[qbdp]

Giggs the enduring one has history on his mind

Manchester United's winger wants success in Europe to mark the club's 50th anniversary of the Munich aircrash.

IT WAS Tuesday in Macau, 6pm, and the Manchester United players were meeting in the bar of their hotel. Eight days into their Far East tour it was the first full day off on the trip. Alan Smith was on a stool, watching a rerun of Padraig Harrington’s triumph at The Open; Patrice Evra thumbed a newspaper. In its centre, nursing a Coke, was Ryan Giggs. A quiet, mickey-taking humour has always made Giggs popular; nowadays, in a squad full of juniors, seniority gains him extra respect.

His first preseason, in 1991, featured the luxury of a bus ride to Scotland to play a friendly with Dumbarton; now this. The bar, big as an 18-yard box, marble floored, was in the Venetian Resort, a building of hubristic opulence which is billed by its owners as the second largest in the world. “We’ve stayed in some hotels but I think everyone looked at it and thought ‘this is unbelievable’,” said Giggs. “It is hard to imagine what it was like for them. They had to take two flights just to get to the other side of Europe.”

“They” were the Busby Babes. United are about to kick off their 50th season since 1957-58, the campaign of the Munich disaster. History was on Giggs’s mind in Macau, where he met a handful of journalists during a visit to training by local orphans, an event reflecting his club’s expanded charity programme which will feature the launch, tomorrow, of the Manchester United Foundation.

Glancing at Sir Bobby Charlton, Giggs spoke of the ambition of this new United team to add the European Cup to the Premier League title it has just secured. “That would be brilliant for the anniversary,” he said. “Every signing that comes to United knows its history and the Busby era is such a big part of that. It’s why we’ve got so many fans around the world and can make tours like this.”

Giggs is 43 appearances away from Charlton’s record of 754 games for United and could surpass the mark in 2007-08, having played 44 in the 2006-07 campaign. “I don’t like talking about it because it might never happen. I’ll talk about it if it happens,” he said.

Such an attitude has sustained the Welshman. Nothing is taken for granted, nothing assumed. He trains hard and is as fit and slender with his 34th birthday beckoning as on his debut at the age of 17, and United have already indicated he can expect another playing contract when his current one expires in 2008.

The starting XIs chosen by Sir Alex Ferguson in the Far East suggest Giggs will continue as a first choice, operating in the central role behind a striker he filled for much of last season. The signings of Owen Har-greaves, Anderson and Nani, and Ferguson’s pursuit of Car-los Tevez, have “created a buzz” among the other United players. He will have to fight for his spot even harder. His regimen these days includes “ice baths, massages all the time to keep fresh” and he says he hopes retiring from international matches will keep him sharper at club level.

What about the long haul that is the race for the Premier League title? During Chelsea’s preseason tour, Jose Mourinho suggested his side had the measure of United, after their victory in the FA Cup final.

Giggs smirked at that one and said: “We’re very close as teams but we might have the edge over them going into the season because we are the league champions.”