MANCHESTER DERBY:THE GLASSES were being collected for the final time when Ned Kelly, then Manchester United's head of security, bumped into Mark Hughes in a Manchester nightclub one summer's evening in 1995. Hughes had just severed his ties with Old Trafford to join Chelsea and was out with his wife Jill. But Kelly remembers the mood was tense.

"Whether it was the lateness of the hour, the strength of the alcohol, or something he had read in the memoirs of Alex Ferguson, Sparky wanted to talk only about his former manager," Kelly recalls in his book Manchester United - The Untold Story.

" 'Fergie never really rated me as a player,' he complained. 'I was only brought back from Barcelona to keep the fans happy.' "

Kelly remembers telling Hughes 'that's bollocks', but to no avail. "Mark refused to listen. He was more interested in berating Fergie. It was sad that one of Old Trafford's most hard-working players who had given such sterling service to the club had spent all those years believing his manager had thought so little of him."

It is an anecdote that might partly explain why, 13 years later, there is still a certain coolness when Hughes and Ferguson are required to talk about one another. Respect? Yes. But little affection.

"We will have a glass of wine after Sunday's game," said Ferguson, but the United manager was happy to concede they were not particularly close. There have been fractious moments when Hughes was in charge of Blackburn Rovers and, tellingly, Ferguson later revealed they had not spoken since his former player took over at Manchester City in June.

"It is not as if I phone all the ex-players who are now managers to ask how they are getting on," he said. "Some give me a call now and again and ask for advice, but we all have our own job to do. They all have their own friends and they are all younger than me, of course. It is not as if they are all going to be my best friends. Maybe they will respect me because I was their manager but, in terms of close friendships, they will have it with each other, not me, because I am not their age level. I'm a granddad."

He is, however, in regular contact with the likes of Steve Bruce, Roy Keane and Paul Ince. One of Ferguson's more endearing traits is that, as a League Managers' Association committee member, he usually makes it his business to welcome new managers into the Premier League. Instead, he has spent the past few months sniping about Hughes's employers.

Each pronouncement has met with a wry smile and roll of the eyes from Hughes. "We will just get on with our business," he said yesterday. "They (United) are getting asked more questions about us than in the past and are within their rights to answer how they want. Sometimes their responses will be considered, sometimes they will be a bit dismissive. But we have to accept that."

People close to Hughes say he is more irritated by Ferguson's remarks than he is willing to admit publicly. Hughes did, however, refer to a 4-3 victory for Blackburn over United in February 2006, and specifically the public disagreement with Ferguson that followed. "I will always protect my club. Sir Alex was a bit critical of the approach of some of my players and he singled out Andy Todd, which I thought was unfair at the time and I said so."

It led to an angry telephone exchange with Ferguson, although Hughes now shrugs it off. "You have to understand that the top managers don't get beaten very often, so sometimes they don't take it as well as others. Managers, myself included, have to get used to getting beaten sometimes."

Guardian Service