304: Paul Ince, Manchester United, Merlin’s Premier League 95 Sticker Collection

Today Richard Allinson takes a look at one of the leading lights of the early 90s Manchester United side that swept all before them in the early days of the Premier League. His credentials for this era increase further when you factor in his move to Serie A in the peak James Richardson coffee and croissant days. Add in an integral role in England’s Euro 96 side, a bloodied headband on international duty and some penalty heartbreak at a World Cup and you could argue he is a true icon of the period. Still, he was no Darren Caskey. Over to Rich.

Completely out of the blue, my wife recently posed me the question “whatever happened to Paul Ince?” The only honest answer I could give was “I dunno, he was Macclesfield manager for a bit, said he was going to manage Inter Milan and then got sacked by Blackpool, never heard anything of him since.” So in lieu of an answer as to what Paul Ince is currently up to, let’s have a look back at the glittering career of “the Guv’nor” instead. More specifically, his time at Manchester United.

Ince started out at West Ham United, his boyhood club, and racked up 72 games and seven goals for the Hammers before signing for United for £1m in 1989. Ince’s move to a bigger club was inevitable after West Ham got relegated from English football’s top flight, however, his eventual move to the North West was one that ended up engulfed in controversy. 

Prior to the transfer being confirmed, the Daily Express printed a picture of Ince wearing a Man United kit whilst he was still under contract at the Hammers. Ince has since explained that as the deal was almost finalised and he was due to go off on holiday, his agent had advised him to have a picture taken in a United shirt before he went rather than coming back from his break early once all the i’s had been dotted and the t’s crossed. To be fair, this does seem like a pretty logical course of action. However, the Express then decided to publish the picture before the transfer had been announced and everyone in East London went absolutely Patrick Swayze (adj. meaning crazy) and overnight Ince had become a hate figure. Inexplicably, West Ham fans still hold this against him to such an extent that they booed his son when he played against them for Huddersfield Town a full thirteen years later. 

Despite this bumpy arrival at Old Trafford, Ince’s time with the Red Devils has to be considered a huge success. During his six years in the North West he won two Premier League titles, two FA Cups, one League Cup, three Charity Shields, one Cup Winners' Cup and one European Super Cup. On an individual level he won the Sir Matt Busby Player of the Year in 1992/93, and was selected in the PFA Team of the Year for three seasons on the bounce between 1992/93 and 1994/95. And he got name checked in a Status Quo song. Solid credentials. 

Obviously during his time at United, Ince was under the tutelage of Sir Alex Ferguson as the Scotsman turned United from bang average also rans into the greatest club in English football. Nowadays, Ince talks about Ferguson in glowing terms, describing him as a “father figure” throughout his time at Old Trafford, however, they didn’t always see eye to eye. For example, take the time United beat Norwich City away at Carrow Road. As the game ticked over into injury time, United were leading 3-1 when Ince picked up the ball. Not seeing much else on, he went on a dribbling run, beat three men, threw in a step over, and then got tackled. It didn’t lead to anything and United still took three points off one of their main rivals for the title. However, Fergie wasn’t happy and he let Ince know about it. Speaking to TalkSport, Ince explained: “The whistle goes at the end of the game and we are patting people on the back and giving high fives and saying “what a great result, lads”. Ferguson comes in and goes absolutely ballistic at me saying “who do you think you are? You ain’t no Maradona or Pele.”

“I said: ‘Gaffer, what are you on about?’

“He said: ‘You’ve lost the ball in the 92nd minute and they could have scored’.

“I said: ‘But they didn’t gaffer and we won 3-1’.

“He starts coming up to me in my face and I’m thinking I’m not having this. So I stand up, we are face to face, and he is shouting and as he is shouting I’ve got spit going in my eye. I’m trying to talk back to him but every time I open my mouth the spit goes in so I thought I would keep my mouth shut. Brian Kidd stepped in between the two of us and we didn’t speak for five days. We played head tennis on the Thursday and he was the referee. It gets to 9-9, Steve Bruce heads the ball up in the air and I do an overhead kick, it hits the line to win the game. Sir Alex goes: ‘out’. Because we weren’t speaking at the time I could not say anything. I looked at him, he said ‘out, game over they won’. As I walked away he said ‘there’s only one guvnor around here, Incey, and it ain’t you.” That told him. 

Ince eventually left United for Inter Milan at the end of the 1994/95 season as Ferguson moved on some of his more experienced players to replace them with a bunch of young lads. At the time getting rid of players like Ince, Kanchelskis and Hughes seemed foolhardy, but in fairness the whippersnappers did okay in their place. His career then saw him take in long and mostly successful spells at Liverpool, Middlesbrough and Wolverhampton Wanderers. Ince eventually left Molineux after applying for the manager’s job and not getting it, and his next stop was at Swindon Town as player/coach. He lasted a grand total of three games in Wiltshire, apparently he found it difficult traveling from Chester to Swindon regularly. Given that it is a four-hour drive each way, I would’ve thought this would be quite obviously problematic before he signed. Seemingly not though.

In total he played 609 games for eight clubs, scoring 73 goals. He also notched up 53 games and a couple of goals for England, including being an integral part of the run to the Euro ‘96 semi finals. He really was a bloody excellent player during his day and I don’t think it would be unreasonable to say that he stands out as an icon of English football in the nineties. With that in mind, maybe it is time for West Ham fans to forgive and forget.