He’s no country and western crooner… but this ex-United ace is climbing the podcast charts!

B‘I’ve been in situations where people have no idea it’s me... it’s bizarre’

RIAN McCLAIR is musing over his new image and the confusion it can cause people when they encounter him these days.

‘it happens an awful lot more than i ever imagined it would, particularly the fact i’m covered in this lovely grey stuff that’s growing out of my face,’ he says.

‘it’s entertaining listening. i’ve been in situations where my name has cropped up and they’ve no idea it’s me, which is bizarre.

‘what i tend to say now when they ask if i’m Brian Mcclair is “i used to be”, which is flummoxing for a lot of people. how can you used to be? who are you now? what are you now?’

Musing is what Mcclair does. he has his own podcast, Life With Brian, which has run for two years and 35 episodes.

Launching it in lockdown, the man nicknamed choccy (it’s a Mcclair/eclair pun) throughout a career scoring goals for Manchester United and celtic playfully introduced himself as chocrates ‘because i’m a philosopher now’.

Maybe that explains the new look. Not so much homer as homeless, it might be said.

typically, Mcclair can see the funny side. when he joined a reunion to celebrate the 30th anniversary of United’s title triumph at the Lowry theatre last weekend, he reassured the audience he had somewhere to stay for the night.

it is certainly a departure from the clean- shaven image during his playing days. with a thick, grey beard reaching down to his chest and long hair falling on to his shoulders, Mcclair is barely recognisable.

when he was pictured with a fan in the Gold cup pub in Manchester last month, the photo of the 59-year-old former United star went viral.

Mcclair seems equally happy to engage with the public or just sit on his own. ‘i’ve always been pretty good at avoiding people,’ he says. ‘i don’t have to particularly participate in any conversations, but i can listen and watch and i find that energising. i’ve always been a people watcher.

‘it’s always been a positive experience. i haven’t had many people wanting to ask me outside for what is known in Scotland as ‘a square go’ or castigating me. i feel blessed in that.’

Speaking on the podcast, he recalls an encounter in a pub with a man who refused to believe it was him, despite searching for a photo on his phone and holding it up to Mcclair’s face.

on another occasion, someone who heard Brian Mcclair was in the bar mistakenly approached the player’s friend and asked him for an autograph. ‘My mate handed me a bit of paper and i signed it. the guy turned to my mate and said, “what kind of f*****g person are you? can’t you f*****g sign an autograph?” he was away telling his friends that that Brian Mcclair is a d**k.’

Another nugget is the story of how he came to own a copy of an oasis demo tape from the days when the Gallagher brothers washed the players’ cars at United and city.

he is not short of stories or opinions, and not just on his own show. Speaking to the Football Social Daily podcast last month, Mcclair was in forthright mood.

take this appraisal of Sir Alex Ferguson: ‘Fergie was a lucky b*****d. You look at Barcelona ’99, we got hammered and he came away with the champions League trophy. that is nothing to do with tactics.’ on roy keane: ‘ what i admire most about roy is overcoming his demons with alcohol. that’s incredible. At some point it was a potential threat to his career.’ And on a young David Beckham: ‘All he seemed to want to do was hit the ball 60 yards from right to left, often straight out the pitch. i got frustrated about this. if Preston could have scraped up the money, i think United would have sold him.’

Mcclair was always different to your average footballer. the title of his 1998 autobiography Odd Man

Out feels like more than just a reference to him frequenting the bench at the end of his United career.

in it, he describes cutting short a degree in maths, physics and statistics to turn professional with celtic, and a passage on the links between heading a football and dementia points to a player way ahead of his time. At United, he became the team’s PFA representative and sat with players during contract negotiations.

there has always been a quirky side to Mcclair, too. ‘i have a wicked sense of humour, and that’s only got more pronounced the older i’ve got,’ he told the Scotsman in 2018.

Mcclair became a cult hero at United and celtic. the week before his appearance at the Lowry, he was at the Greenock branch of the celtic Supporters’ club for An Evening With Brian McClair. he will travel to Dubai and Las vegas in the spring for events involving his old clubs.

ONE of Ferguson’s first signings in 1987, he played at old trafford for 11 years, scoring 127 in 471 games. he spent 13 years on the coaching staff, becoming director of the academy. Mcclair left in 2015 to become director of performance at the Scottish FA, but quit after 17 months. he moved to Scotland for the role and spent lockdown in edinburgh and was persuaded by his son, Liam, to do the podcast.

Mcclair has since returned to the Manchester area and settled back in cheshire where he is often spotted dressed down, sometimes wearing an Alice band to make the hair less unkempt.

Some people may recognise him, others never will. And that, you suspect, is how he likes it.