From United to Wrexham

“If you ever said to me years ago that I was going to be a professional footballer, I’d have said you were joking.” Wrexham’s Brian Carey. By Liam Mackey.

WREXHAM’S Brian Carey was back home in his native Cork recently, availing of a Saturday off to attend the eircom/soccer writers awards dinner and catch up with old footballing friends. In truth, it wasn’t a bad day to be away from the office - as the veteran centre-half was en route to Ireland, Wrexham were getting walloped 5-1 by Tranmere.

But then there aren’t too many good days at the Racecourse Ground just now. Plunged into administration, subsequently docked ten league points and even threatened with the loss of their home, Wrexham are currently struggling in the basement of League 1, as they attempt to find a way out of the worst crisis in the club’s history.

After nine full seasons at Wrexham, centre-half Carey is also facing a personal battle to prolong his career beyond football’s normal sell-by date. A persistent knee injury has kept him out of the game since last October and, at 37 next May, he knows that it could even signal the abrupt termination of his playing days. But if at all possible, he’s determined to get in at least one more season after this one, before finally hanging up his boots on a career that has taken him from Cork City to Manchester United, brought three Irish caps and left imperishable memories of an FA Cup sensation at Wrexham and a play-off victory at Wembley which took Leicester City, and Carey, into the Premiership.

And if Brian Carey does overcome his current problems to see out his football career on his own terms, it will be in keeping with the life of a player and a person of rare character - someone who, in turn, attributes some of his own best qualities to the enduring influence of Alex Ferguson and the high standards with which Old Trafford is synonymous. Listening to Carey speak about his days in Manchester is to be left in no doubt that, irrespective of the extent of Chelsea’s current lead in the Premiership, a United team under Alex Ferguson will never throw in the towel.

It was after impressing for Cork City in their run to the FAI Cup Final in 1989, that Brian Carey’s name began to be linked with clubs like Arsenal, Celtic and Manchester United. Carey himself wasn’t convinced. While playing for City, he had been studying construction economics in Cork and fully expected that his career path would take him to the building sites of Britain or America.

“If you ever said to me years ago that I was going to be a professional footballer, and actually make my living playing football, I’d have said you were joking,” he reflects now. “I never really thought I’d go on and do it.”

But one morning that summer Brian got a call that would change his life. He was having a lie-in when his mother came to the bedroom door and told him that Alex Ferguson was on the phone. The United manager didn’t beat about the bush: he told Carey that he wanted him to come straight over to Old Trafford. As level-headed then as he is now, Carey replied by telling the Manchester United manager that unfortunately this would not be possible: he had exams coming up that summer, the culmination of three years of study, and he wasn’t prepared to miss those.

“Looking back,” Carey laughs now, “he must have thought, ‘the cheek of him, this young student from Cork telling me no’.”

But Alex Ferguson understood, Carey sat his exams and the following August, having started pre-season back at Cork City, he was once again contacted by United. The deal was on again; Brian Carey was off to Old Trafford.

In four seasons with Manchester United, he was a regular in the reserves and featured in a number of first team squads, but the closest he ever came to a competitive start was a place on the bench for an FA Cup tie against Sheffield United. He may not have seen action on the pitch that day, but he saw plenty in the dressing room after United had lost the game, Steve Bruce failing from the spot.

Carey watched as Alex Ferguson turned on the hairdryer, berating his captain for missing the penalty. “I didn’t miss it,” Bruce unwisely pleaded, “I hit the post.” Fergie set the appliance to sarcasm mode: “Oh well done, you hit the post...” Bruce blushed while everyone else cringed.

The story is told with a chuckle now, for Carey is not one to tolerate crude caricature of Fergie as a bullying hothead. His respect for the man and his methods runs deep.

“You hear talk all the time about temperament, character, desire, will to win, all those words - those are things all of his players have,” he says. “That’s the thing about being a Man United player - there are some players who go there who can’t hack it, who can’t handle that pressure every week. And I didn’t just learn about football from him, I learned things about life and how to behave. And not in a totally disciplinarian way either. Yes, the players who make it at United all have ability and can all play, but the one word that stands out from Old Trafford is ‘character’. It was definitely character-building for me.”

The elite status which came with being an Irish Red - and his involvement in high profile games like Dave O’ Leary’s testimonial at Highbury - also helped Carey secure international honours. “Really, the pinnacle of my whole career,” is how he describes his three caps in the early nineties, gained in friendlies against the USA, Russia and Wales - the latter a game in which he came up against United legend Mark Hughes.

And in an age when club too frequently takes precedence over country in football, it’s refreshing to hear Brian Carey recall the “proudest moment” of them all.

“That was when I played for the U-21s as an over-age player against Switzerland at Tolka Park. I was a late-developer, and I hadn’t played any under age internationals, so this was my first time wearing the green and standing there for the national anthem - that was a real shiver up the spine moment. And afterwards, I can remember Jack Charlton saying to me how well I’d done. And from that I got brought up to the senior squad. You can’t ask for much more than that.”

