Ex-Man Utd star Phil Neville's only 6 friends include Beckham and brother Gary

Phil Neville has revealed his only friends are his Class of 92 former team-mates, plus a golf partner...after Sir Alex Ferguson told him the only ones needed are the six to carry your coffin.

Former Manchester United star Phil says he's like his former boss Fergie, and his own grandad and mum, in having no interest in making friends...but he said David Beckham, Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs, Nicky Butt and his sibling Gary are all "like brothers", even though he rarely sees them.

Neville said his son Harvey has also inherited his close-knit family-centred trait - spending his 18th birthday having his first ever alcoholic drink with uncle Gary - and he admitted he has "constant battles" with his sociable wife Julie about mixing with people.

The couple even have to start negotiations when daughter Isabella wants to bring friends home.

Phil, 44, now coach at Inter Miami, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and the former England women's team coach, said: "I don't have many friends. I don't want many friends. Sir Alex Ferguson used to say to us 'you only need six friends in your life - the ones that are going to carry your coffin'.

"He didn't like entourages around us so he'd say 'just get six friends around you, they're the ones that are going to go to the grave with you'.

"So I've never been one to having lots of friends. I've probably got two or three friends that are real, real friends and then outside of that I just cast aside people. I don't really take that many people on.

"Obviously, the boys Nicky, Scholesy, Gary, Becks and Giggsy are my close friends - they're almost like my brothers.

"And I don't see them at all now. Obviously we're on WhatsApp groups and stuff like that, but they're getting on with their lives.

"But apart from that I've not come to Miami and made friends. That's not the type of person that I am. I've got probably one friend out here that I've met that I played golf with yesterday.

"My grandad hated people - he only wanted his family around him.

"And then my mum has a similar thing where we used to go on holiday and there was me, my brother and my sister, and you know like your kids go off and mix with other kids, when I used to go on holiday with my two children we used to go to Barbados and the kids used to wander off and I used to drag them back.

"Like 'don't you go mixing with those kids, we've got our own little unit here, I don't want anyone infiltrating us'.

But he said it poses constant differences with his more sociable wife.

He said: "It's a constant battle and I've had to adapt and be flexible because she was brought up where they had an open house. So when Isabella wants to bring a friend back Julie will say 'two or three friends', and I'm going 'just one friend', and then we'll negotiate.

"But my son is just like me. He hates anyone come to the house.

"For his 18th I said 'what do you want for your 18th'. He said 'don't want a party, I just want to go with uncle Gary'.

"So my brother took him out on his 18th for his first drink. That's all he wanted to do - just go out with his uncle for his first beer or his first wine."

"Gary said 'I just want to take him out for his first drink, that's been my goal'. Because he's got two daughters, so he hasn't got a son.

"I think he got a text from Julie 'you dare bring my little boy home drunk'."

But Phil told Gabby Logan on her The Mid-Point podcast he and Gary just text each other once a month with cold short messages saying 'how are you?' and replying 'fine'.