Football: Hughes the lionheart and big game: Why United value their combative Welshman and the thankless task he performs. Glenn Moore reports

THERE are tints of grey in his hair and he has a testimonial match under his belt, but, 10 years after his debut, Mark Hughes is more important to Manchester United's growing ambition than ever.

On Wednesday the 30-year-old gave his customary leonine performance as a lone forward in the hard-earned Champions' League draw with Galatasaray in Turkey. Today, as United resume their assault on a third successive championship title, he hopes his niggling groin injury will ease enough to allow him to face Everton.

The men in Everton's central defence must be hoping it does not. Hughes is the forward defenders least like to play against. His explosively physical approach provides a test of courage, strength and technique that discomforts even the best.

His combativeness occasionally oversteps the mark - as half a dozen dismissals indicate - but Hughes generally settles for pushing the laws, and his markers, to the limit. In his defence his manager, Alex Ferguson, points out that, compared to the battering he often receives, his transgressions are restrained. Hughes himself emphasises that although he enjoys the physical side of the game, he tries to avoid becoming involved in anything malicious.

Off the field, Hughes is a quiet, softly spoken family man who has overcome his natural shyness only through the experience of years in the public gaze.

'Some people (his manager among them) say you cannot leave your personality on the training ground or on the pitch but I feel I can,' Hughes said as United travelled back from Turkey in the early hours of Thursday morning. 'The way I play football is just the way I do my job.'

Hughes has increasingly been employed as a lone forward while others attack on the flanks or support from deep. On Wednesday, without even Eric Cantona behind him, he was frequently an isolated figure. Yet he was never marginalised, as up to three defenders sought to restrain him.

'In a game like that my job is to make a nuisance of myself and make it as difficult as possible for defenders,' he said. 'The role is hard work, but someone has to do it and I am more able to do so than anyone else in the club. Sometimes you feel you are doing a lot of work for little return, but it can be enjoyable and you know you are doing a good job for the team.'

His performance on Wednesday underlined his importance to United's European campaign. Last year, to the Turks' undisguised relief, Hughes was sacrificed under the five foreigners rule laid down by Uefa, the sport's European governing body. Never again. With Peter Schmeichel, Steve Bruce and Paul Ince, Hughes forms the backbone of United's side, around which the artists like Cantona and Ryan Giggs play.

Not that Hughes' game is only about beefcake and barging. His career has been studded by spectacular goals, many of them scored - like last season's FA Cup semi- final equaliser against Oldham - when United were desperate for any kind of goal.

The winner against Barcelona in the 1991 European Cup-Winners' Cup - blasted in from a tight angle - also comes to mind; so, too, his headed goals on his United and Wales debuts. Like all great players, Hughes has always found that bit extra in the big games. Even on Wednesday - not a final but a daunting, vital match nonetheless - it took an excellent save from the Galatasaray goalkeeper, Gintaras Stauche, to prevent him scoring with an overhead volley.

'Those type of games are what Manchester United players are about,' Hughes said. 'At this club you have to be able to cope with the big games and I have always enjoyed the big occasions - the bigger the better as far as I am concerned. Everyone in professional football wants to be involved in such games.'

Hughes' career began when he was spotted playing schools football in North Wales by Huw Roberts, United's Welsh scout. He signed schoolboy forms at 14 and became an apprentice upon leaving school two years later. His debut did not come until he was 20, but he quickly made up for the delay by scoring four goals in his first three full matches. By then Ron Atkinson, United's manager at the time, had already decided against signing Peter Beardsley from Vancouver Whitecaps, on the strength of the promise shown by Hughes.

The following season, 1984-85, that potential began to be realised as Hughes scored 22 goals and won an FA Cup winners' medal and a regular international place. His peers marked his emergence by voting him the Professional Footballers' Association Young Player of the Year. Over the next six seasons he twice won the PFA's senior Player of the Year award.

Two of those seasons had been spent abroad after a transfer that left United's supporters resentful. The move to Barcelona appeared to do little for Hughes either. Spanish referees disapproved of his style. Terry Venables, the manager who had brought him to Barcelona, left and eventually Hughes' form and confidence went too. It got to the stage where he did not even want the ball during matches.

A move to Bayern Munich rekindled his desire and belief before Alex Ferguson, sensing a way to lift both United's team and supporters, brought him back to Old Trafford six years ago.

The move worked for all parties. 'I came back older and more settled. That was reflected in how I played on the field,' Hughes said. He was also more worldly, his experiences having given him a better perspective on the pressures and attractions of being a public figure.

'It can be difficult when you are younger. The attention is a bit flattering and you are very easily led into corners where you don't want to go,' he said. 'As you get older you know the tricks that people play and it gets easier. The interest in you becomes part and parcel of the job.'

It helped that Hughes maintained contact with the friends he had as a teenager. 'I do not go back home as often as I used to because of my family life, but I am always pleased that whenever I do go back I can just go into the pub and they treat me like I have been going in there every week.'

Since Bryan Robson's departure Hughes has become United's longest serving player. His popularity with supporters was illustrated by the 40,000 crowd for his testimonial this year. He also feels settled within the club, which had not been the case in his younger days, when he felt team-mates were work colleagues rather than friends.

Off the field he lives in south Manchester with his wife, Jill, and their three children. The oldest, Alex, is showing signs of following his father's trade. Hughes said: 'I would not discourage him from going into football. It helped me to get on in life. It made me a lot of friends. I am not naturally a loud person so I find it difficult to make friends - or I did do - and I think sport helped. That is the great thing about sport, especially team games. You can make life- long friends.'

No mention, note, of what it has done for him financially, only socially. Still, a by-product of his success is the independence to plan his post-United future, which is unlikely to be in football. When the time comes - and it is a while off yet - Hughes has no plans to go into management, or even to play his way down the divisions.

'I would love to finish while still at United - anybody would,' he said. 'I love playing football now, but while a lot of players keep on playing because they love the game so much I don't think I am that type. I am not one to discuss football for hours on end after games.'

For now there are challenges aplenty. 'Every game you play you set goals,' Hughes said. 'You are always trying to improve yourself, whether you're 20, 30 or 35. Every time I go out and play I want to be the best player on the pitch - that has not changed since I first went out there.'

(Photograph omitted)