Except, maybe, the same again, please. Unfortunately, reserve team football, even at Old Trafford, and then football in the lower leagues, didn’t provide a credible platform for furthering his international career. Although he was named in a number of Jack Charlton’s squads, Carey was out of the running by the time the World Cup in 1994 came around, leaving him to think only of what might have been.

“To play regularly for your country, or to captain your country - that must be the pinnacle,” he muses. “I have so much admiration for anyone who’s done that, be it Keane or Cunningham or whoever. But it wasn’t to be for me and I just got on with my career.”

That career may not have been the most glamorous but it certainly wasn’t without its glory days, such as victory over Derby County in a First Division play-off at a packed Wembley, which took Leicester up into the Premiership under Brian Little. Carey had gone to Filbert Street, despite Alex Ferguson’s offer of an extension to his contract, because he realised that his chances of breaking up the Bruce-Pallister partnership were slim.

From Leicester, where he also had a spell under Martin O’ Neill - who impressed him with his ability to “get inside players’ heads” - Carey moved down the league to Wrexham, where a Ferguson connection is maintained to this day in the form of the team captain, son Darren, who is also one of Brian’s closest friends. The move was also a homecoming of sorts, since it was while on loan with the club from United that Carey had enjoyed one of his most memorable games.

That was back in January 1991 when the Racecourse Ground rejoiced and the wider world of football reeled, as Wrexham dumped mighty Arsenal out of the FA Cup. Carey’s contribution was to help shackle top Gunners Alan Smith and Kevin Campbell on a day when the minnows came back from a goal down to win 2-1 and fashion one of the most celebrated cup upsets in history.

Such memories are now helping to sustain the fans through a dark time for Wrexham, which began when property developers who had bought the club and the freehold to the ground - for a miserly £300,000 - threatened to evict them at the end of this season. Failure to pay debts of nearly £1 million to the Inland Revenue has now seen the club go into administration and suffer a crippling 10 point deduction. That leaves them facing relegation at a time when morale among the staff and players is understandably low. Still, hope springs eternal and Carey remains confident that a buyer with the best interests of the club at heart can be found to help stop the rot and make the most of a place which has always been well-regarded for its stadium, training ground and school of excellence.

“I would be fairly confident but you can’t be sure until the whole thing is in safe hands,” says Carey. “It really has been an awful shame. Since the ten points have gone, heads have dropped dramatically. I’ve always said that shouldn’t matter when you get on the pitch, that professional pride should come into play. But there are bound to be players wanting to get away. But that’s only human nature, lads are concerned about the future. The club has been run like a corner shop over the years and the best we can hope for now is that it moves forward from this. Maybe we’ll be able to look back and say, that was awful, but it was a turning point.”

He remains optimistic too that his current injury problem can be rectified. Back in August, after playing four games in ten days - “That’s too much to ask of anybody, never mind someone of my age” - Carey began to feel stiffness in his left knee. It seemed that only a minor operation would be required - what is referred to in football as “cleaning out” or “flushing out” the knee.

Those who are keen to know more, read on; the squeamish might prefer to look away now.

Says Carey: “The best way to describe it to people is - you know if you have a leg of chicken and when you get the meat off the chicken, there’s like a shiny surface on the bone? Well that’s called articular cartilage and that protects the bone. That can get damaged every now and again and you get bits flaking off. So they do micro-surgery, go in and virtually chew the bits off with the tools.”

Which is what the player duly underwent, but when he continued to feel pain in the kneecap, he went back to Dai Rees, a renowned surgeon who treats many of the top players in the Premiership. This time, a scan revealed a more serious problem - bruising and bleeding on the bone itself.

As a result, Carey hasn’t played in over three months, during which time he has been restricted to swimming and light work in the gym.

Married to Debbie and the father of young children, he is aware that the stakes are higher than merely being able to see out another season or two as a professional footballer. “For the sake of another six or 18 months, I don’t want to be finishing football and not to be able to walk down the stairs,” he says. So, for now, it’s a matter of waiting and hoping.

Meantime, having gained his coaching badges, he puts them to good use by training an U-13 team twice a week and doubling up as physio for the matches on Sunday mornings - although recently he found himself having to walk, rather than run on, with the bag. Three years’ work to attain a sports science degree has also enhanced his coaching credentials and, he believes, contributed to his own longevity as a player, giving him a greater understanding of fitness, diet, nutrition, psychology and physiology. “It’s all about how to prepare properly,” he says, unconsciously echoing the mantra of another Cork footballer of note.

But how will he put all this experience to use in the future?

“Ideally, I think I would like to stay in the game - but I’d hate to have to rely on it,” he says. “Because you know what football is like. I’d hate to have to do it for the wrong reason. I really enjoy working with the youngsters but I’ll wait and see what happens in the next few months. I’ve given it until the end of this month but I won’t get too downhearted if it takes till the end of February. But if that doesn’t work out, I think it’ll be time to make a couple of decisions.”