It is one of football's myths that managers build teams in their own images. If that were so, Peter Reid's Sunderland would be clattering opponents into submission rather than playing them off the park, and George Graham, who played as though he carried a comb in the pocket of his shorts, would not be synonymous with hard-working, disciplined and defensive sides.

If Graham looked into a mirror before entering management, he must have caught the reflection of the midfield men toiling alongside him and decided they were the fairest of them all. More than one former colleague of Graham's has said that, as a manager, he would never have picked himself, and if we are talking about his spell at Manchester United between 1972 and 1974, he would agree wholeheartedly.

At United, Graham was the sort of model of inconsistency which, as a manager, he has come to regard as the most heinous, unforgivable crime. He says: "I had an horrific two years at Old Trafford, the worst of my playing career. I was either very good or very bad, never in between. I knew I could have played better but it didn't happen, and the fans ended up giving me lots of stick."

The billing he got from the manager, Tommy Docherty, who spent £120,000 to make Graham his first signing in December 1972, did not help. Does Graham remember to whom The Doc compared him? "Yes . . . it was the German midfield player . . . that's it, Gunter Netzer." Pause while Graham throws back his head and roars at the ceiling before adding: "What a mistake he made."

The Doc no doubt quips to punters on the after-dinner speaking circuit that he would have been better off signing the novelist Gunter Grass. But Graham says: "What really hurt me was that towards the end, when The Doc realised I was a failure, he completely blanked me. We had been friends at Chelsea, but he sent me off to train with the reserves and then the youth team, and if the assistant manager Paddy Crerand gave me a good report, he either went mad or ignored it.

"One of the last times I played at any level for the club was after George Best joined Dunstable and United sent a side to play against them. They sent me and most of the youth team. That was probably the highlight of my United career - playing against George Best at Dunstable."

Unlike his departure from the marble halls in 1995 after he admitted taking a bung, Graham has only praise for the way Arsenal orchestrated his exit as a player 19 months after helping them to the Double. The manager, Bertie Mee, told him that Everton, West Ham and Manchester United were all interested and booked a suite at the White House Hotel so Graham could choose between his prospective bosses. "I thought that was class," he says.

If Arsenal were in a rebuilding stage, United were in turmoil. Matt Busby had completed his second spell as manager a year earlier, Frank O'Farrell was sacked after becoming the latest to discover that the chair was too big for him, and Docherty had been brought in to begin a new era.

"It was a bad time for the club and I struggled with everyone else. We were rank bottom when I joined - I made my debut at Arsenal, where we lost 3-1. We drew on my home debut against West Ham, a 2-2 draw in which I remember Bobby Charlton scored with a penalty. It was Bobby's last season, and turned out to be Denis Law's as well. You can tell how badly we struggled - Bobby was top scorer with six."

Graham contributed one from his 18 games, scoring against Spurs at White Hart Lane in a 1-1 draw. "It was a free-kick which Pat Jennings pushed out and I drove it in with my left foot, which I normally only used for standing on."

Graham remembers the club's farewell present to Charlton. "We were out in Italy and had a massive collection to buy him this Capo di Monte from the actual factory, Four Seasons I think it was. A beautiful thing, I wonder if Bobby still has it."

Graham was almost as surprised as United's fans when he replaced Charlton as captain, but it was never going to be a pensionable job. Midway through the 1973-74 season, in which United were relegated, Graham was dropped and with his place went the captaincy and Docherty's friendship.

If the previous season had been strange, things were about to enter the surreal. By October, George Best had recanted his retirement of the previous season and returned to the side for a stay of less than three months; by Christmas, the goalkeeper Alex Stepney was joint top scorer with two goals, having volunteered to take the penalties. "Ridiculous," says Graham.

Best walked out for good in January after being dropped for a third-round FA Cup tie. Graham says: "He was in a similar vein to David Ginola. When he got the ball, you kept away because you didn't know what he was going to do with it. He was a genius and when it came off, it was absolutely stunning. When it didn't, his reaction was: `What do you expect, I can't be brilliant every week'."

United were finally put out of their misery when Law, angry at being allowed to leave on a free, scored the saddest of his 217 league goals for Manchester City to send his old team down. But Graham's torment lingered on until the following November, when Docherty humiliatingly swapped him for Portsmouth's Welsh international striker Ron Davies. "It was a relief. I didn't even hesitate when the deal was put to me. I thought, that will do me."

Graham certainly got the better of the move. He resurrected his career at Pompey, while Davies failed to make a starting line-up at Old Trafford, all of his eight appearances coming as a substitute. Unlike Graham, he did not make the scoresheet once.