Tony Whelan spent more than 30 years working at the Man Utd academy and started his playing career at the club in the 1960s. He spoke to the Manchester Evening News about ending a lifelong association.
Comments
Sport
Tony Whelan
Tony Whelan retired from his role with the United academy at the end of 2024
(Image: MUTV)
Tony Whelan's phone has barely stopped ringing since he stepped away from Manchester United for the final time at the end of 2024, ending an association with the club that started back in the 1960s, but the 72-year-old is still coming to terms with the next chapter in a remarkable life.
Dubbed by United as 'The Godfather', Whelan ended a 34-year association with the club's academy when he retired nearly three months ago, but he saw his work as a passion rather than a job and a figure so integral to the football club hasn't found it easy to simply move on.
Article continues below
"In 30 years at one football club, you get into habits and you get into the mindset and into the routine every day and you're used to seeing the same people and doing the same things and having the same timetable and all of that, you get locked into that," Whelan tells the Manchester Evening News.
"And I think you miss that and I’m not over that yet, you just don't switch off from a career like that and being busy every single day, sometimes seven days a week and going to tournaments and tours and being around footballers
"It’s a change of routine that will take time. I'm working on it, I think I'll get there in the end, but as I say, I think it's still early days, you're not going to just switch off from being in football overnight."
Whelan could be one of the most influential figures in United's history that people have never heard of. As academy director Nick Cox said when confirming he had left the club, “Tony didn’t want a big announcement made or any attention drawn to his departure. As has often been the case during his time at the club, Tony did not seek the limelight."
But Whelan did agree to meet the MEN in a coffee shop in Knutsford and over almost two hours he tells stories from Sir Matt Busby to Sir Alex Ferguson, of being at the club alongside George Best, Denis Law and Bobby Charlton. Playing with Gerd Muller and against Pele. A career in social care and how that led to a love of coaching young people. And the most naturally talented player he has seen come through United's academy: "Wes Brown, He was a Rolls Royce when he was 14."
Whelan was actually the boyhood Manchester City fan who ended up at United. He remembers City scout Harry Godwin coming to watch games and never approaching him, before United talent-spotter Joe Armstrong stepped in and he signed in 1968. A decision that would start an almost lifelong association with his club.
As a teenager, he went on the first-team tour of Bermuda, Canada, and the United States but never quite made it, although he got close enough to be in contact with some of the greats of the era.
"George used to bring his stuff in, hipsters and coats and stuff. He'd give them to the apprentices," Whelan said of Best. "Denis was just Denis, always smiling, always mischievous, and we were always very respectful of Sir Bobby Charlton, because of the player that he was, so you were in awe of them.
"They were very humble as well. They never made it difficult, you could go into the canteen at the Cliff and sit next to them, there'd be no problem, but if you didn't sit next to them, they'd be inviting you to sit next to them, so it was very, very close, very intimate.
"Sir Matt was the same, all the staff were, so that's what I grew up in in football, and I think those experiences certainly shaped my own approach to coaching."
Whelan can recall in pin-sharp detail a youth team tournament in Switzerland in 1969, and as much as the football, it is the experiences away from the pitch that stick with him and shaped his approach in his own coaching journey to make sure the young people in his care were learning skills and getting experiences that could help them even if football didn't work out.
"I'd never flown before. Never stayed at a posh hotel," he said. "We stayed at the Stoller in Zurich, and we won what was called the Blue Stars tournament. It was amazing, and I’ve still got the medal.
"I remember the trams, and I can remember the stadium and just the whole thing, it was fantastic. Things like getting on a ski lift, you weren’t doing that in Manchester!
"I think I bought my first watch in Zurich. I bought a Swiss watch, the guy next door had a shop and you got a discount so little things like that you remember. It was certainly the first time I've flown and the first time I've stayed in a really nice hotel and the first time I've had spaghetti bolognese that wasn't in a tin."
Ultimately, Whelan didn't quite make the grade at United, and after a brief spell at Manchester City, it was at Rochdale that he enjoyed the most prolonged spell of football in England. But a loan move to the Los Angeles Skyhawks in 1976 opened up avenues in America, and eventually, he played in the nascent North American Soccer League for Fort Lauderdale Strikers.
Germany striker Muller became a teammate, Gordon Banks was the goalkeeper and Peru great Teofilo Cubillas all played on the team, as did more familiar faces in Best and Brian Kidd. Pele and Franz Beckenbauer were at the New York Cosmos.
Whelan began his coaching journey in America, but when he returned home after seven years across the pond, a leg break ended his career and started his love of working with young people. He did voluntary work in a children's home and, after six months, was offered a permanent job, which he did for 13 years.
