Juniors had rivals cornered, says Millward

MANCHESTER United were not the first team to confuse their opponents with their corner-kick routine — Boundary Park Juniors did it a quarter of a century ago.

It was in an era when Paul Scholes, Nicky Butt, the Neville brothers, Mark Robins and David Platt were starting out their careers at junior level.

Ron Millward was joint manager of Boundary Park’s under-16 side at the time with Sid Rimmer, and said: “We used the move on three occasions.

“We scored twice and the goals were allowed, but on the third occasion the referee ruled it out for ungentlemanly conduct.

“It had referees perplexed as they had never encountered anything like it before and it had opponents at sixes and sevens.”

Athletic’s chief youth scout added that, because it was applied in games 25 years ago, there was every likelihood senior teams had previously used it as well.

Millward’s comments were endorsed by former Mossley manager Gerry Quinn when he spoke at the funeral of his father-in-law Ian Greaves, the former Manchester United ‘Busby Babe’ and Athletic full-back.

He recalled Greaves, who was renowned for his tactical nous, employing the same corner-kick routine when he managed Oxford United between 1980/82.

And Quinn thought it was poignant that his father-in-law’s former club used it on Sunday — the day before the funeral.

Just to recap, Chelsea were left bewildered when Ryan Giggs sprinted towards goal and crossed for Cristiano Ronaldo to head home.

Chelsea thought Giggs was about to take the corner after Wayne Rooney had rolled the ball only a couple of feet outside of the quadrant and then walked away.

However, the goal was disallowed because referee Howard Webb had not blown his whistle or signalled for the corner to be taken.