Ferris' wheel: From player to physio and working with Shearer and Keegan | OneFootball

"Alan asked me to drive his car back to Newcastle because he was going to join the first team in the Far East for their pre-season tour," Ferris explains. "I'd only passed my driving test a month before - he said it didn't matter because it was a sponsored car!".

'Alan' was Alan Shearer who, unbeknownst to anyone bar a select few including Ferris, was joining United from Blackburn for a then world-record £15 million.

"It was a sports Jaguar. I was so nervous I couldn't open the door of the thing," he adds. "Embarrassingly, I had to go and find his agent. Alan had gone but the agent called David Platt. So, Platt comes on the phone - I don't even know him - and asks what I was doing.

"Eventually I got in, but the seat was obviously positioned for Alan. I was so nervous about moving it that I just left it where it was. It was an automatic and my foot is down like that," Ferris says stretching his right leg as far as it can go.

"I drove to Newcastle on the inside lane at 60 miles per hour. The Olympic badminton was on the radio, and I didn't change that either! When I got out of the car I could barely walk. My back was wrecked."

It was a surreal end to a surreal day for United's assistant physio. That morning, Ferris had been at Maiden Castle - a training base shared with Durham University's students - when a call from the St. James' Park offices informed him that director Russell Cushing would collect him within the half-hour.

"We were supposed to be travelling incognito to Manchester to sign a player," Ferris recalls. "Russell arrived in his chauffeur driven Bentley with NUFC number plates on it! He wouldn't tell me who the player was. We arrived at a private hospital and Russell said 'the patient's in there. He's had some groin and knee trouble.'

"I opened the door and Alan Shearer was on the bed. He's just nearly led England to Euro 96 glory, he's the most famous footballer in the country. I talked to him for a bit and then I had to say 'I need to inspect your groin. Can you drop your pants please?'. My first conversation with Alan Shearer was basically 'can I put my hand on your testicles?!'".

***

If Ferris had his own way, an association with United that would span three decades would never have begun. A schoolboy prodigy in Northern Ireland, Ferris went to Manchester United, Bolton Wanderers and Everton but, for various reasons, managed to wangle out of moving away.

Then Newcastle offered a two-year apprenticeship with a guarantee that Ferris could complete his studies at Newcastle College. "I absolutely didn't want to go," Ferris says. "I tried everything I could not to go." He begged his parents and even asked his favourite teacher to intervene. It didn't work. The Troubles in Northern Ireland were peaking, and his mother wanted him safely away from home.

During the trial that led to his United offer, Ferris first met Paul Gascoigne, a lad who would prove to be one of England's greatest ever talents. "I got the ball and ran at this full-back. There was this little lad inside screaming for me to give him the ball. I dummied the pass, the full-back bought it and I went round him and scored. I thought 'this is fantastic, a great way to start.'" The speed and pitch of Ferris' voice both increase as he tells the tale. He is back there, on that wet and windy Whitley Bay evening.

"I got the ball again and the full-back is now terrified of my pace. This time I dummy to go around him and pass it to the lad inside. The full-back goes towards him and I'm shouting 'give it to me, I'm in.' He just put his foot on the ball, folded his arms and said, 'if you don't pass to me, I don't pass to you.' Afterwards he came over and said, 'I'm really sorry, mate, I just get a bit carried away.' He was, and still is, a lovely lad."

Arriving on Tyneside in 1981, Ferris was a "country bumpkin" out of his depth as a child in a new city. United apprentices then got an Odeon cinema pass, but that perk was soon removed because one youngster was attending four films a week. "What else was I going to do?," Ferris explains with a grin.

In football, though, Ferris found solace. United were then a second-tier side managed by Arthur Cox and, although the manager was stern, he took a shine to the club's new youngster. Ferris can still hear Cox's voice bellowing 'Paulie's got a trick, Paulie's got a trick', a phrase used whenever he made fools of senior team-mates during training. "I was terrified of him but there was a real warmth to him, too," Ferris says of Cox. "He was a person who valued the football club, valued the people who worked for the football club, and understood what it meant to the city. He was a very good person for me to meet at that stage in my life."

Not least because Cox gave Ferris his first-team debut at the age of 16 years, nine months and 21 days. "On the Friday morning, I trained with the first team. It was five-a-side and about 16 people were involved." Back then there was only one substitute and just 13 players travel to away games. "After lunch the manager would pin the 13 names up on the board. I'd be sweeping the floor but always checked. Everybody always checked. My name was there.

"That afternoon, Arthur walked past and told me to tell my parents I'd be involved on Saturday, so I knew I wasn't going to be 13th man."

While his family didn't have the means to travel across - instead, they watched Teletext hoping Ferris' name would appear - 20 or so telegrams of well-wishes awaited his arrival at Blackburn on 1st May 1982. "When Arthur said, 'get warmed up, son' my legs were like jelly. I got on and very excitedly tried to take on the whole team. I got dispossessed and Blackburn scored. But the Newcastle fans started singing 'there's only one Paul Ferris'. That's a remarkable thing to hear when you should be at school. It made me feel ten-feet tall." For context, Ferris' friends at home would not sit their O-levels until the following month.

