Dave Fevre, Manchester United, Sir Alex Ferguson, Roy Keane, David Beckham, Ryan Giggs, Paul Ince

The details man who helped Ferguson, Giggs, Solskjaer and co. reach immortality

Daniel Taylor
Nov 15, 2020

Scene One: Elland Road, in the heat of a Leeds United-Manchester United battle, and there is a player in a red shirt lying in the penalty area. He has got his hands covering his face and there is another player leaning over him, telling him to get up and stop faking it.

Roy Keane had gone after Alf-Inge Haaland. He wanted to trip him up, nothing too serious. Not this time, anyway. Haaland had been bugging him all game. “He’d done my head in,” Keane would later write in his autobiography. But then Keane’s studs caught in the turf and you probably know the rest.

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His cruciate ligament had snapped and, though he tried to carry on, Keane knew it might be serious. So, too, did Dave Fevre, the United physiotherapist who had tended him on the pitch.

“It was a big call for me,” Fevre says. “Cruciates were my big thing. I remember assessing his knee and thinking, ‘Wow, this is a big shout’. Roy, being Roy, was telling me he could carry on. We had a huge match against Juventus coming up on the Wednesday night but I was looking at his knee and thinking, ‘This ain’t right’.

“In the back of my mind, I knew I had to double-check this one. I spoke to the doctor at Leeds and asked if he would give me a second opinion. He came into our dressing room to have a look. He looked at me and said, ‘Yeah, what you’re feeling is right’.”

What Keane did not realise at the time was that Fevre was about to become one of the more important people in his life. It was Fevre who put together the rehabilitation programme that meant Keane came back for the start of the following season. But there was more to it than that.

A physiotherapist in that position has to take on several roles. He has to be a teacher, a counsellor, a friend, a taskmaster, a confidante. In Fevre’s case, he had to get into the mind of Roy Maurice Keane.

That process started when they got back to Old Trafford and headed to a private hospital in Manchester to see exactly how serious it was. Fevre will never forget the scene.

“We were waiting for the surgeon,” he says. “Roy was sitting on his bed, I was sitting at the side, and he’d got the TV on. He was watching Celebrity Squares. Then, all of a sudden, he got the remote control and turned it off. He looked at me. ‘All right, then. So what the fuck’s going on with my knee?’

“I went through everything with him. I told him, in my opinion, what I thought it was. I told him that hopefully, I was wrong but at the same time, I was pretty certain I was not far off. The surgeon was on the way. The radiographer was coming in to do the scan. Everybody was doing what they could. ‘Well, let’s get on with it,’ he said. Then he put the TV back on and carried on watching Celebrity Squares.”


He had been in rugby league before the invitation came to join Manchester United in 1994. Fevre had spent five years as the head of physio for Wigan and that meant swapping one dressing room of serial champions for another.

“I was lucky because, at that time, Paul Ince, Ryan Giggs, Gary Pallister and a few others used to go out socialising with Ellery Hanley, Martin Offiah and so on. It gave me a good foothold because I knew what to expect from United’s dressing room.

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“I remember, on my first day, I was in the medical room and Incey came in. ‘Ah, so you’re the new physio, are you? I’ve heard a lot about you from Martin and Ellery. The one thing you need to understand is I’m the Guv’nor round here’. Typical Incey. I said, ‘Actually, in the medical room I’m the Guv’nor, so let’s agree to disagree’. First impressions are important. He said, ‘Oh, you’ve got some bollocks about you.’ We got on tremendously well after that.”

Fevre spent five years at Old Trafford and watched the team win virtually everything there was to win, culminating in the 1999 Champions League final. He was an unsung hero, in many ways, because it was his medical expertise behind the scenes that helped Ferguson put it all together.

It was Fevre, for example, who helped Giggs through that difficult period early in his career when the winger was suffering from hamstring problems.

“Ryan was having all these little niggles because of his age,” Fevre says. “You see it quite often because, until a player reaches the age of 23 or 24, the skeleton doesn’t fully mature. Suddenly, they get to 24 and have a good run. Steven Gerrard was the same at Liverpool.”

Nor was it just Giggs’s body that was under inspection. Giggs was also instructed to bring in his car so it could be examined by Fevre and the rest of the medical staff. All the players had to do the same.

