00:00 Hello and welcome to this special Manchester World video where this afternoon I am joined by former Manchester United coach Rennie Mullenstein,
00:09 who is on to speak to me about the launch of his latest book, which is United, Sir Alex and Me, which is out now.
00:17 Fantastic, Rennie, to have you with us. How are you?
00:20 I'm very well, thank you. I'm pleased to eventually have a real copy in my hands. So, yeah, I'm very, very pleased with that.
00:28 Why did you decide to write a book? How did you come to that decision and how was the process in writing it?
00:36 Over the years, quite a few people have already sort of asked me and said, listen, you should write a book.
00:43 I mean, there's so much you've done and obviously your time at Manchester United and there's so much knowledge and expertise and,
00:51 you know, there's so many things to share, really. And, you know, I've obviously thought it was actually Wayne, Wayne Barton,
00:58 that has sort of helped me write the book that actually approached me as well.
01:02 And one of the ambassadors events that it did for the Norwegian Supporters Club and Wayne was there with a lot of different kind of books.
01:10 And he said as well, this is are you planning of writing a book at some point?
01:15 And that's how the contact started with Wayne and we followed it up. And it took still took a bit of a while before we got going,
01:21 because it's always, you know, it's very time consuming and you need to also think about, OK, how are we going to, you know,
01:27 how are we going to shape the book? What sort of, you know, what sort of, you know, path do we want to follow?
01:33 And eventually when we got that, Wayne and I got together and it's been over two years in the making.
01:39 So it took a little bit of time, but I'm very happy. And it's actually funny, really, that it coincides with with 10 years now.
01:48 So Alex Ferguson left Manchester United. I mean, somebody asked me, did you did you do that on purpose?
01:54 You know, 10 years after. No, not really. But it coincides with it, which is obviously, you know, an interesting number.
02:01 But yeah, so that was that was mainly the reason behind it.
02:06 And I really hope that the readers find it interesting and informative and maybe educational at some point.
02:14 So looking forward to to hear the feedback.
02:18 Well, you couldn't pick anyone better to work with than Wayne and his experience writing Manchester United books.
02:23 He's written about every, feels like every significant figure with United.
02:27 So, yeah, fantastic experience to write it with him. And how did you find the experience?
02:32 Did you enjoy it? Did you find it difficult or challenging?
02:36 No, no, because what I did actually myself, I sort of wrote the outline of the book in terms of, you know,
02:44 the sort of topics and chapters that I want to and that helped Wayne a lot, you know, and basically what we did,
02:50 we sort of picked a particular day in the week, normally Thursdays,
02:54 where we got together for an hour and a half to two hours.
02:57 Wayne recorded everything about our conversations and then wrote it, sort of wrote it down.
03:04 And then it came back to me. And, you know, as the book progressed, where I felt we need we need a little bit more substance to it,
03:11 a bit more detail in it than I sort of added all that.
03:15 So it's been a really, you know, a really, you know, a process of working together closely, Wayne and I.
03:23 And yeah, I actually enjoyed it. Yeah.
03:28 And what comes across from it so much is that how affectionate you still feel towards United
03:35 and how big an influence they had in your life and how big a role that they played.
03:40 I know obviously you were there for 11 years, but you still feel a real affinity with the club now.
03:44 Twelve. Twelve. Twelve. Apologies.
03:48 Well, I don't know you do, because it is like in Barcelona, the same masculine club,
03:54 but it's exactly the same than here with Manchester United. It's more than a club.
03:58 And just because of the fact that I've, you know, came in in 2001, I came in as a skills development coach.
04:06 You sort of see the complete actually the, you know, the beginning of where it all starts at Manchester United
04:12 when these young kids come through the door with all the development centres and advanced centres
04:16 and try to shape up that technical skill development programme and educating coaches,
04:21 educating parents. And you see a lot of those young kids come through the door.
04:25 And, you know, the likes of Marcus Rashford, you know, I can still remember him coming running through the doors of the cliff
04:31 at Lyttelton Road. And there's many, many more that you can mention.
04:36 But then you sort of progress with the club. You start to try to influence different parts of it.
04:41 Individual training with first team players started to come and that was very well received.
04:47 Then you got the opportunity, you know, to do the reserves, which was another step,
04:52 because then you could sort of link all that skill development work, all the technical work
04:56 with individual players into a team setting, which was great for me with that team that we had and the players.
05:05 And if you see them, you know, the fruits of it in the style of play and the performances
05:13 and the results is fantastic. And I always believe very strongly that even at first team level
05:18 with first team players, you can still add that one, two, three, maybe to 5%.
05:22 And that 5% can make a huge difference in terms of winning or losing and eventually winning,
05:28 you know, winning trophies.