"Initially, it was residential social work, which was working with young people in a residential setting. It was quite a specialist situation," he said. "And then I did fieldwork, what they call education social work, which was specific to working with kids with educational problems."
Whelan picks up an award from the Football Black List in 2022
(Image: Football Black List (FBL))
He began coaching part-time with Manchester City's community programme before moving to United's centre of excellence in 1990, when Kidd and Nobby Stiles approached him. He continued working in social care until 1998, when he went full-time when United's programme turned into an academy.
"I learned a lot from those social work experiences, working with young kids," explains Whelan. "It gave me a really deep understanding of childhood and children in all its manifestations, not just in terms of sport, but in general. So when I came to United, I had a bundle of knowledge and experience working with young players or people.
"I think it transferred to football. Because kids are kids. They like doing the same things. They want the same things. Obviously, in various contexts. So I always valued that. My experiences in social work were really key to my career in coaching full-time."
Whelan returned to the club at a golden time for youth development, with Ferguson prioritising young talent as he restored the good times to Old Trafford but the Scot had high demands that had to be met.
"He was always challenging is the word," said Whelan. "He always wanted the best out of you. He wanted the best, and you wanted to get better for him. That was the impact that he had.
"He set high standards. And the thing about him, you wanted to meet the standards because you knew that if you got there, you'd please him. And he knew that, instinctively, that if you got there, you’d be a better coach, and you'd be a better person as well.
"He was always very, very encouraging, always very supportive, always wanted to know about players, and always wanted to know what you were doing. He had incredible energy about him, and the club did."
Whelan left United at a time of great change, and his description of how the club felt under Ferguson is clearly most apt given the direction it has taken recently and the way staff have been treated since Ineos came in early in 2024.
"It was a wonderful time at the club. Everybody was working together, we'd won gold, really," he said. "That was the success of the club, and I always felt that it was never about individuals. Any success that we had at that time, that the club had at the time, was down to everybody. And everybody was given the credit for that.
"Sir Alex made a point of doing that. If we won a cup or anything, everybody would be asked to go in the canteen area, and he would thank everybody. From the tea lady, the ground staff, the coaching staff, the secretarial staff, you know. Everybody at the club shared it. It wasn't just about the first team. That was very special, to get a feel of that and be a part of that. We were really valued."
Along with Wes Brown, Whelan mentions Marcus Rashford and Mason Greenwood as some of the most naturally gifted players to come through the academy and names Tom Cleverley and Jesse Lingard as players who had to fight to make the first team and have the careers they had.
It is a supply line that will carry on - "I can never see a time at Manchester United when youth won't be important, I just don't see the day," - but in Whelan's departure it is clear the club are losing something too.
He ended his time at the club as a mentor with the official title of academy advisor but says of his remarkable career at United: "I do feel privileged and honoured that I was maybe one of those pieces in the chain. I think that if I have been one of the pieces in that chain, then that makes me really, really happy."
It is typical of the man. Take the description of staff at United, people he thinks should all be considered coaches in one way or another.
"It's teamwork. Everybody's doing the same job. I've never really seen coaching as being separate," he said. "It's just people get categorised as a coach, but everybody's coaching. We're all helping young people.
"From the tea lady, or the canteen lady, to the attendants that meet them and greet them, to the people in security, everybody's doing the same job. Everybody is trying to get the best for those young people so everybody's in here together. It’s just that we just have different roles, but the end goal is the same."
Whelan held a unique position at United. He played under Busby, alongside Best, Law, and Charlton. He was part of the centre of excellence in the 90s, the success of youth development under Ferguson. He understands the values and ethos of the club, and although football has changed, he saw his final years at the club as a chance to pass on the lessons he had learned to the next generation, to make sure those values are never forgotten or washed away.
"It was my raison d’etre. That's it," he said. "I always try because, again, I just go back to the impact that those people had on me when I was a kid. I never forgot it. And I always felt that within me, I had the responsibility when I came back. It was reinforced to me when I came back by Nobby Stiles and Brian Kidd.
"In the time I've been at the academy, I've certainly tried to carry that banner and felt that it was my duty to do it.
"So any success that I've had as a coach, I would doff my cap to those people that were my mentors, people that I've mentioned, Nobby Stiles, Brian Kidd, Les Kershaw.
Article continues below
"But it's not just about one person, it's about a group of people working together with the same love of the club. Just a deep love of the club and wanting to do well. So you do things that you wouldn't normally do.
"You work long hours and don't realise it. It was never a job. I mean, I think that's probably the biggest compliment I can say to my time at the club. It was never a job. I never thought I went to work at that time."