That was Mick Rathbone’s first impression of life inside Manchester United training.
“To do the job, you need to be inside it — running, laughing, passing the ball, joining the boxes, doing the press-ups,” he told Football Presse. “You want to be a big part of that squad.”
He understood immediately that respect had to be earned.
“The ball gets shuffled to me by Jesse Lingard… everyone’s waiting… I slip it through his legs back across the box.”
The mood changed instantly.
“Everybody stops. Everybody’s laughing.”
It was the moment he felt accepted.
“You want to be a big part of that squad. That’s how you build trust.”
By the end of day one — after a nutmeg, a race win and laughter across the pitch — Rathbone wasn’t the outsider anymore.
He belonged.