"It happened really quickly, the decision to retire.
"It was an incident that happened on a training ground.
"I was feeling low, and one day before training, I wasn't involved in the first-team.
"I went to strike a ball and there was no conviction behind it. Really, that was it.
"I thought to myself, 'What are you doing? You're wasting your time.'
"I’d lost my self respect!
"I just walked off the training ground."
Chris Casper was always going to be well equipped for the pressures which faced him when he signed for Manchester United.
Burnley-born, he grew up known as the son of Clarets legend Frank, a highly-respected figure who made nearly 250 league appearances for his hometown club over a nine-year period, later managing the side as both a caretaker and a permanent manager.
It was those Burnley links that helped a young Chris get his foot in the door at United. Club scout Joe Brown, a former first-team coach at Turf Moor, was well aware of the promising youngster as part of his job as a North West scout for Sir Alex Ferguson, a scouting network that the legendary manager was expanding to all parts of the country.
At the age of just 13, Chris was invited down to United for a trial in the school holidays, eventually making the trip a further three times before he was eventually offered the chance of a lifetime.
Despite his tender age, United essentially offered him a six-year contract. An initial two-year scholarship, with two-years as an apprentice and a two-year deal as a professional at the end of it.
Casper was a childhood Burnley fan, but it was a 'no-brainer' to snatch such an opportunity.
"Sir Alex was speaking to me, taking an interest in me," Casper told MEN Sport. "He got to know all the young players' names. It was a no-brainer. The other thing that was evident at the time was the shift at the club. I could tell there was a real change in direction. They were more of a cup team in the 1980s. The manager changed that, changed that mentality. It took time, but the emphasis was on the youth and bringing players through.
"The B-team coaches were Nobby Stiles and Brian Kidd, European Cup winners and a World Cup winner. That was United's culture. They embraced their old players and the history. Eric Harrison was unbelievable as well. It was a no-brainer to sign at the time."
In the modern game, youth players are nurtured in protective bubbles before a select few are even given the chance of first-team exposure. That was not the case in the 1990s.
At the age of just 16, Casper was one of many United youngsters used to make up the numbers in senior training sessions, often pitting his wits against experienced pros.
"It wasn't regular, but when you went over you were integrated with the reserves. I think it was Aston Villa at home on a Tuesday or a Wednesday. The first team were doing some possession work, and we were involved in that; Mark Hughes, Bryan Robson, and players like that. It was unbelievable. That was the culture that the manager had started to develop when he took that much care in getting to know you and giving you experiences and opportunities no other manager was."
Another key component of Casper's upbringing was the reserve system. This has largely disappeared in English football nowadays, with the focus on age-specific competitions and the Premier League 2 acting as the stepping stone to first-team involvement.
30 years ago, it was very different. As a teenage talent, Casper faced some of the best players in world football, including one memorable clash with the Premier League's greatest-ever goalscorer.
"The good thing about the old reserve team was the players that you were playing against. It was 1994. I was only 18 and it was Alan Shearer's first game back after he had done his cruciate. His first game back was against us.
"I'm a young centre-half and had a point to prove, no matter who I was playing against. I'll give you respect, but when the ball is there to be won, I'm going to go for it. I caught Shearer early on (laughs). He let me know about it and wasn’t happy! But I didn't care; this was my career and it was a dog-eat-dog world.
"Steve Bull is another one I played against. As a young defender, that taught me so much. You have just got to survive against them. They are not going to take it easy on you. It was a great learning curve for me.
"I think that is why so many young players want to go out on loan now. I played for the reserves when I was 16 at Old Trafford, with Lee Martin, Mark Robins, Gary Walsh. It was a really good team, but there isn’t that desire to play senior players anymore in the U23s.
"Those were really competitive games that gave you what you needed. The manager would make sure any players who didn't play at the weekend got minutes for the reserves too. So we played with the likes of Dion Dublin, Bryan Robson, Lee Sharpe, anyone who wasn't involved on the Saturday. Playing and training with Bryan Robson was unbelievable. He was my idol growing up, and to be on the same pitch as him was a dream come true.
"It's not done so much these days, and I think it is a shame that it has been lost. We were always playing at the main grounds too: Old Trafford, Anfield, Goodison Park. It was a fantastic experience."
One of Casper's fondest memories from his time at United was winning the FA Youth Cup in 1992, an achievement that would go on to be one of the defining moments in the subsequent Class of '92.
"I didn't play in the first two games, Sunderland away and Walsall at home. Just after Christmas, I broke into the team. At the back, me and Gary Neville had started to develop a good partnership. We enjoyed defending, we enjoyed competing."
