Former England midfielder Ray Wilkins discusses his experiences at AC Milan and Paris St Germain.
People often call David Beckham a trend-setter. But he wasn't the first Manchester United and England midfielder to pursue a career abroad with AC Milan and Paris St Germain. Back in the 1980s, Ray Wilkins made a similar journey. He may not have had quite so many haircut options but Wilkins certainly has some great memories of time abroad so Adam Bate caught up with him to find out more.
How did the move come about? Was it a big decision to leave Manchester United?
Yes, it was, but Manchester United had made it clear they wanted to do the deal. They obviously had Gordon Strachan lined up to come in from Aberdeen so they thought it was a good time to move me on. AC Milan actually wanted Bryan Robson the year before in 1983 but I think United priced him out of the market. So then they came in for me after we had played Juventus in the European Cup Winners' Cup. That's how it came about and I went over to Milan and had an absolute ball of a time.
You joined in 1984, the same summer Karl-Heinz Rummenigge moved to Inter and Diego Maradona signed for Napoli. You must have felt like you were going to the best league in the world?
I think it was the equivalent then to our Premier League now. Our Premier League is the place to be and I think Serie A was the place to be in Europe back then. The Italian league was full of top stars, the likes of Zico and Michel Platini, not to mention our own Liam Brady and Trevor Francis. So it was clearly the place to be and I had a wonderful time.
It wasn't the best of times for Milan though?
They had been relegated for financial irregularities just before then [in 1982] so it was a transitional time but we did OK. We qualified for the UEFA Cup which for them was a bit of an achievement and we reached the final of the Coppa Italia. Unfortunately we lost to Sampdoria. It was a transitional period but obviously they kicked on from there.
What are your memories of Paolo Maldini and Franco Baresi?
Maldini was as good at 17 as he was when he was 38. He was an absolutely outstanding footballer and one of those guys you are just blessed to have played alongside. As for Baresi, he was by far and away the best footballer I have ever played with. He was just a great player. I don't use the word great too often, I think there are only a handful of guys who were truly great, but I would certainly class Baresi in that category.
Did it help to have Mark Hateley join at a similar time in terms of settling in?
It does help enormously to have one of your countrymen alongside you as far as getting to know the place. But it doesn't help much with the language because obviously you speak too much in English rather than smashing into the Italian and getting it done. But I'd say we both came away with an average linguistic knowledge of Italian so we did OK.
How did you find the training?
The training was very much as British players train nowadays. It was very scientific. It was all geared towards doing things by the watch and we had masseurs all over the place. It really was how our football clubs are run today - we were at least 10 years behind when I went to Italy. Thankfully we have caught up and we might even have surpassed one or two clubs in Europe but make no mistake we needed to in order to bring our game forward.
How did you find the football on the field?
It was
