An excerpt from my time when I was playing for United... Great book by Wayne Barton!!! Perhaps United’s policy in the early years after the turn of the century to recruit a lot of talented young players from overseas was also counting against them in terms of settling in. This was proven by the cosmopolitan background of the people Markus found himself sharing his time with in the early months. “I was in digs with Florent N’Galula who became a good friend. I couldn’t speak the language properly but he helped me settle as much as possible, and Danny Simpson came into digs as well and he really helped. When I returned after the summer holiday in 2004, Gerard Pique was living next door to me! From the first moment, we had a great connection, we were similar characters and in a similar position. He really helped me, as did Giuseppe Rossi, and those two became my biggest friends and have remained so ever since.” British football culture and the behavioural culture of teenagers in the country is much different to how it is on the continent, yet Markus insists that this presented no significant obstacle. “The only weird thing was the cars driving on the other side of the road!”, Markus laughs. “Other than that everything was fine, as England is a great place to live and not that different to Germany. There were plenty of things to see and do, particularly in a city like Manchester. I absolutely loved the city from the first minute, though I did have some trouble learning the language and understanding the Mancunian accent! I got to terms with it after the first year, I saw that all as possibly the biggest thing I ever achieved.” It showed great character for Markus to not give in - others in the same situation might well have found it easier to stay at home and not return at all. The club stood by him after the early setback, but this wasn’t a surprise given their commitment to bringing through young players. “Everyone told me when I signed that I was joining the list of great players who came through the ranks and it was always something I wanted to follow, something I wanted to achieve. Nowadays it’s more difficult to achieve something like that because the game has changed so much - the step from youth team to professional football is much tougher. There’ll always be one or two breaking through if it’s a good year but you’ll never see the likes of 1992 again. The ones breaking through now don’t immediately go into the first team, they have to have loan spells to develop. Even when they get back to the club, they need to be lucky that they’re there at the right time and play in the right position. Things have changed, the pace of the game has got quicker, but even so I knew that being at United, with their tradition, it was something special.” Markus also has fond memories of those tasked with the development of the next generation. “I was with Choccy (Brian McClair) and it wasn’t easy understanding his Scottish accent, you know!,” he laughs. “But he was great as he let us express ourselves and find our own way as players. He wasn’t pushing us to play in a certain way which was great for us to be able to develop naturally, make our own mistakes and learn from them.” Rene Meulensteen and Paul McGuinness were also helping to look after the younger players. “Rene was like a father to me, we had a special connection. He was completely different to Choccy! It’s quite hard to be warm with a guy like Choccy, but it was very different with Rene. Rene would always tell me what he thought of me as a player and a human being and I really appreciated that; unfortunately, I only spent a year with him and I would have liked to have spent more time with him but that’s football, you can’t choose your coaches! I’m still in touch with him to this day which shows how great he is as a person,” says Markus. Having suffered the injury, Markus bypassed an academy education at United almost by default, featuring in only one Youth Cup game - as a substitute in a win over Norwich City - instead being more or less thrust right into the reserves, but with concerns over the injury still dogging him, he felt as if his second year didn’t go as well as it could or should have. “I had to find my form and develop my own style of play; before, I’d never really thought about it, I just played naturally, but after I came back I started to think about things more. Things like ‘What did I do before my injury?’. That is the worst thing you can do in football, question yourself, because you make decisions late and it doesn’t go well. It was frustrating, for most of the second year I felt as if my football talent wasn’t there anymore, or that I couldn’t play the same way I did before I got injured.” At the end of the season, United and Neumayr went to play in the Blue Star tournament in Zurich. “I just played without thinking; we won the tournament and I was really happy with my contribution. My form felt good, I’d got my natural body shape back to what I wanted it to be. I came back after that summer and Rene was in charge of the reserve team, because Ricky Sbragia had left to go to Bolton. As I’ve said, I had a good connection with Rene - David Fox left, and he was captain of the reserves, so I was given the honour and it was a massive, massive boost for me. It was an achievement for the hard work I’d put in in the second year and it inspired me to play well.” The Manchester United reserve team of 2005/2006 was full of talent and rightly swept the board in terms of trophies. Gerard Pique, Jonny Evans, Kieron Richardson, Darron Gibson, Giuseppe Rossi were all part of the team that Markus captained and in the early stages of that campaign, Markus was often the best player on the pitch, directing and running the play with an intelligence and composure rarely seen in a 19 year old. “Gerard and Giuseppe were brilliant for us as we won everything we possibly could”, says Neumayr. “We played fantastic football, often winning with big margins, and it was a great experience to play in a team full of players you knew would go on to play in the Premier League and, in Gerard’s case, become one of the best in the world in his position.” 2005 had gotten gradually better for Markus on the pitch but it was very much an “annus horribilis” for Manchester United. Having witnessed a newly rich Chelsea storm to the Premier League title, the club suffered the blow of an FA Cup penalty shoot out defeat to Arsenal in a game they dominated and should have won. Off the pitch, there was a controversial takeover that was met with opposition and caused much division, while later in the year, Roy Keane would be shown the door after criticising the ability of the younger players at the club in a never shown interview with the club’s internal television studio. To an observer it could - and did - appear to be a tumultuous time, but Markus insists it didn’t affect the mood inside the club or with the players Keane allegedly tore into. “As a young player, you honestly don’t let that kind of thing affect you, you don’t think about these things,” insists Markus. “You think about your own development, you don’t concentrate on the business side. We realised there was a lot of tension around the club but it didn’t play on our minds - to us, inside the club, it didn’t affect the way we approached our games or anything like that. We were professional footballers but not players for the first team, maybe it might have been different to those in the first team.” On Keane? “Every person has their own perspective and opinion of others but again, it wasn’t anything we could control. I’m not sure what he said, only what he was supposed to have said, so it’s difficult to say it would cause any issue and I didn’t pay too much attention to that. There was no bigger picture for me, I was only concerned with myself.” Keane’s departure highlighted a growing concern for United; not long after the Irishman left, Paul Scholes suffered an eye injury and there was doubt whether he would return at all, never mind to the level he had played at. Darren Fletcher was growing but was used on the right side as often as he was in the middle of the pitch - United would line up with John O’Shea and Ryan Giggs as their central midfield pairing on a number of occasions. In that circumstance, with Neumayr performing well as a central midfielder in a reserve team regularly scoring four or more goals, he understandably felt he might get a chance to step up. “I was training with the first team regularly, everyone was encouraging me with my development and the senior players were saying that they hoped I got my chance,” says Markus. That chance almost came against West Ham United, in March 2006 - Neumayr was called into the squad but didn’t even make the bench as O’Shea, nominally a defender, was called to play in the centre of midfield. Neumayr is philosophical about the decision on the night. “I wasn’t frustrated, just happy to be a part of the team for the first time. The gaffer unfortunately didn’t have the confidence in me to give me a run out that night, but these are decisions you have to accept,” says Markus.
Posted on: Fri, 17 Jan 2014 12:16:48 +0000