Andrei Kanchelskis Called Sir Alex Ferguson A ‘Scottish B*****d’ After Teammates Stitched Him Up In First Week

A red-faced Andrei Kanchelskis was tricked into calling Sir Alex Ferguson a "Scottish b*****d' to his face when he first arrived at Manchester United.

The now-retired winger, who spent four years with the Reds after joining from Shakhtar Donetsk in a £650k deal, lifted two Premier League titles, an FA Cup and a European Super Cup during a successful stint with the Reds.

But his start to life at Old Trafford could have gone a lot smoother than it did.

Firstly, Kanchelskis' agent told him was going to Manchester in 1991 but didn't mention the club he would play for.

"I didn't know which Manchester club I was joining," he revealed in a chat with FourFourTwo. "When I flew to England in 1991, no one told me which club I was going to.

"I asked my agent and he just said, "To Manchester". I asked, "Which club?" and he replied, "I don't know". When we landed, we were driven to Old Trafford. It was only then that I realised it was United."

After a fairly confusing trip to Manchester, the former Dynamo Kyiv winger then forgot to bring a pair of boots to his first training session at United - and had to buy some new ones that didn't even fit.

"When I first met Alex Ferguson he said, 'Tomorrow, you're training'," he said. "Nobody told me that I'd be training. I hadn't bought my boots. I went to buy some, but they were terrible. They didn't really fit properly.

"I played really badly in a friendly, but fortunately they still gave me a contract."

Things didn't much better in the first week and he couldn't speak a word of English - a fact that his new teammates quickly exploited.

"Whenever a foreign footballer comes into a dressing room, he will be taught how to swear," Kanchelskis said in his autobiography Russian Winters.

"I've seen exactly the same thing with Brazilian players when I have been managing in Russia. They also taught me the correct way to address the manager of Manchester United.

"Almost the first time I came across Alex Ferguson in the corridors of the Cliff, he said to me, 'All right Andrei, how's it going?

"I smiled at him and replied, 'F*** off, Scottish b******'.

"Ferguson stopped dead in his tracks and then began to smile as he heard laughter echoing down the corridor, while I stood there bewildered."

So what did Ferguson say to the former Russia international after calling him a 'Scottish b******'?

According to Kanchelskis, he said: "Next time, 'not like this, don't speak like this.'"

Featured Image Credit: Alamy

Topics: Manchester United, Sir Alex Ferguson, Premier League

Jack Kenmare

Jack Kenmare is a writer at SPORTbible. He's interviewed some of the biggest names in sport, including Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Pele, Carles Puyol and Tim Henman. He dabbles in all things sport but football is his biggest passion. He was once hit in the head by a wayward strike from Nicky Butt and lived to tell the tale.

@jackkenmare_