Eric Harrison was the Class of 92’s sergeant major at Manchester United

Back in the day when we hadn’t heard of any of them, the players who we would later label the ‘Class of 92’ used to do gym work as part of their training at Manchester United.

David Beckham, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Nicky Butt and Gary and Phil Neville were fit young athletes but they weren’t as fit as their coach.

‘Eric would come in and go on the bench press machine,’ recalled Giggs. ‘He would make sure everybody noticed him and he would not just lift the bar but the whole machine. He wanted to show us how tough he was.

Eric Harrison with the Class of 92 and the European Cup after Man United’s 1999 triumph

As Manchester United’s youth coach Harrison helped nurture (left to right) Ryan Giggs, Nicky Butt, David Beckham, Gary Neville, Phil Neville and Paul Scholes towards great careers. Terry Cooke (right) is the only player who did not go on to win the Champions League in 1999

‘Back then being at United was like being in the army and Eric was the sergeant major.’

These recollections – and there are many from the players that Eric Harrison brought through – are important because they speak to the other side of the great United youth coach who passed away on Wednesday night.

In conversation – and Eric would always pick up the phone to people wishing to talk about Manchester United – Harrison was a gentle, considerate man. Like many great coaches of young players, he never stopped caring for the lads who were once under his care, no matter how old they were.

‘If you see them, tell them I said hello,’ was one of his stock phrases.

But as a coach in his pomp, Harrison was cut very much from old-school cloth. Born in West Yorkshire, he was never properly coached as a footballer until the day he signed for Halifax. He was, like many of his generation, self-taught, his skills honed on the street outside his house, in the back yard and, when the weather was bad, inside the house itself, passing a ball back and forth off the wall at the foot of the stairs.

So it is not hard to imagine his disdain for any young player he encountered at United who may have arrived with anything resembling airs and graces.

‘I detest any footballer who does not give 100 per cent,’ he once said.

‘Professional footballers should get down on their hands and knees and thank god they are so lucky.

‘It angers me the way some players moan and groan.’

Harrison was brought to United by Ron Atkinson in the early 1980s and was subsequently described by the Old Trafford manager as ‘one of my best ever signings’, some accolade given that Atkinson also brought Bryan Robson to the club.

Harrison was a coach at United for over a quarter of a century. He is pictured here in 1981

Here Harrison sits on the Old Trafford bench with Ron Atkinson, who brought him to the club 

Sir Alex Ferguson (right) would be the manager to reap the rewards of Harrison’s great work

Harrison was an old-school football man from Yorkshire, who prized hard work over all 

Largely, it was Sir Alex Ferguson who was to reap the benefit and in many ways the two men were the same. Harrison shared Ferguson’s working-class upbringing but more importantly his belief that young players should be taught to be good men first and good footballers afterwards.

This, then, was at the heart of the Harrison philosophy, this was what lay at the very root of the tough love dished out on the fields of the Cliff, United’s old training ground.

Harrison’s relationship with Beckham and the rest endured to the day he died. Aware that he had been struck down by dementia they visited him together not long ago and they took cake.

In the thick of their development, though, Harrison was often the bad cop. On the first day of one pre-season, he told them they wouldn’t need their boots for three weeks. On another day, with snow thick on the ground in Manchester, the boys expected to be assigned gym work but were astonished when Harrison produced a rugby ball.

He loved them all, though. At least he did the ones who were happy to buy into his creed of sacrifice, humility and hard work.

Harrison had many proud days in football but few prouder than the night in the Nou Camp almost 20 years ago when a team packed full of his graduates beat Bayern Munich to win the Champions League.

‘I had been privileged to be at the helm as they had turned from boys into true men, achievers,’ he reflected years later.

‘That night, as the celebrations got underway, David, Ryan, Paul and the Neville brothers sought me out to share their joy.

‘How did I feel? Thrilled? Yes. Flattered? Yes. Happy. But more than anything I thought to myself: “What a lucky man.”‘

The team he coached to glory in the 1992 FA Youth Cup became the backbone of United’s first team for many years; (back row, left-right) Ben Thornley, Butt, Gary Neville, Simon Davies, Chris Casper, Kevin Pilkington, Keith Gillespie, (front row, left-right) John O’Kane, Robbie Savage, George Switzer, Giggs, Beckham, Colin McKee

United celebrated perhaps their greatest night in the Nou Camp seven years later