Sir Alex Ferguson took to the dugout for the final time 10 years ago - but the Manchester United players were left stunned after they found out about his retirement when the squad went out on a golf day.
The Scot managed his 1500th and final game in charge of United as they played out a thrilling 5-5 draw against West Brom on 19th May, 2013. It ended a remarkable campaign as the Red Devils lifted the Premier League for the 13th time in 20 years, capping off a fine career for Ferguson.
However, the squad didn't have a clue about his retirement, up until they went on a golf charity day as the news broke out to the United players. Former Red Devils defender Jonny Evans opened up about when he found out the news and he revealed it was a complete "shock feeling". Evans was part of the United side that won the title.
He told the club's website : "We were all having a game of golf at a club golf day – the players were playing against the staff. We were all on the golf course when the news came through. It was pretty surprising and quite a surreal feeling, but I think we all understood that it would come to an end one day.
"There was no sign at all that Sir Alex was considering retirement. In the back of your mind you think that the boss will go on forever. I didn’t know anything else but Sir Alex being United manager. It was hard to gauge what was going to happen next as we’d had no experience of anything apart from Sir Alex."
Ferguson will go down as United's greatest-ever manager. He also won two Champions League titles, five FA Cups and four League Cups during his 26-year spell at the Red Devils. He won 895 of his 1500 matches in the dugout at United, before ending his time after another league title.
Meanwhile, Tom Cleverley added: "It was a strange period. I remember playing golf with Wayne Rooney at Dunham and the rumours started to circulate a little bit that the gaffer was going to retire.
"Everyone was so shocked; it came out of the blue. It made sense that he wanted to retire at the top – we’d lost the league the year before in unfortunate circumstances so it must have felt so sweet for the manager that we won the league by 11 points the next year and he obviously felt that it was the right time for him to go.
"He got the whole team in the dressing room at Carrington to announce his retirement. It was quite emotional for players who had played under him for 15 plus years and for people like me who’d been at the club since they were 12 years old and had only known one leader.
"He wasn’t a normal manager – he negotiated my first professional contract, he had massive input into where I went out on loan, him and Paul McGuinness were the two most influential people in my career, so it was an emotional dressing room.”
Adnan Januzaj, who worked under Ferguson for a couple of years, continued: "I was actually very sad because I was just starting my career under him. It was a shock – not just for me but for the whole football world. But I was really happy to be part of final game and to be there."