“Most of the trendy cars don’t have great seats,” Fevre explains. “With Ryan, we had to think about everything, little things where we tried to tweak what he was doing. We had to sort his car out.

“It was about making sure he had a decent lumbar roll to help his posture. We had to make sure he wasn’t sitting too low — or too far back — in the seat. Car seats, even to this day, you have to play around with them to tick that box. Some players are driving up to 90 minutes or two hours a day to get to and from training, so it’s important.”

Dave Fevre, Roy Keane, Manchester United
Fevre helped Roy Keane return to fitness following a succession of knee injuries (Photo: Phil Noble – PA Images/PA Images via Getty Images)

The little details can matter hugely and, in many ways, Fevre was ahead of his time.

“I remember when we used to go away in Europe, we’d give our players an inflatable mattress and their own pillows. People talk about it now as if it has only just come into the game. We were doing that in the 1990s.

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“Paul Scholes, for example, had asthma, so we’d take him two or three pillows and his own mattress because we didn’t want him getting an allergic reaction from the hotels where we were staying.

“David May had a particular mattress that suited him. Same with Henning Berg. We would source where to get these mattresses for the players who had issues. There was a place in Oldham called Slumberland. They would measure the pressure gradients on the mattresses and then the players would try them out, and because these mattresses were inflatable, we could actually take them away with us.

“You can imagine all the baggage we had. We had a whole skip full of the players’ bedding. Albert, the kitman, used to go ballistic but that was just us doing everything we could to make sure the players stayed on the pitch.”


Scene Two: The Midland Hotel in Manchester. It is 1996 and Fevre is waiting at reception for a boy from Norway who has flown in, almost unnoticed, to have his first look at Old Trafford.

“The gaffer had asked me to pick him up,” Fevre says. “I was in town and the gaffer said, ‘Would you mind collecting this lad we’ve got coming in?’. Not a problem. I parked my car at the front of the hotel and went in to explain that I was from Manchester United. They rang the boy’s room. But there was no answer.

“I didn’t know what he looked like. I waited 20 minutes or so before I asked the woman behind reception to try for a second time. Again, no reply. OK, maybe he was having breakfast. Maybe he’d gone for a walk. Another 20 minutes passed and still nothing. All the time I was sitting there, there was a lad a few seats down. I assumed it was somebody’s son. He looked so young. And then I noticed him looking at me.”

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has aged a bit since those days, in his twenties, when he became known as “the baby-faced assassin”.

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“I didn’t think for a second this could be our new player,” Fevre says. “But then he heard me talking and said, ‘Excuse me, are you Dave? I’m Ole’. I never thought he could have been a footballer. I thought he was just waiting for his parents.”

By that stage, Fevre had cemented his relationship with Ferguson even if, by his own admission, there was one occasion early on when he had to explain himself to the manager.

Fevre had recommended that United brought in some punch bags for their gymnasium. But when he arrived the following day at The Cliff, United’s old training ground, the man at the door told him Ferguson was not happy and wanted to see him in his office.

“When I knocked on the gaffer’s door, he said there was a problem with the bags. He told me to go and have a look for myself. I went down to the gym. I was starting to think I’d got the wrong colours — Celtic’s green, perhaps, or Manchester City’s blue. But no. They were red and white.

“The bags were up, the gloves laid out. I didn’t see a problem. I went back to see the gaffer and he used slightly stronger language this time. ‘Can you not see?,’ he said. He took me back down and turned around one of the punch bags.

“The company that made them was called Alex and it was written across the back of each bag. ‘Why have you got my name on these punch bags?,’ the gaffer asked. We had a good laugh in the end. I’ve still got some photos of the lads with their gloves on, holding the bags so you can see the gaffer’s name.”

Dave Fevre, Jesper Blomqvist, Manchester United
Fevre tends to a stricken Jesper Blomqvist during United’s draw with Liverpool in May 1999 (Photo: Michael Steele/EMPICS via Getty Images)

For Fevre, there was enormous job satisfaction from getting United’s injured players back on the pitch again. He remembers the “steely determination” of Solskjaer to recover from one injury and, perhaps more than anyone, Keane’s almost slavish desire to get fit again.

