Milner: I had the chance to sign for Man United but I turned them down

It’s the close season and, after overseeing meticulous plans for refurbishments to the club’s already impressive training ground, Paul Barber, the Brighton & Hove Albion chief executive, has finally managed to get away for a brief break in the sun with his family.

He is sitting by the pool when his phone rings. He sees James Milner’s name appear on the screen. He picks up.

‘Hi Paul, it’s Milly,’ the Brighton midfielder says. ‘I’ve got a few ideas about more changes to the training ground.’

‘It’s lovely to hear from you, Milly,’ Barber says, ‘but I’m on holiday.’

‘I’m on holiday, too,’ Milner says, ‘but work never stops.’ Barber can picture him smiling at the other end of the phone.

Work never stops. If there is a phrase to sum Milner up, on and off the pitch, it’s probably that. He is relentless and he is remorseless in his desire for self-improvement and for the development of the team and the development of the environment around the team. He does not cease. He does not quit.

Football has not conquered him yet. Last month, Milner beat the record held by Gareth Barry for the most Premier League games played when he made his 654th appearance in the top flight, in Brighton’s game against Brentford.

He didn’t talk about the record until he had broken it. He had, and still has, a horror of being seen to make token appearances, of being indulged. Sentimentality is not his thing. He certainly does not relish interviews.

He won’t thank me for this, either, but talking to him is like peering through a window into another football world. It’s hard to think of a player worthy of more admiration in the course of a career. He is the personification of dedication and commitment and excellence maintained over almost a quarter of a century in the top flight. He wears the number 20 on his back as a tribute to his friend, Diogo Jota.

Milner hails from another world. He made his league debut, for Leeds United, on November 10, 2002, when he was 16. He came on as a late substitute for Jason Wilcox, who is now the director of football at Manchester United and goes to games in a suit and a tie.

Harry Kewell and Mark Viduka played up front for Leeds that evening. Joe Cole, who is old enough to wear a flat cap when he appears as a pundit now, was in the West Ham team. So was Michael Carrick, who is in his second spell as Manchester United caretaker manager. So was Nigel Winterburn, who was one of the original ‘Arsenal back four’.

Kieron Dyer calls me when I’m on the way to see Milner at the Brighton training ground and tells me how Milner was a ‘bandit’ on the darts board when he was an 18-year-old at Newcastle United. Milner laughs at that recollection. ‘I’ve started it up here now,’ he says. ‘We’re in the middle of a doubles tournament. Jason Steele’s the best. Steeley wins every time.’

Milner turned 40 in January, making him one of only five outfield players to have appeared in the Premier League in his fifth decade, alongside Teddy Sheringham, Ryan Giggs, Kevin Phillips and Gordon Strachan. He still has a way to go to match Stanley Matthews’ top flight record: the Wizard of Dribble was 50 years and five days old when he played his final game for Stoke City.

He is sitting in a room at the training ground, ahead of Brighton’s home game on Sunday with Liverpool, with whom he experienced the greatest night of his career when Jurgen Klopp’s side won the Champions League final in Madrid in 2019. Milner won Premier League titles with Liverpool and with Manchester City.

His longevity has become his story now. That and the affectionate X account called @BoringMilner. Milner is definitely not boring but he is Yorkshire-blunt. He is admired for still being here, for refusing to bow to time.

I ask him if he ever quits at anything. He looks blank. Does he ever pick his ball up when he’s playing golf, for instance? He shakes his head. ‘Snooker’s hard,’ is the furthest he’ll go.

He has a plan to become a marathon runner when his playing career comes to an end, however many months or years hence that may be. He was an ace cross-country runner when he was a kid. Running 26 miles, pounding through the streets of a city, is going to suit him down to the ground. Never giving up. Never giving in. Refusing to be beaten.

He has an 11-year-old daughter and a 10-year-old son. The last time I sat down with him like this, just before that Champions League final, he was so determined that they should become fluent in another language that he spoke to them in Spanish when he was changing their nappies and insisted it was the language they all spoke in the house.

