said, Its bringing goosebumps just talking about it. They gave their time freely and willingly from Beckham to Peter Schmeichel, Dwight Yorke to Gary Neville, Denis Irwin to Paul Scholes and many more to recall the dressing-room forces that shaped this campaign. Success was built on a rare camaraderie, but there were also rifts and rows and furious bust-ups among the complex dynamics.

The more sport I have watched, the more clear it becomes that the thrilling ride of 1999 was the distillation of everything you could hope for from football, or from any sport. Days you never forget, and so many of them. And that was even before the tumultuous denouement in Barcelona.

Ive seen your first editions, Ferguson told us when we had recovered some time later from the drama. He knew those early pieces from the Nou Camp were a scrambled mess. Mine certainly was. United had turned the world upside down in 102 seconds and we had even less time to make sense of it.

For that reason, and many more, I wanted to go back and relive it all. I wanted to revel again in the wonder, excitement, chaos and disbelief. I wanted to write another draft and try to do justice to a season, and to a sporting story, that still seems unsurpassable.

Twenty years after they passed into legend, they gather in the dressing room at Old Trafford. The Manchester United squad of 1998-99 have come together to take to the pitch one last time against their old Bayern Munich foes in aid of charity, and nostalgia, and to evoke all the glorious memories of when they were kings.

Exactly two decades on from the 1999 Champions League final, some of the players have barely seen each other since, but the years slip away and the dressing-room wisecracks quickly resume though, now, the jokes are mostly about weight gain and hair loss.