Hell's Barbecue Trivia Quiz

Answer: The match was a replay, as United and Palace had drawn 3-3 in the original final

The FA Cup victory of 1990 was to be the first of several. United beat Nottingham Forest, Hereford United, Newcastle United, Sheffield United and Oldham Athletic, with the semi-final also being a replay. In the first FA Cup final, United and Palace drew 3-3, with two goals from Mark Hughes and one from Bryan Robson.

The match was replayed five days later and this time, United won narrowly with a goal by Lee Martin. Martin almost missed the match, as Ferguson was uncertain about whether he was fit to play. United had a poor league run, finishing 13th, and at Christmas, fans were calling for Ferguson to be sacked. No doubt they were later relieved that he stayed on!

Answer: Nicky Butt

Bryan Robson signed for Manchester United in 1981 and ended up spending most of his playing career there, before joining Middlesbrough, where he became player-manager and got them promoted into the Premier League. He was club captain when Ferguson took over from Ron Atkinson as manager, and became the first Manchester United captain to lift the FA Cup three times.

He was succeeded by fellow northeast native Steve Bruce, who had taken Robson's place as captain in the 1992 League Cup final, and for most of the 1992-93 season, due to Robson's injuries.

He was the first English captain to do the Double. Ireland's Roy Keane took over as captain from Eric Cantona from 1997 to 2001, and was in charge when United won the Treble. Nicky Butt did not wear the armband, but later returned to Old Trafford as head of first team development.

Answer: Alan Hansen

Alan Hansen was a former defender with Liverpool and Partick Thistle, before going into a media career, where he appeared as one of the regular pundits on 'Match of the Day' throughout the '90s. He would often comment on the 'diabolical' or 'sloppy' defending of underperforming teams.

He said, "You can't win anything with kids" following United's defeat to Aston Villa, when Andrei Kanchelskis, Paul Ince and Mark Hughes had all been sold (to Everton, Inter Milan and Chelsea respectively), and a group of younger players replaced them.

The group of young players that included Beckham, the Nevilles, Butt, Scholes, Giggs and David May were collectively nicknamed 'Fergie's Fledglings', as a reference to the 'Busby Babes' of many generations earlier, and proved to be instrumental in United's victories in the late '90s and early '00s. United went on to win the Double in the 1996-97 season, and Beckham would go on to become one of the club's most well-known players, both for his skills on the pitch and his relationship with the Spice Girls' Victoria Adams off it.

Answer: Chelsea

Glenn Hoddle's Chelsea suffered a humiliating 4-0 defeat at the hands of United, with goals scored by Mark Hughes, Brian McClair (who came on as a substitute), and two penalties from Eric Cantona. As United also won the title, guaranteeing them entry into the Champions' League, Chelsea competed in the Cup Winners' Cup. They did it again in the 1995-96 season, when they beat Liverpool 1-0 in the FA Cup final with an 85th-minute Cantona goal.

One tradition which has now sadly died out involved both finalists releasing a single featuring the players (and sometimes famous artists, such as Suggs and Chelsea, or Chris Rea, Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer and Middlesbrough). Manchester United's FA Cup song for 1994 was 'Come On You Reds', and 'Move Move Move (The Red Tribe)' was their 1996 FA Cup song. Sadly, thanks to Everton, the title of their 1995 FA Cup single 'We're Gonna Do It Again' proved to be wrong.

Answer: Kicking a Crystal Palace fan in the face

When Manchester United were away to Crystal Palace in January 1995, Cantona was sent off for kicking Palace's Richard Shaw. Matthew Simmons, a Crystal Palace fan, made a racist comment to Cantona. Despite United kit man Norman Davies trying to stop him, Cantona responded by attacking Simmons with a flying kick, then punching him. Cantona was sentenced to two weeks' imprisonment, though he was allowed out on bail, and 120 hours of community service, which he spent coaching children at United's training ground.

He was banned for the rest of the season, with some critics calling for him to be banned for life, and stripped of the French national team captaincy. He returned to football in October 1995, scoring a penalty against Liverpool in a 2-2 draw. Cantona has since said that the attack on the supporter was a 'great feeling'.

Answer: 1998-99

After two Doubles, United went one better and won the Treble in 1998-99, beating Newcastle United 2-0 in the FA Cup final with goals by Teddy Sheringham and Paul Scholes, and Bayern Munich 2-1 in the Champions' League final, with goals by Sheringham and Ole Gunnar Solskjær, who came on as a substitute. Fittingly enough, the day of their Champions' League victory also happened to be Sir Matt Busby's birthday.