“I always think, when I look around a dressing room, there are five key players you need to get on with. If you get on with those five, the other players will recognise you are OK. And Roy was one of my five.

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“Early on, I sat down with him to explain what I needed from him. ‘I want six days a week from you. I know you need a day with your family. I’m happy to give you that on a Sunday. Do what you want. But when you come in on Monday, your work will be laid out by the door. I don’t really want to speak on a Monday morning because that’s the time for me to look at what’s happened at the weekend. Then, 1pm on Monday, you and I are on it’.

“We agreed on that and it worked a treat. He’d come in, pick up the sheet. He’d just sort of grunt at you and then he just got on with it. Whatever we were doing — going to the gym, mountain biking in Salford, whatever I asked — he never caused me a minute of trouble.”

It was Fevre who explained to Keane that when a professional sportsman has ruptured their knee ligaments — the injury footballers fear the most — that person usually has to reassess the way he or she behaves off the pitch and, in many cases, take a more professional approach. Keane listened, took it all in and devoted himself to a new way of living.

His comeback was one of the highlights of Fevre’s career and the respect was mutual, judging by the story Fevre tells about leaving United to join the backroom staff at Blackburn Rovers.

“On my first day at Blackburn’s training ground, Brian McClair (then Blackburn’s assistant manager) came up to me to say a big box had arrived with my name on it,” Fevre says. “I’d been there only a few hours. It was a parcel from Roy and his wife, Theresa, and inside there was a set of crystal glasses to say thank you for everything I had done for him. A lot of people don’t see that side of Roy.”


Scene Three: May 27, 1999. It is the night after Ferguson has looked into a television camera and uttered the words “Football, bloody hell”. Manchester United are the new champions of Europe. A celebration dinner has been put on and, one by one, chairman Martin Edwards is inviting the players and staff to go forward to collect their medals. There are 25 medals in total. And, when it comes to number 25, it is Fevre’s turn to be called up.

It was a proud moment — yet, for Fevre, there were mixed emotions. What Edwards didn’t know was that Fevre had already accepted an invitation from Brian Kidd, Ferguson’s former No 2, to move to Blackburn. Fevre had arranged a meeting with Ferguson for the following day, when he intended to break the news, but nobody else knew except for one member of the playing squad.

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“The only person I had told was Peter Schmeichel because I knew he was leaving too. The Champions League final was his last game and I thought I could confide in him. I went up to get the 25th medal and when I sat back down, I said to Peter, ‘Honestly, I felt embarrassed there. I don’t think I should have taken that medal when I’m handing in my notice tomorrow’.

“When I was walking up to get my medal, I was thinking about Albert the kit man. Albert was part of the fixtures at Old Trafford. He would have been number 26. But there were only 25 medals. ‘Don’t worry,’ Peter told me. He took off his Rolex watch and gave it to Albert as a present. It was typical Peter. Then he made Albert promise that he had to wear it for every game. And, to this day, Albert wore it every game.”

It might seem strange that Fevre would choose to leave the treble winners for a Blackburn side that had just been relegated from the Premier League. Yet Fevre had good reasons. His children had both been diagnosed with type-one diabetes and Fevre lived a lot closer to Blackburn than Manchester. His family had to come first and, reluctantly Ferguson accepted his decision, even if he did try to bring him back after Kidd was sacked five months later.

Fevre decided to stay where he was and he also remained at Blackburn, under Graeme Souness’ management, when he was offered the chance to team up again with Kidd again as part of David O’Leary’s backroom staff at Leeds United.

Fevre had initially agreed to move to Elland Road. “It was Graeme who talked me out of it,” he says. “I’d given in my notice but Graeme sat me down. He said we were hoping to win promotion the following year. ‘Dave,’ he said, ‘there’s only one good United and you’ve already been at it’.”


Scene Four: The Wales national team. Mark Hughes is the manager and has heard that Fevre is one of the best in the business. Hughes has asked if Fevre can job-share with Wales. Graeme Souness, the Blackburn manager, has let it happen (on the strict condition that Fevre reports for duty at 9am the following day) and one of the Welsh players is sizing up the new man.