Casper's first match was a victory away at Man City, followed by a victory over Tranmere in the quarter-finals. Arguably the toughest test came in the semi-finals though, against a vastly experienced Tottenham side.
"We were probably the underdogs. We had seven first years and they had quite a few who had already played in their first-team, Nick Barmby being one of them, Darren Caskey, Sol Campbell. They had some really good players. In the first game, we had Ryan Giggs, and we flew out of the blocks at them. After 15/20 minutes, we were 3-0 up. Then we had a quick turnaround to White Hart Lane for the second leg and beat them 2-1.
"In the final, Crystal Palace were really tough to play against. It was a horrible night at Selhurst Park, but Becks scored a good goal to put us 3-1 up and put us really in charge for the second leg. There was quite a big gap between the two legs, nearly four weeks. We had a lot of time to practice. We knew they were dangerous from set-pieces, so we really practised them, and after two minutes, we conceded from one!
"Fortunately, Ben Thornley, as he regularly reminds me and Gary, pulled us back into it with a great goal, and we went on to win."
30 years on, David Beckham, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Nicky Butt, Gary Neville and Phil Neville are regarded as the successes of the famous crop of youngsters.
But three decades ago, it was Thornley who many expected to have the brightest career in the game.
"Ryan was a first-team regular, but Ben was the best player out of the rest of us. He was a forward who could play on either the left or right side. He was two-footed, a proper natural two-footed too. He was quick, brave, he'd get kicked all over, and score a lot of goals.
"Unfortunately, injury curtailed his career. He was going to be involved on the Sunday against Oldham in the FA Cup semi-final at Wembley, so he wasn't down to play the full 90 on the Wednesday before. The pitch at Gigg Lane was horrendous and he got a tackle, wouldn't even call it a tackle. He never came back the same player. He was out for 18 months.
"He did well to come back, but his knee was an absolute mess. He was a top player. Without that, he'd have had a top career and the Class of '92 would probably have had another member."
Casper always backed himself as a player, going on to captain England U18s, and was well regarded by Ferguson at youth level, but at such an elite club, there was a continued competition for places that kept everyone on their toes.
"The manager wasn't for standing still either. He brought Ronny Johnsen who the manager always played, and, towards the end, Jaap Stam as well. We already had Steve Bruce, Gary Pallister and David May, all outstanding centre-halves. Wes Brown was coming through too, an outstanding defender."
Casper only made seven senior appearances at the club, and although playing time was scarce, Ferguson was delighted to have someone so versatile and professional in reserve whenever he needed him.
It was a huge compliment to the young defender that he had such reassurance, but there came a time when he wanted to take a risk and move on to pursue his own ambitions of being a regular.
"My first loan was when I was 20, I went to Bournemouth, and I had been ready for it, and had been asking the manager, to get me out for about 18 months. I had seen David Beckham go to Preston and what that had done for him, and I just wanted to play. I'd been playing reserve team football since I was 16 years old. I was craving first-team football, the excitement and the competitiveness of trying to win three points.
"Bournemouth did me the world of good in a decent team, with the likes of Matty Holland and Stevie Robinson. We didn't dominate every game; we did a lot of defending. I came back and went straight back into the Champions League squad, so I must have done okay."
Despite this impressive spell, Casper was still on the periphery and, having tasted League One football on the South Coast, his next aim was to test himself in the Championship on a regular basis.
"I went on loan to Swindon in the Championship in 1997 and we were top of the league after 15 games. Swindon offered a transfer fee in the region of £300,000, but the two clubs didn't agree, and the manager wanted to bring me back into the first-team squad."
Once again, it was a huge compliment to Casper that Ferguson was happy to have him around the senior squad, but the versatile defender was just eager to build upon his positive momentum and get more minutes under his belt.
The following year a loan offer from Reading arrived. It would prove to be the last of his playing career.
"It was a difficult period in my life. It was a quick move to Reading, really. They had just been taken over by John Madejski. I had interest from several good clubs and then got a call from the manager who said Reading wanted me on loan. I looked at the league table and thought they were struggling, but Sir Alex said they had a good squad and a really good manager in Tommy Burns. I signed on loan for a month, did well, and then signed permanently in autumn."
Just over a year later, on Boxing Day 1999, that all ended. In the same year his former youth teammates cemented their legacy with a famous Treble, Casper, then 24, would play the final match of his professional career.
It was in a game against Cardiff that the defender suffered an horrendous double leg fracture.
"As much as I tried to come back, it just wasn't happening, no matter how much I tried. Two years later, I was in need of another shin operation, which would have kept me out for almost another season. I was out of contract. My daughter had just been born, and it wasn't something I could face anymore.
