A HIGHLY RESPECTED coach who guided a succession of young hopefuls from Manchester United’s youth ranks through to their first team once aimed to re-ignite his playing career at Brighton.
Paul McGuinness, son of former United player and manager Wilf, was in charge of the United side (that included Paul Pogba, Jesse Lingard and Michael Keane) who won the FA Youth Cup in 2011, and Danny Welbeck and Tom Cleverley also emerged under his guidance.
Wind the clock back to the autumn of 1990, though, and McGuinness, the 24-year-old captain of United’s reserve side in 1989-90, arrived on loan on the south coast.
Albion boss Barry Lloyd would go on to take Albion to Wembley for a play-off final against Neil Warnock’s Notts County the following May.
But in October and November Lloyd was still casting around to see who might supplement Albion’s efforts to get among the division’s pacesetters, and McGuinness had lost his starting berth in United’s Central League side.
McGuinness made his debut for the reserves in a 3-0 defeat away to Crystal Palace. He also played right-back in a 2-1 defeat against QPR Reserves at the Goldstone, in a side in which Soviet international Igor Gurinovich (playing up front with new arrival Bryan Wade) scored Albion’s goal.
In those days of two subs, McGuinness was selected on the bench for five first team games in succession. But he was never put on and, after a 2-1 defeat away to West Ham, he went back to United.
Born in Manchester on 2 March 1966, McGuinness aspired to follow in his dad’s footsteps, but he found him a hard taskmaster and an ultimate competitor, something he reckoned dated back to an upbringing by Sir Matt Busby’s right-hand man Jimmy Murphy.
“The standards were relentless,” McGuinness told manutd.com. “In a primary school match, I scored 10 goals and my main memory of the day is getting an absolute b******ing for leaving mud in the bath afterwards and not sticking to the right standards. To this day, I rinse the bath and shower down afterwards, every single time!
He continued: “I scored a hat-trick in a cup final and when I came off, he told me off for remonstrating with the referee during the game.”
McGuinness declared: “I didn’t want to be a manager because, over time, dad’s experiences really put me off it, but every school holidays I’d be with him at whatever club he was with at the time.
“At York, Hull and Bury, I’d go and join in with the apprentices while he worked. I’d be 12 playing with 16-year-olds, 14 playing with the reserves, 16 training with the first team.
“Just having him as my dad gave me a massive head start when it came to coaching. He’d take me to games and tell me to pick out the best players and explain why, and he’d always study what was happening in the game, and tell me what was going to happen next, and he was always right.
“He’d tell me who was going to get booked, or if a team was over-committing and leaving themselves prone to conceding, and he was always right. That really helped me learn the game at a young age.”
Not to mention the unbelievable experience of getting to play alongside some of United’s biggest household names from their golden era.
“When I was a teenager, there used to be charity games with United, City, Piccadilly Radio and all sorts,” McGuinness recalled. “The ex-players were all in their 40s, and dad would tell me to come along and bring my boots.
“I’d almost always get some playing time, and I ended up playing with Bobby Charlton, George Best, Nobby Stiles, Paddy Crerand, David Sadler, Alex Stepney, but also the City legends too, like Colin Bell, Mike Summerbee, Franny Lee, Tony Book, Glyn Pardoe. It was just incredible.
“This was sometimes just on school fields or non-league grounds, and Bobby was just awesome in every single game. He scored three or four every time.”
Eventually the young McGuinness got the chance to fulfil his dream when he got taken on by United. He was a youth team player between 1982 and 1984 and then spent two years as a professional at Old Trafford, playing alongside Paul McGrath, Kevin Moran, Mark Hughes, Clayton Blackmore, Frank Stapleton and Alan Brazil.
He recounted the circumstances when paying tribute to Eric Harrison, the acclaimed founder of United’s ‘Class of ‘92’, who died in February 2019. “Eric was fundamental in my career as both a player and then for many years as a coach,” McGuinness told traininggroundguru. “I can still vividly remember the moment I convinced him I should get a first pro contract with Manchester United.
“We were playing 6 v 6 on a full-length pitch at The Cliff with no goalkeepers. You could only score if you were inside the six-yard box, which made it a real test of character.
“A player on the opposition team broke free from deep and I chased him all the way back and slide tackled him before he was about to shoot.
“Eric stopped the game. ‘Now that is what we want.’ That got me a two-year contract at the age of 17.”
