Collina

From Gary and Phil's diary from the 1997/98 season, very funny book, btw:

11th of August, Phil Neville:
I went to Old Trafford this morning, and bumped into Henning Berg in the toilet.
"All right there! 'ave you signed for us or something?"
"Yes, I've just done it! Its all been hush-hush."

25th of August, Phil Neville:
There was an emphasis on shooting this morning. The manager wants us to sharpen up and get more shots in on goal. I never score, I just get in the way and get hit a lot!
I haven't scored for the first team yet, but I did hit the post on my debut against Wrexham over two years ago. Gary scored his first one last year against Middlesbrough and likes to have a pop at me about not managing it yet. On saturday, he was laughing because his odds on scoring were a lot shorter than mine - Gary was 40-1 and I was 60-1! My dad always has a fiver on me scoring and it's getting expensive.

24th of September, Gary Neville:
Their [Chelsea's] chairman, Ken Bates, has also been quoted as saying that we are just a club from the slum side of Manchester. To me, Chelsea could move their stadium to the middle of Harrods and win fifteen championships on the trot, and even if you moved Old Trafford to downtown Beirut they still wouldn't be as big as us.

28th of October, Gary Neville:
Phillip is one of the most welcoming people to new players - he's foreign-daft. Scholesy is sure Phil's a foreigner himself. He went out with Jordi Cruyff last night. I'm sure they bored each other to death!

29th of October, Gary Neville:
Phil did a horrendous tackle on Nicky Butt during the practice match this morning. It put them both in the treatment room, but they're PL now. The Gaffer stopped the tackling after that.
Phil was feeling a bit guilty. When I went into the treatment room, I told Butty, "You don't mess with the Nevilles!" It's a good job he had two bags of ice on his leg or he would have hit me.

30th of October, Phil Neville:
My shin was still a bit sore after yesterday, but both Nicky and I trained. Nicky was blaming me and promised to 'do' me. He was only joking ... I think.

1st of November, Phil Neville:
When we arrived at the Cliff, we were told there was a meeting. That meant the team was going to be announced for Wednesday's game against Feyenoord, and Denis was fit so I wasn't confident. When Kiddo came down and said "Ole, the Gaffer wants to speak to you," I thought "He's not told me, so I should be all right." Then Kiddo came back and said, "You as well, Phil" so I knew I was gone.
I walked into the Boss's room and we just looked at each and burst out laughing. We both knew the score. He said how well I've been playing recently and not to worry about anything. I'll be back in.

4th of November, Phil Neville:
The night before an away European match is alwats probably the best training session ever, because everyone is so excited and the ground is always good.
Unfortunately, I embarrased myself. I went to cross the ball with my left foot but my right foot touched the ball first, so I completely missed. Everyone collapsed on the floor laughing. The club video magazine guy was filming and he said it was hit duty to show it. So I threatened him with legal action.

5th of November, Gary Neville (after a match against Feyenoord where the Feyenoord players did nothing else than kicking United players and cheating):
At the final whistle, the gaffer was shouting, "Get off the pitch! Don't swap shirts with them! They don't deserve to wear the United shirt!"

10th of November, Gary Neville:
The police received a complaint from an Arsenal fan about Teddy Sheringham kissing his shirt after scoring yesterday. Ridiculous. Listen to the stick players get off fans. Can you imagine Teddy going to the police station after the game at Spurs in August and saying, "Excuse me, I'd like to make a complaint against the White Hart Lane crowd"?

15th of November, Phil Neville:
Scholesy put me through, but my shot nearly hit the corner flag. I turned around and he was laughing at me!

22nd of November, Gary Neville:
I had an absolute nightmare from start to finish! I didn't make any mistakes, but my distribution was non-existent. Every time I got the ball, all I could see was blue. I had a shooting chance in the first half and I thought, "Right, here we go!" My shot went miles wide.
At half time the Gaffer wasn't happy. He turned to me and said, "Gary Neville, do you know we're playing in red? And when are you ever going to score from thirty yards?"

27th of November, Phil Neville:
Teddy had a couple of chances, and I had a horrible shot. My only excuse is that I was dazzled by the floodlights ... honest! Fortunately, Ryan had an even worse effort so everyone forgot about mine. (...) I got a bang in the teeth and an elbow in the eye and had to off with blurred vision, so I didn't see the last two goals - an own goal and Teddy's great strike - until the highlights programme.
As I walked off the pitch with the Doc, he said, "Did you have blurred vision then you took that shot?" Very funny.

6th of December, Phil Neville:
The boss was really happy after the game. He loves winning at Anfield. When ha came in the dressing room he shook everyone's hand and hugged everyone. We are normally in on a sunday before a European game, but we asked, "Boss, do we get a day off tomorrow?"
"No way, you've done nothing yet," he said, and brought us back down to earth.
As we got on the coach, the Gaffer asked the masseur Jimmy Curran how the B team had got on against Man City that morning. He was ecstatic when Jimmy said they had won 3-2. That just sums him up. Even when the first team wins at Anfield, he's still looking to the future. He doesn't want to lose at any level.

16th of December, Gary Neville:
A woman came up to our table while we were eating and asked Becks for a kiss. When he said no, she asked and I refused as well.
"I'm not going to tell the News of the World, you know," she said. "Has it occured to you that it might not be the fact that you're going to the News of the World that's bothering us?" I replied. "It might just be that we don't want to kiss you."
She screamed and stormed off.

10th of January, Gary Neville (after a 2-0 win against Tottenham):
The manager came into the dressing room afterwards and said, "You lot will get football banned if you carry on playing like that, it was terrible to watch!" He was laughing.

19th January, Phil Neville:
Gary was 66-1 in the programme to score the first goal, and in the second half he had a shot that went miles over. The manager turned around to us and said, "More like bloody 166-1!"

29th of January, Gary Neville: (Fergie didn't like that his players played golf, of injury reasons))
Tonight, Ryan and I went with Alex Ferguson to St Luke's church in Salford. (...) It was a good evening, but Giggsy and I got totally stitched up. A local artist called Harold Riley, another friend of the Gaffer, was also there. Harold does sketches for The Belfry Golf Club and the first thing he said to us when he came up to us was, "When you were playing golf down at the Belfry last week ..."
Our anti-golf Gaffer shot Ryan and I a disapproving look.
Later on, the Reverend's speech only made matters worse. He said the greatest thing that Alex Ferguson had brought to Manchester United was team spirit. The girls who work behind the bar at the pub "where the players regularly go for their team meeting" had told him that they couldn't believe how well we all got on.
Uh-oh! The Gaffer isn't supposed to know about our "team meetings". He looked round at Giggsy and me and said, "The pub, eh?"
"Yeah, Gaffer. Great food!" replied Ryan.

30th of January, Phil Neville:
In the practise match, the bibs beat Saturday's team 1-0 and I scored the winning goal. From a corner it hit my chest and went in, but they said I'd handled it. Giggsy blasted the ball at me and called me a cheat. Big Peter wasnt't happy either. We do shooting practise every day and that was the first I've ever put past him! I think he only really tries when Gary or I are shooting. I enjoyed rubbing it in, celebrating like it was a Cup Final winner.

8th of February, Gary Neville: (who had a rough clash with Hughes earlier in the season)
I bumped into Mark Hughes at Heathrow and we had a laugh about our battle at Stamford Bridge in January. "I'd kick my own grandmother if she was in my way on a football pitch," laughed Sparky.