GARY NEVILLE keeps an iconic Liverpool banner on the wall of his impressive Manchester HQ that helps to keep him humble.
The Manchester United legend is approaching 50-years-old and is as busy as ever, combining his work as a pundit with his ownership of Salford and his management of his property empire.
Neville still has time for date nights with his wife on Thursdays in Manchester city centre, not far from where they live and close to his HQ.
The former defender owns six buildings in Manchester and his HQ is adorned with inspirational decorations.
One is a framed poster with a with a silhouette of Rocky Balboa at the top of those Philadelphia steps.
While another is more personal – Liverpool’s famous banner mocking Neville’s appearance, that was once displayed in the Kop.
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Neville said of the banner: “There’s a Scouse lad who works on our podcast. Every time I played at Anfield they’d have a different banner for me.
“One year they compared me to Dot Cotton off Eastenders.
“We were talking about this one and the lad said he thought he knew who had it, so he went and got it. I like looking at it every day – it keeps me humble.”
Neville is a frequent face on Sky Sports and hosts the popular Stick to Football podcast, but he revealed 90 per cent of his life is spent in his Manchester HQ.
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His latest venture is a new 40-storey building in Manchester called St Michael’s, that will feature offices, apartments, a hotel and a rooftop restaurant.
Neville said: “St Michael’s is going to be 40 storeys. As I said, I love the thrill of it all. The interior design, the selling part of it, the finding land, the planning.
“I’d say 90 per cent of my life’s here. It’s not on television or with football. It’s literally in here, in meetings about all the businesses and the different things that we’re doing. It’s amazing.”
Neville began his career as a hotelier and property mogul during his playing career, and would look over architectural plans on trips back from Europe.
But he had to keep his secondary career under wraps as Sir Alex Ferguson forbid any distractions for his players.
Neville explained: “(Things were done) under the radar. Purely because I knew that it would be deemed a distraction.
“For me, my football was everything. But distraction was absolutely illegal at United.
“You could not be distracted by anything. At the same time, I knew that my football career would one day come to an end, and I knew I had to plan for that.
“I was going up on site every afternoon after training. I don’t know what other lads did.
“But I would go on site, spend time in the design team meetings, sit on the construction meetings and make sure I was in cost meetings, bank meetings, sales meetings. I loved every aspect of it.
“I used to bring the architects’ drawings with me in the bag for the plane on European trips. I wouldn’t read them before the game but you can’t sleep after, you’re wired.
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“I’d make sure no one was sitting next to me and then get them out and start looking at the drawings, the designs and all the things I needed to do.
“For 10, 12 years, I had this almost double life. If you asked me what I know most about other than football, it would be property.”
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
