Soccer: Happy birthday Giggs: 36 and still key at United

Back in 1993, when soccer clubs were just cottoning on to the idea of exploiting the commercial value of their biggest players, Manchester United authorised a video documentary in which Ryan Giggs met George Best to compare notes on life as a teenage star at Old Trafford.

It was a pretty unremarkable affair but, given how little Giggs was permitted to speak to the press, it was the first insight into United's new prodigy.

He drove around Manchester with a Granada TV presenter wearing a purple Reebok jogging suit (Giggs, not the presenter) stopping off at his mum's house and his favourite clothes shop to try on some jackets.

It ended with Best taking Giggs to his old haunt in Manchester, the Brown Bull, once the epicentre of his hip 1960s scene.

By 1993 it was another tired, empty pub. Giggs had an orange juice; Best had half a pint. The presenter asked Giggs about avoiding Best's "mistakes". Diplomatically, Giggs swerved the question. No one mentioned the fact they were in a pub with Britain's most famous alcoholic.

On Sunday, Giggs will be 36 years old. That documentary, made when he was 19, was almost half a lifetime ago, just after his first Premier League title.

Now he has 10 more league titles, two Champions League titles and four FA Cups. All the promise that was hinted at 16 years ago has been fulfilled beyond anyone's imagination. Giggs has had an astonishing life in soccer.

He was once again a central figure on Sunday in United's demolition of Everton, the team he made his debut against as a substitute in March 1991.

It was Giggs who picked out Michael Carrick for the second goal. Eighteen years on and Giggs is still a marvel; still a fixture in a team picked by Alex Ferguson, the world's most unsentimental manager.

Sometimes it takes a burst of nostalgia to remind you just what a great figure in English football he has become.

Giggs is the most successful player in the history of the English game and he has played at arguably its most powerful club for his entire career.

But it has not always been plain sailing. Roughly speaking, his career can be broken down to the periods before and after his 30th birthday.

The start of 2003 was the worst time for Giggs. He was so out of favour with United fans that they cheered when he was substituted against Blackburn Rovers in the Worthington Cup.

He missed a sitter against Arsenal in an FA Cup fifth-round tie United lost at Old Trafford. Although he had signed a five-year deal the previous season, all the signs were that United were finally prepared to cash in on the interest of Internazionale and their owner, Massimo Moratti.

It might be too simple to say Giggs turned it around with two goals against Juventus in Turin that February, but they certainly helped.

Giggs himself came to remember it as one of his best seasons. United won the league title in May; it was David Beckham who left, not Giggs; Cristiano Ronaldo arrived and a new era began.

Giggs has not lost his pace - or at least not all of it - and he has seen off so many pretenders to the left wing it is easy to lose count: Keith Gillespie, Ben Thornley, Jesper Blomqvist, Jordi Cruyff, David Bellion, Kieran Richardson, Park Ji-sung and Luis Nani. Good luck, Zoran Tosic. Yet even now, when Giggs plays mostly in central midfield, Ferguson still seems to consider him his first-choice left-winger for the big games; he picked Giggs on the left against Chelsea this month.

From that 1993 documentary only one ambition held by the 19-year-old Giggs remains unfulfilled and that was "to reach a World Cup with Wales".

To be fair, he did not know that once Ian Rush retired it would be the likes of Robert Earnshaw playing up front.

But what a happy birthday: to be 36 and still one of the main men at Manchester United. When poor old Best was 36, he was at Bournemouth.

- INDEPENDENT