What you can expect from our Treble podcast

The story of how Manchester United won the Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League in the space of 10 days in May a quarter of a century ago has inspired many retellings and different accounts, with so many familiar threads often revisited.

Roy Keane’s return from injury to captain his side to an incredible fightback in Turin with one of the greatest, most selfless individual performances in the club’s history. David Beckham’s road to redemption after the 1998 World Cup. Ryan Giggs’s wonder goal against Arsenal. The double act of Dwight Yorke and Andy Cole. The retirement of Peter Schmeichel and, of course, the star turns of Teddy Sheringham and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in the Nou Camp.

These have all been remembered and recounted so often that even if you weren’t there, or maybe not even born, you’ll know exactly what we’re talking about.

To mark this special milestone, we wanted to do something a little different. To do that, we’re placing you in the moment – 14 May 1999 to be precise, two days before Tottenham Hotspur came to Old Trafford for the final Premier League game of the season.

We’ll then journey through the following days, experiencing the emotions through the words of most of the squad as it was happening, in extremely rare interviews that have not been heard this century.

You’ll hear the joy of Yorke as he reflects on a miraculous debut campaign in a red shirt. A Gary Neville battle cry. The relief of Cole as his goal delivers the league title four years after Upton Park. The anxiety of Schmeichel as he counts down his final days at the club, and Sheringham, as he waits to discover how big a role he can expect to play.

Perhaps most poignantly of all, there’s a prophetic statement from Solskjaer that’s guaranteed to give you goosebumps: “To be on the bench is agony… it’s the worst moment of my career maybe, to sit there and watch and just listen to the sound of my heartbeat.”

What you will hear is the United players on the edge of glory, in the moments before they achieved sporting immortality. The interviews, from the archive of legendary commentator Tom Tyrrell, reveal a much more intimate side of the United players than we’re perhaps used to, due to the very nature of them beginning to understand and appreciate the scale of the historic achievement that awaited them.

The latest in our Unheard podcast series, 1999 follows February’s episode Memories of Munich, which featured interviews with Jackie Blanchflower, Bill Foulkes and Albert Scanlon.

Like that episode, Unheard: 1999 is narrated by the renowned football journalist Patrick Barclay.

SELECTED QUOTES

Peter Schmeichel: “We’ve made history one way or another… it’s going to be difficult to leave, it’s still in my blood.”

Gary Neville: “We’ve not slogged our guts off for 37 games to go and throw it away easily on Sunday.”

David Beckham: “My granddad’s always said when we play Tottenham, he’d love me to score a hat-trick but Tottenham to score four.”

Andy Cole: “No-one’s spoken about it… the most we’ve spoken about it is getting the suits. We’re just taking it game by game.”

Teddy Sheringham: “That’s why you come to United, to be involved in games like this. It’s a dream really. Playing for Manchester United, the biggest club in the world, it’s got to be the tops.”