A home debut swiftly followed, as did professional terms that summer. Ferris did his own negotiating, visiting Cox at his St. James' Park office. "He had a big chair, and I was sitting down low. He said, 'I'm going to look after you, son.'"

And he did - Ferris was delighted with his first deal. £125 per week basic salary - £100 more than the apprentice's weekly wage - £50 appearance money and a £50 win bonus. "As I was leaving, Arthur said 'and because I'm going to look after you, you can have six free flight tickets home,' too."

Next in to see Cox was Ferris' pal and local boy Neil McDonald, accompanied by his father. Afterwards, the young duo went for coffee and compared terms. Ferris had the slightly better deal and was about to smugly chomp into his sandwich when McDonald asked about his signing-on fee.

"Arthur hadn't mentioned a signing-on fee! Neil told me his dad asked for £15,000. I put my sandwich down - surely, he didn't get that?! He said, 'but I didn't get that... I got £10,000!'. A week later, Neil had a brand-new Mini Metro, and he was charging me a pound to pick me up to go to training. I learned a valuable lesson that day!".

That 1982 summer was not just special because Ferris' professional dreams became reality: it was also when Kevin Keegan's United association began. "Incredible. Mind blown," was Ferris' reaction to the news that the previous season's Division One top-scorer was dropping down a tier. "I was starstruck. Beyond star struck. He was my hero."

Imagine, then, the delight when, within weeks, Keegan was telling journalists that Ferris was the best young player he had seen for his age. "I had that pinned on my wall!".

It was, in fact, Keegan's absence that gave Ferris what turned out to be his only United start, though. In December 1982, United's trip to Charlton was billed as a clash of two former European Footballers of Year: Allan Simonsen of Charlton versus Keegan of Newcastle.

"Arthur phoned and said, 'Kevin's not going to make it. Come down.' At the team meeting the night before he said, 'Paulie is starting. He won't let you down.'

"We lost but at one point Terry McDermott crossed to the back post and I jumped to head it. Honestly, I watched it, and it was going in. I put my hand up like Shearer and turned away, but the ball hit a divot and then the post."

But rather than kick on, Ferris drifted, "got lost in the shadow" of Keegan, Waddle and Peter Beardsley. He picked up hamstring injury after hamstring injury and missed the entirety of United's 1983/84 promotion campaign.

He did finally get his first team goal under Jack Charlton, who had replaced Cox following United's return to Division One. As he sips coffee on a sunny matchday morning in central Newcastle, Ferris' eyes suddenly dance.

"Scoring a goal against Bradford at St. James' was staggering," he begins. "When the header hit the post (at Charlton) I promised myself that if I ever hit anything again, I'd watch it the whole way in.

"It was the most typical Jack Charlton goal you've ever seen. Big lump up in the air; flick on; run on to it and I just thumped it.

"It was the Gallowgate End, and it was like someone had plugged me into the National Grid - an indescribable moment. Neil (MacDonald) came across and said, 'are you okay?'. And I said, 'I can't catch my breath. I can't breathe!'".

In some ways, that strike marked the start of the next chapter - but it was not the tale Ferris had imagined. Two days before his now wife Geraldine's move to Newcastle in the 1985 summer, Ferris was training. But to preserve the condition of the training pitches, United were on the adjacent grass, which was slightly longer. "It wouldn't happen today," Ferris says. "I tried an overhead kick, and my studs stuck in the ground. My whole body rotated on my knee and there was a clunk. I was lying on my back and tried to get up. Glenn Roeder, who was captain by then, wanted me to lie there but I had to get up and vomit."

A series of failed recovery attempts followed. Six weeks in plaster only for an immediate recurrence. Cortisone injection after cortisone injection. It went on for the whole season. Ferris' contract was renewed but United only gave him a month-to-month deal.

Ferris' regret is obvious, and he clearly wishes he had stood up for himself, pushed for the operation he so clearly needed. He would get it immediately these days. Then in February 1987 his mum passed away. "Mentally, I'm distraught. And by the time I looked up, I was 23, playing on one leg."

Ferris eventually, following the Professional Footballers' Association's intervention, got his surgery, and, post operation, was told his cruciate ligament was non-existent. "If I was to turn now, my foot would stay on the ground and my left knee rotates," Ferris says gesticulating. No good for a tricky winger.

United had already released him by then and he played non-league football with Barrow for two seasons, winning the 1990 FA Trophy at Wembley. Soon Ferris called time on his career, his last game coming on a wet and windy night while playing for Whitley Bay. "I was standing on the left wing thinking, 'this is where it all started. I was lightning fast and really good. I'm standing here now, getting paid 70 quid, and what am I doing? That's it, I'm done.' I think I was 25 but I was finished at 19, really."

