Colosimo was stretchered off, having torn his anterior cruciate and medial ligaments, an injury which would keep him out for nine months, before he successfully resumed a career which continues to this day.

"Everyone accused me of doing him on purpose," says Cole. "I didn't. The media was on my case, as were some of the Australian players. Emotions were running high and they were accusing me of doing a fellow professional. I was not that kind of player. Look at the rest of my career. Was I a dirty player? No. Was I interested in being a dirty player on a pre-season game? No.

 "I tried to contact the player, but he didn't want to speak to me. I tried to reason with some of his team-mates but they were having none of it. I heard recently that he was still playing and I was pleased about that. I would have hated to have stopped someone making a career."

One United player would also come to rue the injury he picked up on the tour. Swedish international Jesper Blomqvist had signed for United at the start of the treble season for a £4.4million fee from Italian club Parma, but he was desperately low on confidence.

He admitted being so overwhelmed before the Champions League final he knew he was starting, that he sat in his hotel room overlooking the sea south of Barcelona and wrote a list to coach himself.

"It said: 'You can do it...You are faster than the rest...You are in good shape...'" explains Blomqvist. It was a tactic he had used before to self-motivate. Now he was using it to conquer his overpowering nerves. The new season would, he hoped, present the opportunity for a fresh start.

"I felt great that summer," he says. "Some players like Dwight Yorke can arrive at a club and settle straight away. I needed more time to build relationships with people. After the treble win I felt sure of myself and settled at United. I felt that the coach and the rest of the group believed in me. I was ready to move on another step because United fans had not seen the best of me. In Melbourne, I scored a great goal and believed I was on my way. Then my knee swelled up in Hong Kong. That was the beginning of the troubles..."

Blomqvist's voice trails off and he sighs.

"Everything was very difficult from then on. I had an operation, but I couldn't run properly. I just thought it was another little injury but it became a series of operations. After a while I became afraid." Blomqvist went on to play just 43 more games of professional football.

The United players went out in Sydney after the game. On a high scoring night on and off the pitch, Yorke was in his element in a nightclub surrounded by beautiful women.

"I was on the look out for one in particular who I'd been told would be there; one of the hottest babes in Australia," smiles Yorke. "Gabby Richens was also known as 'The Pleasure Machine,' a nickname she got from an advertising campaign in which she had steamed up the screens with a striptease on behalf of Virgin Atlantic Airlines. When I saw her, I was transfixed. She was breathtaking and there was no time like that moment to approach her."

Yorke and Richens hit it off and swapped numbers. The following night, he dodged another hotel curfew and arranged to for her to pick up him at the back entrance of the players' hotel, after which she showed him the sights of Sydney. He was "pleasantly surprised" when she agreed to come back to his hotel - as was the security at the hotel employed to make sure that no guests were brought back.

"Listen, mate," Yorke explained to the guard. "I've got Gabby coming up."

"Oh yeah?" he said. "Gabby who?"

"You know, 'The Pleasure Machine'."

Yorke claims that the guard's eyes nearly popped out of his head.

"I gave him a hundred US dollars but I would have parted with a year's win bonuses if necessary," he adds. "We had a spectacular night until she left at 6am."

United headed to Hong Kong to finish their tour later that day. Yorke has obviously never stopped smiling about his experiences in Australia since.

"The summer of 1999?" he says. "Unforgettable. Simply unforgettable." 

This article appeared in the March 2011 issue of Australian FourFourTwo magazine. To buy back copies of this issue call 03-8317-8121 with a credit card to hand.