Unrecognisable Man Utd icon used to urinate on team-mates

Sir Alex Ferguson's Champions League winning squad from 1999 was full of plenty of recognisable faces, but one player took a different path to his team-mates after retiring

While some of his former team-mates remain regulars on the punditry sofa, former Manchester United defender David May has done things differently since hanging up his boots.

May, now 54, spent the best part of a decade at Old Trafford after Alex Ferguson signed him from Blackburn Rovers in 1994. The pinnacle of his career came in the 1998-99 Treble campaign, when he started the FA Cup final win over Newcastle United and was an unused substitute for the Champions League decider against Bayern Munich.

A self-professed 'joker', May has taken on broadcast roles with MUTV since retirement. However, that hasn't been his only source of money.

While others stayed solely within football, May moved into the wine trade. It's a far cry from his days at Old Trafford, where he admitted to urinating on his colleagues.

"I’d urinate down team mates’ legs in the shower, cut the laces out of Nicky Butt’s new trainers or put Deep Heat in the kitman’s shorts," May told FourFourTwo in 2007. "And some saw my biggest joke as getting in most of the photos when United won the European Cup.

"I always thought that if I got near the trophy then I’d be in the pictures. I saw the trophy on a chair and thought: ‘I’m having that.’ So I picked it up and the rest is history. Although I didn’t play in the final, I was proud of my contribution to the treble."

May then partnered with a South African friend to start a business importing wine from the country. However, he later revealed he "knocked it on the head because the lad I was with was a complete p****’".

What are your fondest memories of David May's playing career? Let us know in the comments section

Image: Alain Gadoffre / Onze / Icon Sport via Getty Images) Alain Gadoffre / Onze / Icon Sport via Getty Images)

Speaking to Mirror Football in 2022, May reflected on what he took from his time playing under legendary manager Ferguson. While he spent several years as a squad player, playing just 118 times across nine years at Old Trafford, bigger names were offloaded as soon as the boss decided it was time for them to go.

“No player is bigger than the club, so you let players go," May said. "He let [Roy] Keane go, Jaap [Stam], Ruud [van Nistelrooy] and many, many others. As long as Ten Hag has the dressing room, which he does, and the players abide by his rules, which they are doing, then everything is good. What they don’t want is the dressing room overruling the manager, because if that happens then you’re in trouble.

“No player should be dictating to the players and the manager about how the club should be run. Whether you’re playing at Stockport or Manchester United, it doesn’t matter. As soon as the manager loses that edge of authority then you will always get this type of stuff. So he’s done the right thing – he’s left him out of the squad, spoken very well about the reasons and now we move on.”

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