38. Ryan Giggs

Signed from: Youth team
Debut: 0-2 loss at Everton (as sub), March 2nd 1991
League Record: 555 games (+117 as sub), 114 goals
Sold to: retired, May 19th 2014

The first man we’ve come across who is still playing pro football, and still at the top level at that. Ryan Giggs is a freak of the modern age in terms of his longevity and fitness. It’s amazing to think there are plenty of United fans out there (i.e. those a couple of years younger than me) who can’t remember a time Giggs wasn't in the first team.

His backstory is well known, especially the part about him training with City until the newly arrived Fergie set about overhauling the youth policy. A United fan from Salford, though born in Wales, the-then Ryan Wilson didn’t need much convincing when we finally got the wherewithal to come knocking. His potential was impossible to miss, by all accounts, and he made his debut not long after his 17th birthday. A few months later, he got his first start in the Manchester Derby, taking the credit for a Colin Hendry own goal.

The next season, with Lee Sharpe out injured, he claimed the left wing spot along with the #11 shirt and after Sharpe left in 1996, he was pretty much unopposed in the position for the next ten years, barring a Swedish rival for the Treble season.

In those early days, he became the poster boy for the early Premiership period, advertising all manner of things (veggie sausages spring to mind) and the club stuck his face on just about anything they could sell. He’d be eventually replaced in this role by some kid from That London playing on the other wing.

Throughout all his 20 years in the team, he’s rarely had the absolute backing of the entire support: after a brilliant 1993/94 season where he scored 19 goals, he struggled the next campaign and from then on, he always seemed to have some sections of the crowd on his back. It’s also unlikely he’s been that many people’s favourite player, but he always had the knack of answering critics in spectacular style.

There was, of course, his wonder goal in the 1999 FA Cup Semi-Final replay, where he picked up a wayward Arsenal pass near the half way line and kept running till he nearly hit the touchline, at which moment he smashed it into the top of the net.

But there was also a sublime performance at Juventus that came in one of the many dips in form a player gets over two decades. At a ground we’d never found it easy, he ran riot, scoring twice in a 3-0 victory. At the time, his form really was suffering and it was the perfect reply to the critics.

Yes, there have been spells of indifferent form where he seemed to spend too much with his hands on his hips as a pass went astray, and that open goal miss in the FA Cup against Arsenal in 2003 was inexcusable: I was in London that day, which happened by chance to be when the huge anti-war march took place. Sorry to say, the enormity of the event was far overshadowed by our defeat and wondering how the fuck Giggsy had put it over the bar when all he needed to do was pea-roll it into an unguarded goal. Such is football.

But in all likelihood, he’ll still be playing top class football at the age of 39, still patrolling the wing and occasionally twisting a full-back apart like nobody else can. He’s won more English league titles than anyone body else as well as four FA Cups and a couple of European Cups into the bargain. With other 900 first team games, he's played more for Manchester United than anybody else and certainly just about every England coach from Graham Taylor onwards has wished he’d been born in England rather than Wales.

More recently, there were revelations about his personal life that has sullied his reputation as a human being. Separating the man from his art, difficult as it may be, leaves someone who deserves his place amongst the greats of the club. It’ll be a strange day when the #11 shirt has something other than “Giggs” above it.

* May 2014 edit: after a season as player-coach under the somewhat underwhelming reign of David Moyes, Giggs took charge for the last four games of the season. In the second-to-last, a home game against Hull City, he brought himself off the bench, set up a goal and nearly scored another. That he didn't meant that the Manchester United scoring lists were missing his name for the first time since 1989/90.

As the appointment of Louis van Gaal as Manager was announced, the news came out that Ryan Giggs had retired as a player, to take up duties as the new Assistant Manager.