THE INTERVIEW: STEVE MCCLAREN: The gatecrasher

Fergie's No 2 has earned immediate acceptance from the superstars around him. By Nick Townsend

YOU KNOW the kind of feeling. The party is in full swing, most of the guests are already decidedly merry and you walk in late, stone cold sober, to be confronted by an invitation from the hostess to accompany her on to the dance floor. It's so difficult to enter into the spirit of the occasion.

You might imagine Steve McClaren experiencing a similar kind of discomfort when he arrived at a vibrant, expectant Old Trafford in early February. In one sense, becoming No 2 to Alex Ferguson just had to be about the second best job in British football. In another, it must have been daunting to be confronted by Ferguson's all-dancing, mostly-victorious, troupe of performers, already on a high.

Could the former assistant to Derby's Jim Smith possibly help galvanise them to greater heights? "The first time I stood with Alex on the touchline was the Forest game." McClaren pauses for a recollection of United's remarkable 8-1 triumph at the City Ground on 6 February, with substitute Ole Gunnar Solskjaer outsmarting Dave Beasant on four occasions, before continuing wryly: "Well, I thought, at least I'm in the job another week, although it's been downhill ever since..."

The call to the 38-year-old Yorkshireman came at one o'clock in the morning, after Derby had returned from Old Trafford, appropriately enough, having lost 1-0 in a Premier League game. "Obviously, a lot of people were surprised and said `Stevie who?', but that's understandable," he concedes. "All the people bandied about were big names, some who had played at Manchester United. Then along comes Steve McClaren who's not played at the top and has just worked his way up, before walking into the biggest club in the world."

Twenty-two games and just over three months later and there he was to be found last Sunday, jig-jogging on the pitch with Ferguson and the backroom boys, in celebration of the championship. "I've never felt isolated, which was my biggest fear coming in here," insists McClaren. "It's always difficult coming into any new job; there's the initial period of getting to know people and feeling part of the club, but because of what we've been through with the tremendous success, the integration and the bonding has been quicker than possibly I had anticipated. The good thing was that there was a gap between Brian Kidd leaving and me arriving. I didn't know - and I didn't want to know - what kind of things he did. I didn't come to copy anybody; I came with my own ideas."

McClaren adds: "You have to go through certain rituals to get accepted into the inner sanctum. Players test you, with mickey-taking and general banter, but that's football and I love it. It's been so easy, with the gaffer being so well respected, and the players are no mugs. They've thought `He's chosen Steve McClaren out of all the people he could have had, so he must be OK'. So I was on safe ground from the very beginning. I've built on that.

"I'd give presentations at managers' and coaches' conferences, and my success at Derby County must have gone a long way towards me getting the job here." Suffice to say that in securing McClaren, Ferguson had procured something of a Stevie wonder - one of the brightest and most innovative coaches in the country, one whose name had already come to the fore because of his zeal for an holistic approach. Vibrating beds in the physio room, motivational videos and music are among his aids, aimed at the players' mental well-being as well as their physical condition.

Strange things, preconceptions. You had the impression that McClaren might just be so immersed in establishing his own identity after the move from Pride Park to an institution where pride permeates, that he would prefer to maintain the circumspection of a trappist monk.

But McClaren exudes confidence, born of dedication and enthusiasm and relishes the opportunity to discuss his ideals. Ferguson has not so much acquired a student of his ways as much as a new professor of coaching. Both practically, and in his theory work, McClaren has his subject researched meticulously, his learning inspired by such American luminaries as the late Vince Lombardi, legendary coach of the Green Bay Packers. McClaren greatly approves of Lombardi's aphorisms, and you can imagine that one of his sayings - "The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender" - could be United's clarion call on Wednesday night against Bayern Munich.

Handling fragile egos is a cultivated skill which not every coach possesses in abundance. But McClaren maintains: "I've studied a lot of other sports, basketball, American football, even the British Lions, every successful team, every successful coach. You name them, I've watched them and read about them. I used to show videos of the Chicago Bulls to the Derby players. My message to them was, there's Michael Jordan earning millions of dollars a year, yet he was still humble and still played for the team. It was a `We not me' philosophy and he epitomised that. I was interested to find that both Andy Cole and Dwight Yorke had books on him."

By chance, the former saunters past after a light training session, principally for media benefit, at The Cliff. McClaren barks, good-humouredly: "Coley, you've let me down today. I want some more goals from you tomorrow, son." Coley, scorer of the championship-deciding goal two days earlier, just grins as his coach adds: "There's 22 superstars here; they're great people who keep each other's feet firmly on the ground.

"They're never allowed, through the manager or through the other players, to get above their station, just because they're earning a lot of money and doing well, and think, `Wow, I've made it now. I'm the one who's got us here'. You find that a lot in other clubs."

His belief in the USA way is not to say that he has anything but approbation for Ferguson, whose motivational skills were initially nurtured in the Govan shipyards. "Alex's values, principles and philosophies are ingrained in stone at Manchester United just like those American coaches. These first few weeks have just confirmed to me that Alex is one of the great managers and he's fast becoming the greatest ever.

"He amazes me, day in, day out, with his man-management, the way he treats people with the utmost respect, and not just players. He sails the ship; he says when one sail goes up another comes down. He dictates everything and we implement it. He has tremendous influence over the way the players play, behave and train. He leads and everybody else follows. His record proves that everybody accepts those values and principles. Anybody who comes in immediately knows what the standards are. So for me, it was just a question of slipping in nice and quietly and going along with the flow."

Yet, the question persists of how a man whose playing status was several planes below the players he has in his charge manages to assert his authority on a training field containing the likes of Beckham, Yorke and Stam. In football, there is an inevitable tendency to enquire `Show us yer medals' of any new coaching pretender. McClaren harbours no pretensions about his abilities as a midfielder with Hull, Derby, Lincoln, Bristol City and Oxford. "Basically, I failed as a player," he says. "I didn't realise my full potential. I had a lot of injuries from 25 onwards and finished playing at 31 to concentrate on coaching. I've had people say `Where have you been in the game? What have you done?' although I've not had it here.

"The great thing is, you look at all the people who've got to the top, and they've all been in the trenches. They haven't all been great players. Many started at the bottom, and worked their way up. A perfect example is the gaffer, who played at a certain level, started at St Mirren and has ended up manager of the greatest club in the world. Managers, coaches, players need to have a little bit of that, know what it's like to work on the shop floor. You must have that humility that all great people have. It's the greatest gift."

Like Kidd before him, McClaren will not always settle for assistant. "No 1 - that's my aim, because everybody wants to go as far as they can. I didn't make it to the top as a footballer so I put all my efforts from a young age into coaching. I've worked and studied really hard because I want to be the top coach."

To that end, a European Champions' Cup final victory over Bayern would certainly embellish an already impressive cv for the man who has already become part of the spirit of Old Trafford.