Rehab Retreats sat down with Davide Fevre for the Republik of Mancunia’s 2022/23 Charity Season Preview. The book is available on Kindle from Amazon UK, US, Canada, India, Australia, Germany and Mexico.
RR: What is your most memorable memory from your time at Utd?
DF: Getting Roy Keane back playing. Then his first goal in the Champions League away at Brondby, 6-0.
RR: Obviously there is an infamous backstory to that injury and you were pitch side for it. What happened from your point of view?
DF: I didn't hear what Haaland said to him as I was on the touch line and I just came on to take him off. Roy was obviously not happy with Alfie.
We were playing Everton on the Wednesday night and it was my first year at United so it was a big shout for me to say, look, he’s not gonna be fit. I can remember assessing him and making the decision. I thought, right, let me go speak to somebody. I knew Terry Crystal, the Leeds doctor from my Rugby days so I asked him for a second opinion as an ACL in those days, to such a big player was a huge call. He came in, looked and said I wouldn't disagree with you. So that was it.
RR: What was the most uncomfortable situation you were in while you're at United?
DF: When I first looked at the gym at the training ground.
It had just had a load of new kit put and as gyms did at that time, it was all about the look of it without much thought for function. During my first week the Gaffer was walking me around and asked what I thought of the new kit.
My answer was “It’s Shit”.
Gaffer: “What do you mean?
I said “Look at Mark Hughes. I've watched Hughesy, he just pushes players off. Everything you've put in that gym pulls things towards you”
Gaffer: “What do you want then?
DF: “500 quid for boxing bags, gloves and pads”
Everything gets installed,I go in the next morning and the car park guy tells me the Gaffer is fuming with the new kit. I go in and look at it and it all looks perfect: gloves are laid out, bags are up on the wall, all ready out for the first session. I couldn't see a problem so I go to see the Gaffer and asked what the problem was. He looked at me and said “Get in that efffing room and have a look”.
So I'm thinking it's the wrong colour. You know, Celtic green or City blue. But, no, it's all red and white, not a problem. So I go back to the Gaffer again.
This time he frog matches me down to the gym. I have a closer look and the company that sent out the kit,their company name was ‘Alex’ and it was written across all the punch bags and all the pads.
It was as if I had put the gaffers name on it. I thought, you know what? I could be out here and then he started laughing. He was great with it, but I'll be honest for that first minute I was absolutely thinking I'm out of a job here.
RR: Which player had the biggest impact on you during your time at United?
DF: There were a few. I had a great relationship with Gary Pallister. It wasn’t due to severity of injury, just he needed that reassurance every day. He'd had a spinal problem. He was playing at top level and he just needed that time with you. It wasn't necessarily always what you did with him. He was just managing him correctly, like how we are now big on load management as he was a player in his early thirties but couldn't play three games in a week.
Roy was another, we are still close in terms of the time we spent together, you know, we, we sort of lived together for nine months.
So it, so in that situation, I think Roy would be the biggest impact.
RR: What was the biggest change in you during your time at Utd?
DF: Realising that what I’d learned in Rugby League was a massive impact on what I did in football, because Rugby League was actually head of where football was. I brought in things that I thought were pretty logical, like the gym story, and it actually made my job fairly easy. That's not trying to sound arrogant, but I learned so much from rugby.
With rehab skills, I brought in stuff like using tackle bag shields, all stuff I’d done in rugby league. The lads just wanted that cause they realised it was a collision support.
Cause at the grounding I'd had in, in the other sport. And I think probably now when I'm looking at people and I'm interviewing people for jobs and so. That does give me a little tick, but if somebody's worked in rugby, they've coped with the trauma of the pitch side stuff and they know how to deal with that type of athlete.
RR: What was the biggest change in the club while you were there?
DF: I think realising where physio was. Previously it was thought to be a sponge man that would come and do basic care of the injury. So, realising that we didn't have Strength and Conditioning or Fitness coaches. That became my job as well. So it was that recognition that the physio actually's gonna go out, do all the outdoor rehab and the inside stuff. That's where it was 20 odd years ago.
I think the club accepted that culture and when they realised that it didn't cost a lot of in terms of their financial output to improve it. They hadn't realised the importance of it but the Gaffer and the Chairman were very good that way.
RR: How did you feel when you got the United job?
DF: I didn't really want the job to start with; I wanted to go to Rugby League full time as that was my big, enjoyable thing. My idea was to go for the interview, not get offered at the job, but then to be able to go to the Wigan chairman and explain I've been offered some work at United.
At the interview I realised that 20 minutes in, I might have a chance at it. I still had the conversation with the chairman at Wigan and he was livid with me for actually looking for another job but Wigan was only a part-time job alongside my hospital work.
Going in, because of my work in Rugby League and some of the players I worked with there were friends with some of the United lads like Incey and Giggsy. and I wasn't a football fan, it actually made the job again to support what you said before made my job easier.
That helped me massive because as soon as you won Giggsy and Incey over, the rest followed.