Gordon Strachan reveals Manchester United players were once so drunk they ran into palm trees… and Sir Alex Ferguson tried to douse him in hot water

GORDON STRACHAN has revealed two hilarious anecdotes about his playing days at Manchester United.

The former midfielder, who will manage Scotland when they face England on Friday night, did an after-dinner speech at another one of his former clubs on Friday night.

Speaking at Leeds United’s Elland Road Strachan revealed some great stories about his time at Old Trafford.

The 59-year-old played 160 matches for Manchester United and won the 1985 FA Cup, playing under Ron Atkinson and Sir Alex Ferguson.

He was also under Fergie at Aberdeen, where the pair won two Scottish titles and the Cup Winners’ Cup.

The club, like most in English football at the time, were known for their heavy drinking culture in the mid-1980s.

Strachan said: “The drinking habits at Manchester United were astonishing.

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“We didn’t even know Paul McGrath was an alcoholic. He wasn’t in the top five drinkers there!

“We went to Bermuda for training. They were drinking.

“They were allowed out for a couple of beers, but 36 hours later there was a training session… had to cancel that, they were drunk, running into palm trees.

“They were a wonderful group of lads but they wouldn’t have won anything like that.”

He later offered an even better story about one of the times he was on the end of Fergie’s famous hairdryer – which came at Aberdeen.

“I regularly got the hairdryer treatment,” he said. “You had to see it to believe it but I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

“We were in Romania once, he changed the system. We were 3-0 up from the first leg and he was going to make it secure by playing 4-3-3.

“We were 2-0 down after 20 minutes so it wasn’t working well and he kept blaming me for the whole thing.

“So after a wee while I just went, ‘Your tactics are s**t.’ The whole bench went, ‘Oh no.'”

Strachan added: At half-time, I stalled and wandered about the pitch hoping he’d forget it because there was nothing worse than getting it from him.

“But you know you are in trouble when you sit down and the two guys either side of you disappear in different directions.

“He used to wear black shoes, always shiny, and these shoes would come in and shuffle about, looking for someone. Then these shoes stopped and pointed at me: ‘Oh no, here goes.’

“There was a Russian samovar with the hot water.

“He tried to push it on top of me but it was full of water and it just fell on his shoes.

“I started laughing, he tried to scoop the cups on to me which hit Willie Miller and Alec McLeish on the head, so I started laughing again.

“It was horrendous. He comes up to you that close your noses touch. We went back to 4-4-2 and got a penalty 20 minutes into the second half.

“Unfortunately I was on penalties. He was spitting on the touchline ‘F****** Strachan!’

“I took the penalty against the biggest goalkeeper in the world and scored.

“I gave it the big ‘un (to Fergie): ‘Take that you bastard’.

“He tried to get on the pitch to get me. The boys jumped on top of me before he could.

“So I’ve had it a few times but wouldn’t have missed it for the world. It was fantastic.

“He’s some man.

“A lunatic but one of the best managers you’ll ever meet.”