Football legend Sir Alex Ferguson has been back on home ground as the Manchester United boss made a visit to a charity in Govan.

He was at the Preshal Trust centre in Govan's Aboukir Street, where he pledged his support for the poverty, drug and alcohol addiction charity's efforts to build a new centre on the site of their existing premises

Asked by STV News presenter John MacKay why he kept returning to the area he grew up in, he replied: "I keep returning because I enjoy coming, I think that the reason I'm here today is simply that May Nicholson started this project off her own determination and through her own experiences to help other people and you see the work that they are doing and I think that its fantastic."

Asked by John how this helps areas like Govan, Sir Alex said: "The area's had its problems and needs help, there are various ways of doing that. You have various people of a certain bent in life who want to do that, people like May Nicholson - who I met a couple of years ago through John McLaughlin - and you've got some people in the Govan area who think that way, John McLaughlin has worked in charities for so long, the work he has done is phenomenal.

"May now has taken up a certain challenge for herself because of her own experience in life, of what she gets out of life in terms of changing her life, and she is now determined to change other people's lives here in this area."

Asked what the charity needs, he commented: "It needs funding, that's the biggest thing, to develop their plans to build a new structure here, to make it bigger, to have facilities for literacy and IT, all these things that people can enjoy and take them off the streets of Govan.

"My own boy's club, which did so much work over the years are now paying dividends, they've got their own Astroturf up at Braehead, their own facilities, and that's through the determination of all the committee to do something for their kids and you have to do this. People have a certain energy to get things done."

John made the point that the area has been changing in recent years with a considerable amount of new development.

Sir Alex said: "It was devastated after the shipyards were closed, but the shipyards are starting to come alive again, they are doing some work down there, I know that, and obviously with the devastation of population after the shipyards left it was an area that had to be regenerated and the likes of the Govan Initiative did a lot of great work some 20 years ago getting people into jobs and that is bring carried on.

"You'll see a change in Govan because it's a good area."