Fevre can laugh at the memory. “I remember going into the medical room. Craig Bellamy was in there. ‘Are you a physio at a club?,’ he wanted to know. I told him that, yes, I worked for Blackburn. ‘Bloody shit club,’ he said. ‘I’d never play for them’. Three years later, I was doing his medical for Blackburn. And I loved every single minute of it. As soon as he came in, he knew. ’You never thought you’d be signing for Blackburn, did you?’.”

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Robbie Savage, then of Birmingham City, was part of the same Wales set-up. And Fevre got the last word there, too.

“It was my first Wales trip. ‘Dave,’ he said, ‘what car do you drive?’. I told him I’d got a Volkswagen Polo. ‘You must be a shit physio — our physio at Birmingham drives a Ferrari’. So when Sav signed for Blackburn, I was waiting for him. ‘I’m driving a Ford Focus now’. Again, I got on tremendously well with Sav. He was top drawer.”

It was important, after all, for Fevre to have the players’ respect if they were going to work together.

“You have to try to become a mate as well as a physio. You have to be a counsellor, too, because psychology is a big part of the job. I always say that I’ve never met a patient who I can’t get on with.

“One of the keys for a physio is you have to know what makes that person tick. Some of the players, you have to give them a kick up the backside. Some, you have to put your arm around, sit with them, have a coffee with them. That way, you get into their psyche. That’s the crux of the job. If you can’t get into that individual, you’re never going to help them get over the finishing line.”

At Blackburn, he worked with 16 managers in 18 years and takes pride from the fact he was on good terms with every one. “I’ve had 17 managers in total (Ferguson included) and never fallen out with any of them. I’m quite a straight talker. I try to be honest. I always say, ‘Look, if you don’t agree with me, that’s fine but I’m going to give my opinion’.”

Dave Fevre, Junior Hoilett, Blackburn Rovers
Fevre, pictured with Junior Hoilett in 2009, spent 18 years with Blackburn Rovers (Photo: Joe Giddens – PA Images via Getty Images)

It is easy to understand why Fevre has been described as one of the godfathers of British sports medicine.

He now works as a lecturer and consultant, and has a specialist role for both the Football Association and the rugby authorities as a tutor on courses about pitchside trauma injuries. He has been all round the world with his work and, post-Blackburn, spent time with Middlesbrough, Derby County, Barnsley, Barrow and — because of his links with former Blackburn player Morten Gamst Pedersen — the Norwegian club, Tromso.

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At Blackburn, he can remember one conversation with Sam Allardyce, who was new in the job, when Brett Emerton ruptured knee ligaments. Allardyce wanted to send the player to a specialist in France because that was what he had done at previous clubs. Yet Fevre pointed out that, of all the players he had treated for cruciate injuries, they had all been back within six to nine months and none had broken down again. Emerton stayed at Blackburn and was back in the team seven months later.

Those are the moments that give Fevre most satisfaction yet he has also had to accept, as hard as it is, that there are times in his industry when only so much can be done.

He is talking about United again and one case in particular that will always sadden him.

“His name was Kevin Grogan,” he says. “He was meant to be the new George Best, as a lot of the Irish lads get called when they come over to Manchester.”

Grogan ended up playing in the League of Ireland after being plagued by injury issues.

“He had a groin problem,” Fevre says. “I spent days, weeks, months, trying to get to the bottom of it. There were sleepless nights.

“Every Friday, the staff would go into the gaffer’s office to talk about everything. It was Eric Harrison, the youth-team coach, who said to me, ‘Look, you have to realise that some of these players won’t make it. Physically, they can’t do it. But you can’t beat yourself up about it’.

“It was hard, though. I was spending seven or eight hours a day with Kevin but it was one of those jigsaw puzzles where I could never find the final piece. Fortunately, I’ve not had to do that very often.”

(Top photo: Aubrey Washington/EMPICS via Getty Images)

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Daniel Taylor

Daniel Taylor is a senior writer for The Athletic and a four-time Football Journalist of the Year, as well as being named Sports Feature Writer of the Year in 2022. He was previously the chief football writer for The Guardian and The Observer and spent nearly 20 years working for the two titles. Daniel has written five books on the sport. Follow Daniel on Twitter @DTathletic