Sir Alex Ferguson has revealed a rather bizarre legal clause that would turn Manchester United’s training facilities into a potato farm… were a war to break out.
Man United have one of the most impressive training complexes in the world, as you’d expect from a club of their stature with the financial riches that they possess.
The Red Devils moved into their Carrington training ground, now referred to as the Aon Training Complex, back in 2000 when Fergie was still in the Old Trafford dugout.
The legendary manager has now provided the details of the move while appearing as a guest on the United Podcast, and some of what he told is pretty eyebrow-raising stuff.
“The Cliff was great when I first came, but then the club grew. We had to put an extension in the indoor place for the boys to dress because we had no space in the actual building.”
“So, then I started to wander around Manchester looking for a piece of ground that we could build a new training ground on. We’re hunting everywhere, in North Manchester in particular.”
MORE: Incredible stat details how Cristiano Ronaldo’s Man United earnings dwarf three Premier League clubs
“(Former chief scout and academy director) Les Kershaw came to me and his friend worked for Shell. He said ‘Shell are trying to sell some of their ground over at Carrington’… so we went to see.”
“The size of the land we were getting, I think it was 28 acres or something, but there were restrictions which I can’t understand today.”
“Part of the restrictions were, in the event of war we had to turn the ground into potato fields. And, up at the very end, there had to be an acre or two acres for Canadian geese.”
“There were moats and we couldn’t change them because voles were living in them.We couldn’t do anything really.”
“Then I went down after I retired and Louis [Van Gaal] had put up floodlights and stands and everything!”
Man United fans will be crossing their fingers that the world leaders keep their tempers under control, because you can’t have Cristiano Ronaldo training in a field of potatoes, can you?