MANCHESTER United Football Club owe a huge debt of gratitude to Saints for handing them a League Cup drubbing over 30 years ago.

But it took them a while to realise it!

Saints have only ever beaten the Red Devils in the League Cup on one occasion.

That was a 4-1 third round replay success at The Dell in early November, 1986.

An 18-year-old Matt Le Tissier jumped off the bench to score twice as Ron Atkinson's injury-hit United conceded three goals in the last 20 minutes.

Within 48 hours, Atkinson - United's boss since the summer of 1981 - had been sacked.

In his place arrived Aberdeen manager Alex Ferguson.

And the rest, as they like to say in articles such as this, is history.

Of course it is impossible to say whether Atkinson would have kept his job for a year or so longer had United won at The Dell.

If he had done, would Ferguson have ever racked up at Old Trafford? That's also totally hypothetical.

What we do know is that storm clouds had been forming over Atkinson's head ever since the start of the 1986/87 season - his sixth at the club.

At the time of their League Cup drubbing, United had won only four times in 13 First Division games - including a 5-1 thrashing of Chris Nicholl's Saints at Old Trafford - and were rooted in the bottom four.

Twelve months earlier, at the start of the 1985/86 season, Atkinson had masterminded a run of 10 straight wins from the start of the season.

After 15 matches United were still unbeaten, but could not maintain such form and were eventually overtaken by Liverpool. United's wait for a first top flight title since 1967 went on ...

The 1985/86 season was Atkinson's fifth at Old Trafford and he had finished in the top four in all of them. In addition, he had twice won the FA Cup - in 1983 and 1985 - and reached the 1983 League Cup final and the 1984 European Cup Winners Cup semi final.

As a result, he was statistically the club's most successful manager since the legendary Sir Matt Busby.

All that counted for nothing on the evening of Tuesday November 4, 1986, at The Dell.

Following a 0-0 draw at Old Trafford the previous week - in front of a crowd of only 23,639 - the odds favoured Saints on home soil.

United, for a start, hadn't won an away league game all season, and Atkinson was wrestling with some major injuries.

Key midfielders Bryan Robson and Gordon Strachan were both ruled out with hamstring injuries, while Danish defender John Sivebaek was also sidelined.

Utility player Colin Gibson, though, was welcomed back after being absent since mid August through injury.

Nicholl, though, was also reporting injury worries.

There were pre-match doubts over top scorer Colin Clarke (thigh), winger Danny Wallace (ankle) and left back Mark Dennis (knee).

As it turned out, all three played after receiving painkilling injections.

Atkinson's injury situation went from bad to worse, though, with both Norman Whiteside and Gibson having to go off in the first half.

Nicky Wood, a rookie teenager, was brought on for Whiteside - an indication of how few players Atkinson had available to him (remember, these were pre-squad rotation days - Nicholl and Atkinson would never have contemplated fielding fringe players or untried youngsters just to give them some game-time).

Whiteside and Gibson had both gone off injured by the time George Lawrence fired Saints into the lead two minutes before half-time.

Lawrence received a pass from Jimmy Case, cut inside his marker, and fired a stunning 25-yard shot past a startled Chris Turner.

Saints had to wait until 19 minutes from time to double their lead, Clarke knocking down a Glenn Cockerill header for Wallace to half-volley in.

That was virtually his last contribution to the evening, as he hobbled off due to his long-standing ankle complaint.

No matter.

In his place came Le Tissier, who within minutes had netted the first of his 161 Saints goals.

With United defenders appealing for offside, Le Tissier collected a pass from Clarke before sublimely chipping a stranded Turner from outside the penalty area.

He didn't have to wait long for his second goal, rising impressively to head in a Case corner.

United replied late on when Peter Davenport latched onto a poor Gerry Forrest back pass to make it 4-1.

The damage had long been done, however.

A dejected Atkinson told Echo reporter Bob Brunskell afterwards: "The longer the game went on, the more our injury problems took their toll.

"We had no answer to Jimmy Case, who controlled the show from midfield, and we couldn't pin down George Lawrence either. He started to run riot."

Atkinson's injury worries obviously won him little boardroom support, where phone calls to east coast of Scotland were no doubt preparing to be made.

On Thursday November 6, 1986, he was sacked.

An era was over, and a dynasty was about to be created.

Ferguson's impact, famously, was not anything resembling immediate.

He lost his first game in charge, 2-0 at Oxford United - yes, Oxford in the First Division, how the footballing landscape has changed in three decades - and won only one of his first six league matches. United ended up 11th - their lowest league position since Dave Sexton's side had finished eighth in 1980-81 (leading to Atkinson's arrival, though United had been keen to interview Saints boss Lawrie McMenemy too).

United's fans were also slow to turn up in their numbers to back Ferguson. For an end of season league game against Wimbledon in his first season, only 31,686 bothered to turn up at Old Trafford - over 43,000 fewer than regularly pack the stadium these days.

Ferguson's first few years, in fact, were nowhere near as impressive as Atkinson's had been. Big Ron won the FA Cup in his second season and reached another cup final the same term.

Ferguson didn't get anywhere near a cup until winning the FA Cup in May 1990 - virtually three and a half years after his arrival at Old Trafford.

In that time, United actually finished 1988/89 in 11th place - four places below Coventry, two below QPR and one below Millwall.

If you thought that was bad, the following season United were even worse - finishing 13th (below Saints, Wimbledon, QPR and Coventry).

Compare that to life in the modern-day Premier League fishbowl spotlight, where Louis Van Gaal received the sack for finishing fifth and winning the FA Cup!!!!

What strange times we now live in, compared to the ones some of us grew up in ...

  • United's home crowd of just 23,639 for Saints' League Cup visit was a sign of the times. Crowds in the mid 1980s, as football struggled to recover from the horrors of Heysel and Bradford, were incredibly low compared to today's Premier League era. For example, on the same night United played Saints, Arsenal attracted a crowd of only 21,604 for Manchester City's visit while Liverpool v Leicester was watched by 20,248. Only 15,532 watched Tottenham defeat Birmingham City.

Saints United: Turner, Duxbury, Albiston, Whiteside (Wood), McGrath, Hogg, Moses, Olsen, Stapleton, Davenport, Gibson (Moran).