****

Ferris never intended to return to football. He trained as a physio at Northumbria University before landing a plumb gig at Newcastle's Freeman Hospital. But one afternoon in October 1993, Ferris was with a patient when a colleague interrupted to tell him Derek Wright from Newcastle United was on the phone. "I nearly dropped the patient!".

Wright needed an assistant and, while there were other candidates, he and club doctor Keith Beveridge wanted to interview Ferris. That night. "After the interview, Keith asked how much I was earning as a junior physio. I told him £12,000. He said, 'you can have the job for £11,000.'

"And so I went from having a job with set hours and paid overtime, to a job with less pay and double the hours because it was back at Newcastle United."

But it was no-brainer for Ferris. Keegan had by then returned as manager, with Cox on his coaching staff. The club was flying, and whole the city was riding on its coat-tails. "That burst from '93 to '96 when Kevin was there - if football could be like that all the time, I would still be in it.

"When Kevin opened the training ground to families, it started with a trickle and then it became more and more. Then the burger vans arrived, and Derek and I would sneak out for a burger once the players were training. We had to furtively eat them upstairs!".

Further treats soon arrived, and these were far better than fried processed meat: David Ginola and Les Ferdinand. "I'd watch five-a-side games and didn't think I'd ever have been able to play," Ferris says. "It was just so fast and so precise. It was as good as anything you'd watch. They were just incredible."

In January 1996, with United 12-points clear of Manchester United, Ferris was certain the Premier League title would be won. "There was no way that this team was not going to win the league - you could feel it in your bones. Then Manchester United start to win 1-0, 1-0, 1-0. A couple of stutters and it all just crept away."

Keegan's now infamous 'I'd love it if we beat them' speech came following a victory at Leeds with two to play. However, United drew those games and Sir Alex Ferguson's side lifted the trophy. "I went on a psychology course years later and the psychologist used that speech as a sign of someone who'd crumbled,” Ferris recalls. "But I'd seen that passion in Kevin in changing rooms before. He would be 'heart on his sleeve' emotional. Maybe a flaw but maybe also one of his great strengths. That's why people wanted to follow him into battle - they believed in him."

That summer Keegan brought Shearer home. He was supposed to be the final touch, but Keegan resigned in January 1997 and United finished runners-up again under his successor Kenny Dalglish.

Ahead of the 1997/98 season, Ferdinand and Ginola were sold to Tottenham, before Shearer shattered his ankle in a pre-season match at Goodison Park. Ferris was given sole charge of his rehabilitation.

"He wasn't challenging at all," Ferris says of Shearer. "But it was a challenging time for Derek and I, as physios. When a world superstar gets injured, all the gurus in the world want a piece. They'd send him letters saying 'the people you're working with won't be as good as me' or 'be careful - if you don't get this right you're finished.'

"Alan came in one day with them all, wanting to know which ones might be good. I'm spikier than Derek and said 'please tell me that's not you? You aren't thinking of that?!'.

"He put the letters in the bin and said, 'make sure you don't f*** up my rehab'. It's intense pressure but you're dealing with someone who is single-mindedly going to get there. He would sing Chumbawamba's 'I get knocked down, but I get up again' in training. He wanted to be pushed and get back as quickly as possible."

Ferris' friendship with Shearer counted against him under Ruud Gullit but the wind shifted again when the late Sir Bobby Robson arrived at United in September 1999. "It is impossible to convey how quickly he changed the atmosphere of the football club, and how quickly it went go from toxic to bliss.

"Bobby would come in the medical department after training, once or twice a week, sit up on the couch and say, 'any chance of a cup of tea?'. That is priceless for medical staff. He knew what he was doing. He was saying 'you're my people'. Those sessions were a real joy. He couldn't talk about anything else but football. You'd try but he'd bring it back to football. He was a charming gentleman."

Under Robson, United secured a trio of top five finishes and enjoyed famous nights at the San Siro and De Kuip. "He managed players better than I've ever seen. It was a strange squad, because you had this group of stellar, older players who were really solid pros." Ferris is talking about the likes of Shearer and Gary Speed. "And then you had this group of younger players who were great players, but who were just awash with money and didn't know what to do with it.

"I think all of them would look back and say they didn't have great sense. But why would they? And Bobby had to try and manage them as a pensioner, really. And he did manage them. People say 'they did for him in the end' but I think he managed Craig Bellamy and Kieron Dyer brilliantly.

"Graeme Souness tried to manage them afterwards and couldn't. That's not a criticism of Graeme but he would be more 'my way or the highway'. Bobby was very much about finding ways to work together."

Ferris' experiences under Gullit had already got him thinking of life after football, and he left to re-train as a lawyer. He returned when Shearer was appointed manager for the last eight games of 2008/09 but has given the game a wide berth ever since.

Paul Ferris' new book, Once Upon a Toon - 18 Years Inside Newcastle United, is published by Bloomsbury Sport and on sale now.