The legendary Red Devils coach: The road to success

Chapter 263: New Things on Jerseys

"The summer of 1993 was extremely hot, with all kinds of prosperous scenes. The Red Devils, who were the champions of the first season of the Premier League, had a little more passion and confidence in the heat."

--Inscription

When the Red Devils flew to South Africa in the summer, the Premier League was booming and extremely lively.

The competition in the transfer market this summer was very fierce. In addition to the sensation caused by Keane joining the Red Devils, there were also many hot news. Newcastle United invited the famous player Keegan to coach and introduced the former Liverpool midfielder and forward star Beardsley, which became the focus of the entire Premier League for a while. Beardsley is well-known and is known as "England's most technical midfield master who can dance on the line." He had already won the league championship when he played for Liverpool. Naturally, his joining Newcastle this time aroused heated discussions.

Newcastle United has a long history. The invitation of the famous coach Keegan to coach the club also proves that the board of directors is very ambitious and has lofty goals. Keegan declared, "We want to build a super team and challenge the Premier League championship." After Keegan took over, he went on a shopping spree in England. The team was full of famous players and was a star-studded team. It was a strong team on paper. There was a very good newcomer in the Magpies lineup, Andy Cole. But under Keegan, he lost the club's attention. The English star, who played as a striker, had actually performed well at the time, but he was obviously not Keegan's cup of tea.

As Newcastle aggressively recruited talent, the Premier League was full of transfer news. Blackburn's big boss Jack Walker continued to support Dalglish, hoping to get rid of the regret of not buying Keane as soon as possible, and continued to invest heavily in the transfer market. Under Dalglish's creation, Blackburn continued to start the buying mode, and a star-studded violent team stood out. This heavily invested team had stars such as David Batty, Paul Warhurst, Kevin Gallagher and Tim Flowers, and the lineup became unprecedentedly strong.

The football media stepped up their efforts to promote the popular players, and the newly emerged stars of tomorrow sparked heated discussions among fans. When the brilliant striker Shearer left Southampton, the club's "God" Le Tissier still chose to stay, maintaining a very good level and continuing to be the goal guarantee for the Saints. After Liverpool failed to win the championship, the team began to introduce new star players Fowler and Redknapp. The Anfield youth training system has been constantly producing talents. Fowler, as a newly emerged striker killer, is also a representative of young fame in Liverpool. Fowler was a brilliant talent at the time. He showed a strong goal-scoring ability very early and became a newcomer that many fans expected. There are also several youth training gems in Liverpool's first-line lineup, including midfield core Redknapp, and fast winger McMaraman, a winger genius who is known as being able to fish with his feet.

In addition to the players, the coaches of the major teams have also become a hot topic. Ferguson dominated the league and naturally became the most concerned opponent of the Premier League teams. Arsenal's Graham, Newcastle's Keegan, Villa's Wilkinson, Blackburn's Dalglish, Tottenham's Werner Booth... The Premier League's famous coaches have continued to occupy the front page of the media. The traditional giants Liverpool have changed their coaches again. They have replaced Evans to take charge, replacing the famous coach Souness who was humiliated by Bristol City in the FA Cup.

Before the start of the season, the Premier League ushered in a larger-scale stadium expansion and renovation boom. Manchester United, Arsenal and other teams began to expand their stadiums more actively, increase spectator seats, and improve service facilities. England successfully won the right to host the 1996 European Championship finals, which further stimulated the corresponding football stadium reconstruction and renovation work.

Stimulated by the huge broadcasting funds of the Premier League, major clubs have begun to dig deeper and deeper into commercial revenue. The renovation of various stadiums has been accelerated, and the seats have been upgraded to increase the comfort of fans. The price of Premier League tickets has also begun to soar, and tickets for popular games have become hard to come by. For teams like the Red Devils and Liverpool, season tickets have even become a hot identity certificate.

The Premier League has announced new regulations that require each team to fix the players' jersey numbers when registering, and generally no changes are allowed.

This rule profoundly changed the commercial landscape of football. At first, everyone thought it was for the convenience of television broadcasting, but the clubs soon discovered that this rule had magical power.

In the Charity Shield match, Arsenal became the first team in British football history to have their name printed on their jerseys. Due to the hasty arrangement, only Arsenal had their name printed on the jerseys, while the Red Devils players still had numbers on their jerseys.

When the game was over, Arsenal fans frantically chased after their favorite star idols and rushed to buy jerseys with the players' names and numbers printed on them.

Therefore, there is no need to wait until the league officially starts before all teams print the players' names on their jerseys.

For the first time, players were assigned numbers, players' names were put on jerseys, and fans' favorite idols had their own numbers, special symbols, and special jerseys. When we later talked about the great No. 7s of the Red Devils, we would clearly point out that they were Robson, Cantona, Beckham, and Ronaldo, while fans would firmly attribute the magic of No. 11 to Giggs and the honor of No. 16 to Keane. We even miss Scholes, who wore No. 18, and Gary, who wore No. 2. All these stories started from this season.

Players have their own exclusive numbers, which immediately inspires the business department's thinking. This is the best way to create stars, develop new sales products and expand new markets.

