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Fergie's Fledglings


Fergie's Fledglings were a group of football players recruited by Manchester United under the management of Sir Alex Ferguson (often nicknamed "Fergie") and trained by assistant coaches Brian Kidd and Eric Harrison, before eventually progressing to the first team during the 1990s.

The alliteration in the term is a clear homage to the Busby Babes, the famously youthful Manchester United team assembled by the club's other legendary manager Sir Matt Busby and his assistant coach Jimmy Murphy during the 1950s.

The term "Fergie's Fledglings" was first coined by the media in the 1988–89 season to describe a group of young footballers who were introduced into the Manchester United first team by the manager Alex Ferguson. The group included players from the team which reached the final of the 1986 FA Youth Cup such as Lee Martin, Tony Gill and David Wilson, and other youth team players such as Russell Beardsmore, Mark Robins and Deiniol Graham as well as young players bought from other clubs such as Lee Sharpe (Torquay United) and Giuliano Maiorana (Histon).

There was some initial success for the Fledglings; in only his second start, Beardsmore inspired the team to a 3–1 win over rivals Liverpool, and an injury crisis saw Gill, Graham and Wilson drafted into the first team for an FA Cup third round replay against Queens Park Rangers in which both Gill and Graham scored.


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