WITH Michael Carrick having been confirmed as Middlesbrough’s new manager today, his first game in charge of the club will be Saturday’s game at Preston. Had things turned out differently three decades ago, however, he could already be a Teesside legend.
Born and raised in Newcastle, and an alumnus of the fabled Wallsend Boys Club, Carrick starred with West Ham and Tottenham before eventually becoming synonymous with Manchester United, where he spent 12 years of his playing career and also took his first steps in coaching.
It wasn’t always destined to be that way, though. Back in 1990, as a highly-rated youngster making scouts’ heads turn right across the North-East, Carrick was invited to train with Middlesbrough’s evolving youth set-up. He spent the best part of three years as part of the club’s system, but only ever played one game in a Boro shirt. Given he developed into one of the outstanding English midfielders of his generation, it is hard not to wonder about what might have been.
“Scouts were always watching me and inviting me to train at clubs,” said Carrick, in his autobiography, ‘Between The Lines’, which was released in 2018. “I went to Middlesbrough when I was nine, only because a couple of the other lads at the Boyza (Boys Club) went, Kev Urwin and Paul Docherty, who was a great little player. Docherty had all the turns in the bag – right foot, left foot, Cruyff turns, step-overs, the lot.
“I only played once for Boro, at centre forward, and when my friends got released, I left a year later when I was 12. I’ve still kept a picture of me standing next to Gary Pallister outside the players’ entrance at Ayresome Park in 1992.”
Middlesbrough’s loss turned out to be West Ham’s gain, although not before Carrick had also had brief spells trialing with both Newcastle United and Sunderland, although back in the early 1990s, the academy system was considerably less developed than it is now, and even though he had signed for a club in London, the North-Easterner would still spend most of his time in his home region training at an independent centre of excellence in Chester-le-Street, established for local players who were on the books of clubs at the other end of the country.
By the time he was 16, however, he was signing YTS terms with West Ham – “I was getting £42.50 a week - and joining a youth team that also boasted a superstar-in-waiting in the guise of Joe Cole, a teenager who was already being talked of as the best young player in the country.
Carrick was part of the last generation that learned their trade the old-fashioned way, before state-of-the-art academies sprang up to wrap up talented young payers in cotton wool, and it is clear from his autobiography that his grounding, both as a working-class child in Wallsend and as an aspiring youngster in the youth system at West Ham, had a profound impact on moulding his character. Perhaps elements of that will come out in his management.
“In the youth team at West Ham, if I was in the gym and a first teamer came in, I’d stay out their way, maybe even leave the gym completely,” he wrote. “They had priority. I wasn’t at their level. I had to earn it.
“The culture was incentivised so I cleaned boots in the youth team, and when I got to the reserves, somebody cleaned my boots. I appreciated the huge amount of work I’d have to put in to get to the top. Football’s forgotten a lot of this and is poorer for it.”
Carrick was part of the West Ham squad that won the FA Youth Cup in 1999, and he made his senior debut for the club in an Intertoto Cup game in the summer of the same year.
He would spent five years as a senior player at Upton Park, making more than 150 appearances and winning the club’s Player of the Year award in two successive seasons, despite the presence of the likes of Cole, Rio Ferdinand, Paolo Di Canio and Jermain Defoe alongside him.
He was part of the star-studded West Ham that was relegated under Glenn Roeder in 2003, but unlike so many of his team-mates, he opted to stay with the Hammers as they battled to try to get out of the Championship.
After defeat in the play-offs, his time was up, and he headed across London to join Tottenham, spending two seasons at White Hart Lane. He impressed at Spurs, establishing himself in the England side and turning the head of Sir Alex Ferguson, who was looking for a midfield replacement for Roy Keane. An £18.6m deal was agreed, with Carrick becoming the sixth most expensive player acquired by Manchester United at the time and taking control of Keane’s number 16 shirt. A love affair that would last for more than a decade had begun.
“I didn’t just play for Manchester United,” wrote Carrick, at a time when he was still on the club’s books in a coaching capacity. “I lived for them. My whole life is wrapped around the place. Whatever I do and wherever I go, Manchester United are always in my mind and in my heart.
“I love and grasp the challenge Manchester United set me. You see, there’s no escape when you play for this great club. Pressure and expectation levels are off the scale here. Some players can handle it and enjoy it, others can’t. It’s relentless.”
During his 12 years as a Manchester United player, Carrick won everything there is to win – a Champions League, a Europa League, five Premier League titles, an FA Cup, two League Cups – and established himself as a key midfield fulcrum in one of the most successful club sides England has ever seen.
A neat and tidy passer, with a relentless work ethic, Carrick was also regarded as a model professional, someone Ferguson could rely on to hold things together when the pressure was at its most intense.
“From the minute we bought Michael in 2006, his character was always outstanding,” said Ferguson. “He’s a football man and that character, coupled with his ability, made him a certainty to be a big success at United.”
It could also be what helps him become a successful manager or head coach. After retiring from playing at the end of the 2017-18 season, Carrick was immediately offered a job on Manchester United’s backroom team, working under Jose Mourinho.
He remained as part of the set-up under Ole Gunnar Solksjaer, and stepped into the breach as caretaker manager for three games when the Norwegian was dismissed in November 2021, presiding over wins against Villarreal and Arsenal and a draw with Chelsea.
He left Old Trafford when Ralf Rangnick was appointed manager, but has never hid his own managerial ambitions or the way in which he will seek to operate if he is given the kind of chance that Middlesbrough look set to grant him.
Having spent so much of his playing career working under Ferguson, it would be surprising if elements of his former boss’ approach have not rubbed off on him, especially when it comes to the demands he will make of those working under him.
“Sir Alex used to say quite a bit – well, before almost every game – ‘Don’t be afraid to work hard and express yourself’,” said Carrick, during his brief spell as Manchester United boss. “That’s something you could take into any walk of life, but it’s something that’s right, it works, and it’s something we always took on board.
“It’s the simplest thing in life – to work hard. Nothing stops you from working hard, whether you’re good at it or not. You can still work hard at it, enjoy it, and express yourself when you’re doing it. If you’re doing that, then hopefully it’s a formula for success.”
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