"It happened really quickly, the decision to retire. It was an incident that happened on a training ground. I was feeling low, and one day before training, I wasn't involved in the first-team. I went to strike a ball and there was no conviction behind it. Really, that was it. I thought to myself, 'What are you doing? You're wasting your time.' I’d lost my self respect! I just walked off the training ground.
"I spoke to Alan Pardew and it was done really quickly. You just know, I got to the point where I thought, 'that's it, I'm done, I’m kidding myself'. It didn't take a lot of consideration. It just hit me. I saw a couple of young lads looking over, and I was just embarrassed. They didn't say anything, but I could just tell. I spoke to the manager and he understood."
It was during his rehabilitation period at the University of Bath that Casper began to fulfil his coaching ambitions, working with Ged Roddy and Paul Tisdale at Team Bath as the club made history by reaching the FA Cup first round in 2002.
Casper admits he always wanted to go straight into coaching after his professional career came to an end. But he had never contemplated anything other than a long career in the game before that dream was cut short.
"You're no longer playing for three points, you've got none of the adrenalin and excitement of playing in front of fans. Once that's gone, I worry for players sometimes about what they are actually going to do, and do they know what they are going to do? I was always adamant that I'd go into coaching. By the time I was 30, I was an A-licence coach, but it is a worry about the afterlife of players regardless of their careers.
"When I was at the Premier League, we did a lot of work on what players do after dropping out of the game. I was fortunate that I got on with it, but sometimes players don't have that."
The role he refers to was a club support manager working for the Premier League, using his own experience to educate young footballers about life after football and the importance of having a back-up plan.
"I think personal development is massive and it’s so important to keep learning and improving. I’ve just completed a Masters in Sporting Directorship and it’s been very rewarding. It was hard work, but, if you are going to be successful, you have to put the effort in. That was instilled in me by my Mum and Dad growing up. Sir Alex was the absolute epitome of this too, only gaining the success he achieved with sheer hard work and dedication to the club."
Since 2017 he has held the role of Director of Football at Salford City, reuniting with his former United teammates to help implement their lofty ambitions at the Football League club.
With two promotions and two Wembley wins in the last four seasons, it is safe to say he is doing that job well, but what exactly is his role as a sporting director?
"The role of the sporting director has become very prevalent in the modern game. If you look at Dan Ashworth, who has just left Brighton to join Newcastle, Michael Edwards at Liverpool, Txiki Begiristain at Man City, they are all sporting directors who have been hugely successful and there are many more of these roles within the game.
"In essence, the role is to oversee the football side of the club. That starts with the owners identifying what they are looking to achieve, how they are looking to achieve it, what the long-term vision is, and how we are going to achieve it.
"You work with the owners, you identify the playing style, which influences the manager you hire, and you recruit the players who can fit into that philosophy. You are overseeing everything from a football perspective, recruitment, medical, sport science, etc., and making sure everyone has the support they need to fulfil their roles to the best of their ability. You take a lot of work away from the manager so he can focus on working with the players. So, dealing with agents and other parts of the club, they don’t have to worry about it. We have developed the academy and the B-Team over the past four years, which is very important for us. The ladies' team is another massive part of the club we started three years ago. Having that inclusion and building all aspects of the club is very important.
"All those aspects, I'm there to oversee, there to support the manager, and there to deliver the owner's vision. You also need to understand the business side of the club too, sticking to a financial structure. Having been a player, manager, coach, scout and working in youth development in the Premier League, I like to think that the experience I have will stand me in good stead to be successful in my career."
With so much success in a similar role, Casper is in a good position to give his verdict on the current Old Trafford set-up, and he thinks a clear long-term plan is integral to any future success.
"It took Sir Alex three or four years to make an impact on the club and start to be successful. He was in total control of the club. Manchester United is such a big organisation with so many moving parts that it is sometimes difficult to coordinate all those different departments, but they certainly needed someone to do that on the football side of things.
"The recruitment of the next manager, which since Sir Alex left has been questionable. For whatever reason, you look at the managers who came in. There have been some very experienced ones with unbelievable CVs, so you've also got to ask, is it solely down to the managers? Or does the club have to take more responsibility?
"At Salford, it's not always plain sailing, and you've got to look at yourself. Everyone has got to be accountable, and I think United needs to do that too. They have got a lot of catching up to do. Man City and Liverpool are their two biggest rivals, and they are out in front. The performances over the last three or four years haven’t always been great. How do they address that? Man United, in the past, have had those dips.
"For 26 years, we didn't win the league. Liverpool hadn't won it for 30 years, so it does go like that, but it did need addressing. Hopefully, there will be a plan in place and an idea of how it looks going forward to compete with Liverpool and City and once again be the dominant force in the Premier League."