While they did make it into the League Cup final, they lost to Tottenham Hotspur, one of only five losses throughout the season (the others being three league games and the Charity Shield, which Arsenal won).

By the end of the season, they had become Britain's richest football club. Local rivals Manchester City would go on to repeat a similar feat in 2018-19 by winning the domestic Treble of the title, FA Cup and League Cup, though City manager Pep Guardiola pointed out that they were not the first football team in England to do so; that honour belonged to Arsenal Women in the 2006-07 season.

Answer: Alex Ferguson kicked a boot at him and hit him in the face.

Peter Schmeichel signed for Manchester United from Brøndby in 1991 and stayed with United as their number 1 goalkeeper until 1999. In the 1992-93 season, Ferguson temporarily fired him after an argument between the two; United had been 3-0 down to Liverpool but ended up drawing 3-3, and Ferguson blamed Schmeichel as his goal kicks kept going straight to Neil Ruddock. Schmeichel apologised to the rest of the squad in a meeting and Ferguson, who was eavesdropping at the door, forgave him and took him back.

Along with Paraguay's Jose Luis Chilavert, Schmeichel is one of the few goalkeepers to have scored an outfield goal. He had previously scored 6 at Hridovre and 2 at Brøndby, and at United, he scored a header against Rotor Volgograd from a Ryan Giggs corner in a 1995 UEAF Cup match, although Rotor Volgograd ended up winning the tie on away goals.

On the Manchester-based soap opera 'Coronation Street', the character Chesney Brown adopted a great Dane puppy called Schmeichel after the goalkeeper (although great Danes are actually German dogs); rather fittingly, one of the human Schmeichel's nicknames was 'the Great Dane'. He also appeared in an episode of 'Coronation Street' himself in 1999.

Schmeichel wasn't the receiver of a boot to the face, however - that unfortunate honour belongs to David Beckham, after he and Ferguson had an argument.

Answer: Cristiano Ronaldo

The Portuguese forward Cristiano Ronaldo signed for Manchester United from Sporting Lisbon at the start of the 2003-04 season, becoming their first Portuguese player. Aged just eighteen, he was also English football's most expensive teenage signing at that time, costing £12.24 million.

He wore the number 7 shirt, a number previously worn by the likes of Beckham, Cantona and George Best. His first appearance was as a substitute for Nicky Butt against Bolton, and his first goal was against Portsmouth. During his time at United, he regarded Alex Ferguson as a 'father', citing him as one of the biggest influences on his playing career.

He won three successive titles with United in 2006-07, 2007-08 and 2008-09, as well as an FA Cup in 2004. He scored one last goal for United in the Manchester Derby at Old Trafford, from a free kick, in 2009 before joining Real Madrid later that year, and becoming one of their greatest players of the '10s.

Answer: 38

Manchester United's trophy hoard under Alex Ferguson consisted of 13 league titles, five FA Cups, four League Cups, 10 Charity Shields, two Champions' Leagues, one European Cup Winners' Cup, one European Super Cup, one Intercontinental Cup, and one FIFA Club World Cup. Ferguson was awarded the Premier League Manager of the Season award 11 times, and numerous other awards such as UEFA Manager of the Year and the FIFA Presidential Award.

He was one of the first managers to be inducted into the Football Hall of Fame in 2002, and was made an OBE in 1985 and a CBE in 1995, and knighted in 1999 for his services to football.

In 2011, the North Stand at Old Trafford was renamed the Sir Alex Ferguson Stand in his honour.

Answer: Ryan Giggs

Ryan Giggs is that rare breed of footballer, a one-club man. He was also one of the few players never to be sent off for his team, though he was sent off once in an international match. He spent his entire career at Manchester United, barring two years in Manchester City's youth side, from his first game against Everton in 1991 - where he came on as a substitute - to his final game against Hull City in 2014.

By the time he retired, he was 41, a ripe old age for an attacking player! During his time as a United player, he won 13 titles, four FA Cups, three League Cups and two Champions' League titles.

He formed a successful partnership with fellow Welshman Mark Hughes. After retiring, David Moyes appointed him as a player coach, and he took over as caretaker when Moyes was fired. Under Louis van Gaal, he was assistant manager and was touted as a potential successor, but left when Jose Mourinho was appointed as van Gaal's successor in 2016.

He then went on to manage the Welsh national team in January 2018, for whom he was capped 64 times as a player.