Manchester United: Can Current Youngsters Emulate Legacy of Original Fledglings?

Alan Hansen can be seen today on the sofa of the BBC news studios in his punditry role for their flagship football highlights show Match of the Day. With characteristic wit and insight, Hansen’s takes on the weekend's action have rendered the Scot an integral ingredient to the charismatic banter exuded from the MOTD pundits.

Rewind almost 20 years, however, and the temerity of Hansen’s judgement comes back to bite the former Liverpool player in the proverbial; a bite that still holds ramifications for Hansen to this day. One statement. A demeaning of what would become a dynasty. You would, claimed prophet Hansen, “win nothing with kids.”

Today the remark has assumed almost mythical stature amidst the echelons of the football structure. It serves as a beautiful reminder of the unpredictable, primal nature of the game we love. A game in which a team of home-grown players, signed as schoolboys, can set the blueprint for a period of success unparalleled in the history of English football.

“The Fledglings,” as that youthful early '90s United side were coined, are acknowledged as the first of what is now the three great teams of Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United era.

With the incessant passing of time setting its indomitable rate across the fabric of space, the era of the once Fledglings is almost at an end. Of the original’s only three now remain in the professional game.

The spine of that team trail blazed its legacy into English football folklore, winning an incredible seven of the first 10 Premiership seasons. David Beckham, Gary and Phil Neville, Nicky Butt, Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs. The wing wizards, the defensive rocks and the creative maestro’s; Manchester United and Sir Alex Ferguson taught the world just what was possible with kids.

By 2003—and with Beckham, the heir apparent and poster boy of the generation’s departure to the Galactico isle of Madrid—a palpable sense that the sun was setting on the Fledgling era descended over Old Trafford. After the subsequent departures of Butt to Newcastle a year later and Phil Neville’s move to Goodison Park and Everton in 2005, the most glorious chapter in United history was closed.

The three “fledglings” left at the club went on to achieve yet more success in servitude of the Red Devil, surrounded by a surfeit of the world’s most precocious talent, but this was a new team, the second great side of the Ferguson era. As fledglings their jobs were done.

While Gary Neville, the incumbent to the captain’s armband at Old Trafford after the retirement of the effervescent Roy Keane, noticeably stagnated as a footballer in his last few seasons, the same can't be said for his fledglings in arms.

If anything, Paul Scholes, and in particular Ryan Giggs, blossomed with age, laying testament to the old adage “age is just a number,” with prolonged periods of masterful play.

For those fans old enough to have bore witness to the inception of Neville’s United career, I am sure that his last appearance was hard to take. Being two at the time, I cannot class myself in said bracket, but even for me the sad ignominy of seeing United’s once great defender floundering, so shorn of pace, as West Brom tore him asunder, was hard to take.

It was no surprise, therefore, when the match proved to be Neville’s last as a professional footballer. The man who bled United throughout his fantastic 18-year career was all out of blood.

In typical understated fashion Paul Scholes, too, called time on his career at the end of the season, in the wake of United’s loss to Barcelona in the Champions league final. His retirement, although far less expected or welcomed than Neville’s, was indicative of the man. Understated and without a fanfare, Paul Scholes slipped into the relative anonymity that he craved.

And so, on curtain rise last weekend, only one name from that 1992 squad list appeared on its modern day predecessor. Ryan Giggs, the last of the fledglings.

To me it is rather ironic that this season will see the curtain fall for the last time on that great youth side of '92. Never before in my United patronage have I been able to bear witness to such a profligacy of young talent. From the ashes of their predecessors the phoenix of the new breed—the fledglings mark two—will rise.

Although possessing an altogether more cosmopolitan feel, the new breed hold a certain resonance to the men whose legacy it is upon which they will be measured.

The new dawn is rising and Phil Jones, Chris Smalling, Tom Cleverley, David De Gea, Rafael, Fabio and Danny Welbeck will be its harbingers. It is a familiar mix of flair, vision and grit, albeit with a rather higher set of numbers on the birth certificates.

I’m sure through the duration of this season in training, or in one of his inevitable excursions to the bench or stand, Ryan Giggs will allow himself to reminisce on a team long since expanded. A side for whom he now stands, the solitary memoriam for a time when nothing “could be won with kids.”

Only time will tell if the current breed will be able to truly emulate the legacy of that early '90s youth side. Indeed it will be interesting to see how the club adapts to the inevitable retirement of the great Sir Alex, one would assume in the not too distant future.

Next time you watch Match of the Day though, don’t look for Hansen to echo his earlier sentiments. I think he might have learned his lesson.