When his children got out of bed in the morning, they were greeted with Buenos dias. When they came into the kitchen looking for food, it was Que quieres para desayunar? (What do you want for breakfast?) or Elige un cereal (Choose a cereal). He knew it was working when he got out of the shower one day and told his daughter, who was 13 months old: Traeme una toalla. She tottered off and came back with his towel.

I ask him if he is persisting with that experiment and, for once, he has to admit to a qualified defeat. ‘It's changed a bit,’ he says. ‘When the kids get to a certain age and they're bringing homework back from school, it's a bit harder to insist on speaking to them in Spanish.

‘I think when you're explaining sentence structure in English, and things like that to a kid, it's very hard to do it in another language. So it sort of just phased out from that point. But for the first four or five years of their lives, it was pretty consistent. It’s like a free gift, really, a new language, when you’re that young.

‘My daughter picks up her languages pretty well at school now. That's definitely helped her going forward, and my lad as well. They actually started saying recently, "Oh, can you speak to us a bit more in Spanish again?". So that's nice.’

Like other ascetics, Milner’s success has been built on an iron will. It has been built on denying himself things. It has been built on principle and on ideas of loyalty to his roots in Yorkshire.

He grew up a Leeds United fan and his father took him to youth-team matches, too. He saw Leeds beat a Manchester United side that included Nicky Butt, David Beckham, Phil Neville, Gary Neville and Robbie Savage in the FA Youth Cup final of 1993. He idolised Alan Smith and got to play alongside him.

The corollary of his love of Leeds is an antipathy towards Manchester United. When I ask him how much he admired Paul Scholes as a player, he hesitates for an instant. ‘Not as much as I should have done,’ he says. ‘If I can take him out of that red shirt, then obviously he was an incredible player.’

I say to him that I guess he would have signed for Manchester United if he had been offered the chance. He shakes his head again. ‘I did have a chance at one point,’ he says. ‘But I’d never do it. Never. Never. I don’t think my dad would have spoken to me any more if I had signed for United.’

The asceticism has taken other forms. He has always been teetotal. I ask him about his time at Newcastle United, whom he joined as an 18-year-old. He was in a dressing room full of big characters - Alan Shearer, Craig Bellamy and Dyer, among others – in a culture that was widely viewed as hedonistic and yet he never felt that drinking would be a short cut to fitting in?

‘No, I wasn't bothered,’ Milner says. ‘Not bothered in the slightest. Loads of people have said, "Oh, go on, just have one". And, "Oh, can I be there when you have your first?". I can still have a good night with the lads without drinking.

‘I’m a bit older now but back then, on a night out, I was always there till the death, regardless. It never really affected me like that. It's one of those things: if you’ve never had it, you don't really miss it.’

His abstinence is only one of the reasons why he has had such a decorated and long career. He is as mentally strong as any player in the game and when he suffered a serious injury last season, he stunned club doctors who gauged he wouldn't return until pre-season by making it back into the first team by the end of the campaign.

No one knows how much longer he will go on. Perhaps even he doesn’t know. I ask him if he’d drop down the divisions and he seems unsure. I tell him the all-time record appearance number for the English top flight is held by John Hollins at 714. ‘That’s a big number,’ Milner says. His 12-month contract is up at the end of the season. It is not known whether he wants a new deal or whether Brighton will offer him one.

When the time does come, Milner has another skill to devote himself to. He is learning to play the piano and, of course, he is throwing himself into it whole-heartedly. He is mostly self-taught but he has had some lessons.

He plays Adele songs, he says, and Elton John. ‘Love his stuff,’ he says. I don’t ask him what his favourite is. Candle in the Wind? Not really him. ‘When I have a bit more time,’ he says, ‘I’ll go a bit more aggressive with the teaching. It’s like anything: you put the effort in, you’ll get the rewards.’