Perhaps somewhat unusually at that time, McGuinness was also determined to get an education as well as pursue his professional football dream, and he took a degree in PE and Sports Science at Loughborough University.
Having studied under the tutelage of Mike ‘Doc’ Holliday, McGuinness showed his gratitude in subsequent years by taking United academy teams to play matches against the university’s football side.
When that first United contract came to an end in 1986, McGuinness tried his luck with Crewe Alexandra and he played in 13 matches for Dario Gradi’s side in the 1986-87 season.
His studies completed, McGuinness admitted his return to United happened almost by chance.
“This was the time of the ‘Fergie Fledglings’ and I popped into the training ground one day to say hello,” he told traininggroundguru. “ ‘You could have played for the reserves last night,’ Eric said, and I ended up playing the next few games for them. It went from there and Sir Alex Ferguson gave me another contract for a couple of years.”
It was during the second year of that deal that he joined the Albion on loan and the following year he switched to Bury, although he didn’t play any league games for them. Eventually he moved on to Chester City and played in seven matches for Harry McNally’s side.
“Eric got me back in at United after that, first as the club’s welfare officer and then as Centre of Excellence Director,” McGuiness recounted. “He was a constant mentor and you couldn’t help but learn from him.”
He also worked with Nobby Stiles and took over as head of the centre of excellence from the World Cup winner in 1994.
McGuinness has clearly spent a long time absorbing advice and in that manutd.com interview recounted another anecdote about his father.
“When I was a kid, dad would have me shoot from the halfway line, time after time. Eventually, in a university game, I scored from the kick-off with one of those shots and he was there. I was so made up with that.
“He was forever trying to get you to try something different and that stuck with me in my coaching. I had Ollie Norwood trying that from the kick-off, or I’d tell Fraizer Campbell or Marcus Rashford to dribble towards goal straight from the kick-off. Just try something different.
“For me, it was about the spirit of football, something which I talk about a lot to this day, and that’s something that my dad has always embodied.”
It was obviously quite an emotional moment when United finally parted company with McGuinness in February 2016. He told the Manchester Evening News: “It has been an honour and a privilege to follow in my father Wilf’s footsteps and to serve Manchester United in a variety of roles for a total of 28 years.
“To have seen 86 Academy players develop to make their debut for the first team and 23 to become full internationals has been thoroughly rewarding.
“I have especially enjoyed working behind the scenes with devoted colleagues, nurturing and coaching young players to reach their potential.
“I will be forever grateful to Sir Alex Ferguson for making my dreams come true and inviting me to represent Manchester United as a player and for the last 23 years as a proud member of staff.”
McGuinness has frequently shared his knowledge and coaching experience at seminars and online in interviews and podcasts. For example, he told fourfourtwo.com: “One of the first things we look at in young players is how they move with and without the ball.
“You can never be certain, but it gives us a good idea whether they will go on to become athletic. I have seen many talented youngsters who are technically very good but are finished by 12 or 13 because athletically they are not quite good enough.”
Not the case with Rashford, though. “Marcus was a great mover, he was very quick and had a great flow about him,” said the coach.
United built several cage pitches to recreate school playground learning, where older and younger players would compete in small spaces. “They would play 8v8 or 7v7 to increase their speed of thought and improve their skills,” said McGuinness. “At 12, Rashford was playing cage football with Paul Pogba, Jesse Lingard and Ravel Morrison, who were 16.
“He learned from them, but he could also express himself more. With his own age group he might only play a single one one-two, but with Pogba, he could play two or three.”
Scott McTominay is among the current crop of United players to have acknowledged McGuinness’ influence on his career. “We were always brought up to have an elite mentality,” he told manutd.com. “That’s one of the most important things for Paul McGuinness and Warren Joyce – how strong you are in games when it might not be going so well. You have to keep all the right habits off the pitch as well, which I’ve completely bought into from Paul and Warren.
“That was probably one of the best things I’ve done: listening and learning from everything they’ve said and trying to put it into the first team.”
In October 2017, McGuinness was appointed national coach developer by the FA and in December 2021 he became head of academy player development at Leicester City.
He had overall responsibility for players from the under nines through to the under 18s, with a brief to ensure players were ready for the transition to the under 23s and the first-team squad. But in September 2022, it was reported he had stepped down from the role to help care for his father who, like several players of that generation, had dementia.
More than 19,000 followers on Twitter can see on McGuinness’ timeline an appreciation of the finer arts of football and memories of his dad Wilf’s playing and coaching career.
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