Giggs hangs up boots but story is far from over

George Best put it best, saying with that famous twinkle in his eye: "Maybe one day people will say I was another Ryan Giggs."

To those who follow Manchester United, there could be no higher praise, for in terms of skill Giggs was almost up there alongside Best while there was no contest when it came to athleticism, pace, and dead-balls, not to mention longevity.

More than 23 years after making his debut and over 1,000 appearances for club and country — 963 appearances for United, 64 for Wales and four for Great Britain — Giggs has called it a day to concentrate on becoming assistant manager at United to Louis van Gaal.

Along the way came 168 goals for United plus 13 Premier League titles, four FA Cups, four League Cups and two Champions Leagues, a quite astonishing haul of trophies and perhaps one that will never be matched in English football.

Giggs’ arrival on the scene in 1991 as a sharp-faced, whippet-legged 17-year-old with a magic wand for a left foot coincided with United’s start of the Ferguson glory years.

As part of the Class of ’92, Giggs had some fabulous talent to compete against and — as their slight elder — to inspire: not least Paul Scholes and David Beckham. By the treble-winning year of 1999 he was already a seasoned multi-trophy-winning left wing, coveted across Europe but determined to stay at Old Trafford. That FA Cup semi-final goal in 1999 is the moment fans of all clubs will remember most: picking up a loose pass from Arsenal’s Patrick Vieira and rampaging down the left flank to bury the ball past David Seaman.

By 2006, when that blistering pace was starting to wane and Cristiano Ronaldo had arrived on the scene, Giggs began to re-invent himself as a central midfielder — with such success that by 2011 he had made himself the first-choice partner for Michael Carrick in the centre as United racked up a 19th league title and reached the Champions League final.

Off the field, Giggs kept his head down when the likes of Beckham were courting the headlines — indeed his dislike of publicity saw him try and fail to secure a super-injunction to stop newspapers printing details of marital infidelities. Those lurid stories may have tarnished the image of many players, and, though it undeniably took the shine off that of a man who had become so universally admired that he was named BBC sports personality of the year in 2009, he managed to regain much of the admiration that he had lost.

The retirement of Ferguson was always going to be a difficult time for Giggs to negotiate as a player — there is more than a suspicion that he wishes he too had called it quits on a high.

Nevertheless, his determination to keep going as a player-coach, and then step into the breach after David Moyes was sacked, has stood him in good stead, with the reward being to be named assistant manager to new United boss Van Gaal.

United and Wales may never see the like of him again as a player, but be sure of one thing: the Giggs story is not over yet.