Once upon a time Mads Timm was a player tipped for great things at Manchester United, but that outlook didn’t last for too long before the youngster became known as something of a misfit before he got anywhere near really making it at the club.
Serving a three month 2005 custodial sentence for dangerous driving, after he caused injury to another motorist racing at 110km in a 60km zone, helped to kill Timm’s prospects at Manchester United and he left the club in 2006, after loans to Viking, Lyn and Walsall. A couple of years with OB then saw Timm sign for Lyngby, and he quit the game not long after, before starting again at a lower level.
Timm has published a biography (with an extract in Denmark BT today) which understandably focuses on what happened at Manchester United. The now 31 year old believes Sir Alex Ferguson had a power complex at Manchester United, something which he doesn’t feel would work in the game these days.
Recalling one incident with Ferguson, Timm said the manager was angry the player had bought himself a Porsche, but didn’t feel it would have been the same way had he been playing well. Which should have been pretty self explanatory to the player really.
“Brian McClair got hold of me and said Ferguson wanted to see me in his office. I had a Porsche, and I was well aware that the boss cared very little about that, if you played smart. For the same reason I had parked helpfully at the entrance, where the ordinary workers usually were.
“‘Fucking idiot’ – he called me on that occasion, and then I took a taxi to training for a period.”
Timm is clearly upset, and maybe bitter, about his Manchester United experience and recalled being told he was set to play in 2003, before having the opportunity taken away from him.
“One Friday in early March 2003, I was told that I should not play for either the underage or reserve teams that weekend. Instead I had to meet Monday and train with the first team. Tuesday I would be with the squad for the Champions League game against Basel from Switzerland. It was a big message to get after a winter where I still had not played for first team other than the autumn game against Maccabi Haifa. On Monday, when I met up, I was stopped by Brian McClair.”
Timm claimed that McClair told him sometimes ‘unjust’ things happen in football, and he wouldn’t be training or playing with the first team that week, and had to report back the next day for the U19 team.
“It was something of an anticlimax. What was going on? Brian McClair couldn’t really answer. But a few days after I found out that my competitor in attack for the youth teams, Danny Webber, had signed a contract with Alex Ferguson’s son, Jason, who had set up as a football agent.
“At the same time Webber extended with United. It was an open secret on the training ground that both Alex Ferguson and his son had made a good deal, and that Webber had to be rewarded with a place on the bench in a Champions League match. Webber had otherwise not played particularly well for a long time, and I was way ahead of him in the internal competition for places.
“But evidently, it didn’t matter. It was important that the father went with his son’s interests. Ferguson had repeatedly reminded me that his own son was a football agent and taking new clients in, but I refused. Only that day it dawned on me how much impact it had on my career.”
Timm’s claims will probably go unanswered by those involved, given he’s not really a big star. At the time it was thought Timm wasn’t being the perfect Manchester United youth player, and it was something covered sporadically in the club related media.
Then came the driving incident, and Timm never really managed to make the most of the talent. The book is being serialised by several Danish media outlets, and the overriding feeling is that Timm feels his personality and the discipline of football just didn’t mix, he couldn’t fit into that system. And whilst he accepts that’s something personal to him, there does appear to be a lot of looking back and blaming others, and circumstances.
