Transfer Tales: Lee Sharpe signs for United
This was the sort of deal that all young footballers in the lower divisions dream about.
On 10 June 1988, a deal was struck for £185,000 to take Torquay United winger Lee Sharpe to Old Trafford.
The left-sided starlet was only 16, when he had been spotted playing youth-team football by former Manchester-based journalist Len Noad. Reds boss Alex Ferguson respected Noad's judgement so Sharpe's progress was carefully monitored.
Ferguson decided to make a long trip south to Devon to make a personal check on the 16-year-old in a first-team fixture against Colchester United, in the old Fourth Division.
By his own admission, Sharpe did not have the best of games but his attitude and raw attributes impressed the United manager and his assistant Archie Knox. So much so, that they hammered out a deal with Gulls boss Cyril Knowles in the car at the Plainmoor ground.
With Ferguson making it clear he would not leave until they had shaken hands on a transfer, the former Tottenham defender visited Sharpe’s lodgings in the early hours to break the news to the star-struck teenager.
There was a concern Knowles would use his contacts at Spurs to sell them the player, and Norwich City had also been casting admiring glances his way, but Ferguson’s determined hands-on approach proved decisive, even if there was an agreement for the youngster to see out the remainder of the season at Torquay before completing the move north.
In that time, he would become the youngest-player to appear in a Football League play-off final, losing out to Swansea City, a record he still holds today, and it would not be long before he broke into the United side.
An exciting crowd pleaser, he made 263 appearances for the club before being sold to Leeds United in 1996.