Fletcher on Sir Alex's angry rant when he was 15 & nearly left Man Utd

Darren Fletcher has revealed Sir Alex Ferguson fired an X-rated rant at him when he was just 15-years-old when the Scottish midfielder threatened to leave Manchester United as a teenager.

Fletcher was part of the Red Devils academy in 2002 and was close to breaking through to the first-team, but Newcastle were interested in signing him that year before he went on to make 342 appearances at Old Trafford and is now United's technical director.

How differently things could have turned out for the 37-year-old, who revealed Ferguson clashed with the midfielder's mother when Fletcher was open to joining St James' Park, before the legendary manager apologised to her.

Fletcher told the Lockdown Tactics podcast: 'I nearly signed for Newcastle United. I had been going to United from the age of 12 and Newcastle at this point were the second-biggest team (in England).

'Everyone is telling you, 'look at all of these great Man United midfielders you'll never get in the team, difficult to break through, Newcastle is closer to home.'

'So the word gets back to Sir Alex and he phoned the house one night and my sister picked up the phone. "Here, Darren. It's for you." It's just the boss going absolutely mental.

'I'm 15, just chalk-white and he's f'ing and giving it to me down the phone. My mum sees me and grabs the phone and listens for a few seconds and goes, "don't speak to my son like that ever again," and slams the phone down.

'So the next minute the phone rings up again, it's Sir Alex: "really sorry, Mrs Fletcher but we really like your son, I'm coming up on the next flight to Edinburgh."

'My mum's looking around the house thinking, "I've not done the housework, I've got loads of washing." She goes, "no you're not, they'll come down and see you."'

After choosing to commit to Ferguson's Man United, he became a regular in the reserve team in the 2002-03 season before breaking into the first-team the following season.

He would go on to play at Old Trafford for 13 seasons, winning five Premier League titles alongside Ferguson and played in two Champions League finals, winning one in 2008.

Alongside featuring 80 times for Scotland, Fletcher finished his career at West Brom and Stoke before returning to Old Trafford as a youth coach towards the back end of 2020.

At the start of 2021, Fletcher was promoted to a first-team coach in Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's management set-up, before getting another promotion in March to technical director, working alongside director of football John Murtough.

Earlier this year, Solskjaer praised Fletcher for his 'ideas about football' and described the Scot as a 'very important' figure at Manchester United.

'It's good to have him back,' Solskjaer told Manchester United's official website in January. 'Fletch has been very important to this club for many years.

'I've known him since he was a young boy coming through as a 16-year-old and [former assistant] Mark Dempsey, he's moved down to the Academy helping out there more.

'I thought it was important that we brought him in, because he's got very many good opinions and ideas about football and I thought he's been in with the [Under-]16s, starting his coaching.'