Four Four Two - UK (2020-11)

PETER

SCHMEICHEL

with top-class players. You saw their quality
in training each day, and how much everyone
wanted to win.”
Not least Schmeichel, who also served as
one of the leaders of his team, driving United
to victory. “There were leaders everywhere,
and leaders can alter the course of a game,”
he explains. “You agree certain things in the
team talk before a game, but you’re taking on
11 men who want to do something different.
Sometimes what you’d agreed to do doesn’t
work, so you need players who can step up,
take some responsibility and make changes
in every area on the pitch.”
The Dane was known for making his points
emphatically to team-mates, particularly in
the heat of battle – his face contorted as he
screamed instructions, or remonstrated with
members of his defence.
“Pete was very vocal,” says Andy Cole, who
joined United from Newcastle in 1995, soon
after Schmeichel had helped the club secure
a second consecutive title. “Desire, passion,

everything it took to be a winner, he had in

abundance. He was an acquired taste, but

I got on really well with him – he was as mad

as a box of frogs.

“He’d have his pre-match routine – getting

the right number of towels, and you couldn’t

touch his gloves or he’d go absolutely crazy.

Sometimes you’d think, ‘I’m not sure he’s all

there’, but he was an incredible goalkeeper.

If he was between the sticks, you always felt

you had a chance. I loved playing with him.”

Sometimes, Schmeichel’s passion spilled

over in the dressing room. After a match at

Liverpool in 1994, when United threw away

a 3-0 lead to draw 3-3, he ended up in a row

with Ferguson. The pair exchanged insults so

extreme that, 48 hours later, Ferguson told

Schmeichel that he had no choice but to sack

the shot-stopper. The boss only changed his

mind when he eavesdropped on Schmeichel

apologising to the squad later that day.

“There are two Peters,” reveals Larsen, his

former Denmark team-mate. “There was the

leader and the winner on the pitch, and the

nice, caring Peter off the pitch. Many people

think he’s a bit arrogant, but that’s not the

Peter I know. He could be quite rude verbally

in training, but it didn’t affect our friendship

• afterwards we sat and had lunch together.”
  Schmeichel could be unorthodox in another
  way, too – as a goal threat. In 1995, months
  after being sidelined with a slipped disc in his
  back, he darted up for a late corner against
  Rotor Volgograd in the UEFA Cup and headed
  home. “Pete always believed he could play
  centre-forward,” smiles Cole.
  The Dane later became the first goalkeeper
  to score in the Premier League, by volleying
  in for Aston Villa against Everton in 2001. He’s
  credited with finding the net 11 times during
  his career. “Is that number from Wikipedia?”
  asks Schmeichel. “Wikipedia said I saved one
  penalty in my whole career, so I’m not sure
  I can trust those 11 goals – in my head, it was
  a lot more! I don’t know how many – I scored
  a couple of goals from open play, but also at
  some points I was the penalty taker for the
  clubs I played for in Denmark.”
  Schmeichel’s greatest moment during the
  1995-96 season was not the Rotor Volgograd
  goal, however, but his performance against
  Newcastle at St James’ Park. The Magpies
  led the Premier League table but Schmeichel
  denied them, then Cantona hit a second-half
  winner. The visitors went on to capture the
  title once again.
  “He was the man of the match that night,
  by far,” remembers Cole. “The saves he made
  kept us in the game – if you take them out,
  we could have lost by four or five. I know Eric
  gets the credit for the goal and rightly so, but
  Pete was unbelievable.”

MENACING DENNIS

In the summer of 1998, Schmeichel came to

a decision. He had won four Premier League

titles, two FA Cups and one League Cup with

Manchester United, but was in his mid-30s

and Arsenal had won the Double that year.

The keeper spent a month with the Danish

team at their base by the Mediterranean in

the south of France, as they advanced to the

World Cup quarter-finals. He grew tempted

by the thought of playing in warmer climes

on a more permanent basis, in a less stressful

environment than the Premier League.

Schmeichel told United that the 1998-99

season would be his last at Old Trafford. The

club asked him to keep it quiet, but rumours

spread after his form was criticised early in

that campaign. In November, he announced

his intention to move on.

He concedes now that, with the benefit of

hindsight, he might not have been quite so

hasty in leaving. “At any given time in your

life, when you’re faced with having to make

a decision, you make a decision based on the

feeling you have at that moment,” he says.

“Fast-forward 20 years, and perhaps those

parameters have changed for you, and you

see things in a different context.”

Schmeichel didn’t anticipate quite what lay

ahead. On the day of his announcement, the

Red Devils were third in the Premier League,

PeterSchmeichel

was so popular in

Manchester that

a dog was named

in his honour on

Coronation Street.

Schmeichel the

Great Dane (we

see what they did

there) made his

Corrie debut in

2004, after being

christened by

characters Jack

Duckworth and

Tyrone Dobbs. The

canine escaped

death not once

but twice – first

when he climbed

into a bath with

Les Battersby,

sending the pair

plunging through

the floor, and

then when he got

run over by a bus.

Peter himself

would have been

pretty proud of

such fortitude.

HOUnD

HOMAGE