Neville's Surprisng Charlton Revelation

Gary Neville has shared memories of his first meeting with Sir Bobby Charlton and described how the elder statesman still retained a passion to play the beautiful game, as United pay tribute to the 1968 European Cup winner by renaming the South Stand in his honour on Sunday.

Neville made over 600 appearances for Manchester United and boasts eight Premier league titles, three FA Cups and two Champions League medals, before embarking on a career in the media, assisting Roy Hodgson with England, part-owning Salford City and coaching Valencia until leaving the Spanish club on Wednesday.

The pundit-turned-manager was a product of United’s famous Class of 92, along with the likes of Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes, and he acknowledges how Charlton is a true advocate for developing the younger generation and regularly watching them play.

"My biggest memories of Sir Bobby are him coming on the European trips away from home with us and I don’t know whether people will find this funny, surprising or not but he used to join in training with us the odd time, the night before a game," Neville told ManUtd.com. "He still was incredible, you could see his technique was fantastic.

"My initial meetings with him were when he used to come and watch the youth teams; he’d come down into the dressing room and shake our hands, saying: 'Well done, son' to all of us that were in the dressing room. That’s the type of club Manchester United was, when we were coming through. You knew Sir Alex [Ferguson] and Sir Bobby would always be watching the youth team; he’s a great supporter of the youth football at the club, with obviously his history of coming through the youth team himself."

The former England right-back’s most recent memory of time spent with Sir Bobby was a long-haul flight to Chile with the United legend and Neville witnessed how he remains so absorbed with United.

"I spent, probably 36 hours with him, well it felt like 36 hours," he added. "I think we stopped over somewhere. We had a flight to Chile and we went via France and I travelled with him, it was fantastic; talking to him, it was two or three years ago now.

"It was just fantastic talking to him all the way, talking about football and you realise how intense he is about Manchester United, and how intense he is about the first team, about football in general, about how to play. It was good as I'd never spent that sort of time with him, personal time with him, where you get to chat."