Gary Neville is a Manchester United legend who enjoyed an illustrious career at Old Trafford.
He was a rare one club man who played 602 times for the Red Devils, winning an impressive haul of trophies that included eight Premier League titles and two Champions Leagues.
Neville was Man United through and through – and still is.
He took great joy in riling up opposition fans, particularly when his team were playing Liverpool at Anfield.
Neville took no nonsense whatsoever as a player, Patrick Vieira tried to bully him during that infamous game in 2005 but he allowed nothing to get in his head when standing in the tunnel.
Just ask Peter Schmeichel and even his brother Phil about how icy he could be.
In 2005, Keane didn’t take too kindly to something Vieira said to Neville before the two sides – then the dominant Premier League teams – faced each other at Highbury.
The argument threatened to spill over into a physical fight between Keane and Vieira, who had enjoyed plenty of on-pitch duels, with teammates and referee Graham Poll having to separate the captains from each other.
Keane pointing at Vieira shouting ‘every week you, everyone thinks you’re a nice guy’ is something that fans remember to this day.
But Neville showed he wouldn’t be bullied by the Frenchman with the lingering handshake on the pitch before the game.
The former England international had a few memorable tunnel moments and famously snubbed his old teammate Peter Schmeichel in 2002 after he’d crossed the divide to the blue half of Manchester.
The goalkeeper put his hand out but the then United captain ignored the gesture.
“I’ll tell you what – I kind of liked him for it,” Schmeichel told the UTD Podcast.
“You have to do everything you can for your team and one thing is you put your passion in there. You have to look very, very hard to find anyone who’s got more passion for Man United than Gary Neville.”
Neville later explained why he snubbed Schmeichel’s handshake and had no regrets.
“When you look back now and you’re in your forties, like I am, there’s two things about that,” Neville told the Quickly Kevin, Will He Score? podcast.
“One, he left Man United at the age of whatever he was, 35, and he said he was retiring, basically to go abroad.
“At the time when he came back, he played for Manchester City. You can’t play for Manchester City. I’m a United fan and I can’t play for Manchester City, I can’t play for Leeds and I can’t play for Liverpool. That’s just written in stone. You just don’t play for those clubs, irrespective of what happens.
“He’d won the treble with United in ’99, said that he was retiring…he should have carried on playing for United for the next two or three years if that was the case. We struggled for a ‘keeper between Peter and Edwin [van der Sar].”
Neville was well accustomed to tunnel snubs and even did it to his own brother.
The younger Neville, Phil, joined Everton in 2005 in pursuit of more first-team football and they faced each other on a number of occasions during his eight years at Goodison Park.
Shortly after Phil joined the Toffees, he and Gary were captaining their respective teams in a match at Old Trafford.
Before the match, Phil said hello to former teammates Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and Wes Brown, but incredibly, he was ignored by Gary.
However, Gary did acknowledge Phil once the cameras were off, prompting the former Everton star to label the former full-back an ‘absolute idiot’.
He said: “It was one of the early games, and I went down the tunnel, and you just think, he’s going to say hello. And he didn’t. He’s going to say something. I turned round.
“Giggsy said hello, Scholesy said hello. I think Wes [Brown] was there and said hello.
“And then there’s a camera right in front of where the captains are and I thought, ‘typical Gary – he’s playing to the cameras, playing for show’.
“The minute we went past the camera, seriously, he went, ‘all right Phil, how’s it going?.
“What an absolute idiot. For the cameras, for Sky Sports and his image, he thought, ‘I’m not saying hello to him’. I thought, ‘Nah, that’s not for me, kidda’.”
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