The Red Devils' marketing team immediately followed suit and promoted several of the team's stars. It started with Robson, then Cantona, then Hughes, Giggs, and Lee Sharpe. The Red Devils' commercial promotion was so horrific that this summer, the sales of Red Devils' jerseys were five times that of last season. Remember, this was before Beckham was officially introduced.

All Premier League teams are vigorously developing the number market. Jerseys with player names and numbers printed on them, player-exclusive shoes, cups, dolls, scarves, souvenirs printed with names or logos... everything has become a treasure for fans and a huge source of money for the club.

Along with the commercial torrent, there is also the passion of the young people in the Carrington base.

The Red Devils' Class of 92 experienced an unsuccessful 92-93 season. The failure to defend the FA Youth Cup led to the entire team being criticized, but Ferguson did not put these guys in the sidelines afterwards. The youngsters soon began to practice more enthusiastically.

Giggs did not participate in the FA Youth Cup in the 92-93 season, as he was already a regular starter for the first team. The Welsh winger, who became famous at a young age, has become the biggest threat to the Red Devils' wing and the most outstanding star in the Red Devils' youth training camp, and has won the love of many fans. Giggs is active, passionate and romantic, and has extraordinary talent. He has long been the dream lover of many beautiful women. Although Ferguson has always been strict in management, Giggs still enjoys it. In addition to carefully following Lee Sharpe's days and nights, Giggs also hides from Ferguson and has fun outside. The handsome face of the Red Devils No. 11 in those days intoxicated the hearts of many girls.

Even though Giggs was so flirtatious, he still had to honestly complete Ferguson's training program requirements and meet the coach's standards. Giggs knew very early that even if Ferguson looked up to him, professional players relied on their performance on the field and had to go through hard training to improve their level, and there was no room for jokes.

Compared with the famous Giggs, the Red Devils' Class of 92 fell into a short trough this summer. The failure to defend the title was a major blow to everyone's morale. Beckham? At that time, he was not really a handsome guy, and he had no chance of stunning performances. The young man from London was still practicing silently, and the shy Beckham was still working hard for the opportunity to appear in the first team. No one thought that he would become a superstar in the future, the nuclear weapon of the Red Devils in the commercial field, and the invincible killer weapon for the club's progress.

As for Scholes, Gary Neville, Butt and other players from Class 92, they were also criticized and scolded by Ferguson. They gathered themselves together tremblingly and returned to hard training.

These youngsters have basically had their chances before, but now they need to fight for their chances again. The second player to appear in the first team after Giggs was Nicky Butt, but at that time he did not have an official number for the first team. Nicky Butt was not very prominent, but his first game for the Red Devils first team was on November 1991, 11, when the Red Devils played at home against Oldham. Butt came on as a substitute for Ince in the 21th minute of the game and made his first appearance in his Red Devils career. In January 65, Butt officially signed with the team and won his first professional contract to play for the Red Devils.

After Butt, Gary Neville made his first senior appearance for the Red Devils in the UEFA Cup against Torpedo Moscow in September 1992, and like Butt, he also got his first professional contract in January 9. Beckham also got a professional player contract at this time, but Scholes was not. The ginger-headed player had a harder start. He was unable to meet the training standards because of his short stature, and was once at a disadvantage in the competition with his teammates. However, after the 1993-1 season, Scholes finally grew up. With the strong recommendation of Harrison and Kidd, Ferguson officially signed Scholes on July 92, 93.

Phil Neville is the youngest of the Red Devils Class of 92. As Gary Neville's younger brother, he was born in 1977 and was not a member of the Red Devils youth team in 1992, but he grew up very quickly and soon caught up with his older brother.

Although the Red Devils Class 92 suffered a short-term setback, Busby and Best admired them very much and believed that sooner or later some of these players would become superstars. After hard training, the Red Devils Class 92 began to take off under Ferguson's command.

The Red Devils had just returned from South Africa, and the summer vacation was over. Then the Charity Shield match started, and the Red Devils faced the FA Cup champion Arsenal. Ferguson sent out a brand new midfield combination: Keane and Ings. This pair of midfield partners completed the tasks of midfield organization, connection, and interception. In the end, the two teams drew 1-1, and the Red Devils finally defeated their opponents in the penalty shootout.

Roy Keane later recalled: "I was surprised to get the starting role in the game, but I felt that my performance was not good enough. I have been under pressure because of my transfer fee, and I have no confidence because of the excellence of my teammates. But I am the kind of person who never admit defeat and never give up. When facing pressure, I must do better. I am determined to respond with a better performance."

Although Keane was not very satisfied with himself, Ferguson and the coaching staff were very satisfied. He was just a little nervous and not very comfortable with the running characteristics of his teammates.

The league will start soon, and Ferguson's team will once again throw themselves into the fierce competition with full confidence. No matter who the opponent is, no matter what difficulties and obstacles there are, this red army full of lofty ambitions will charge forward with full confidence and courage.

Ferguson had a new challenge outside the league. The Red Devils won a ticket to the European Champions League. Ferguson began to lead the Red Devils to Europe and officially entered the highest level of European football.