This article is a bit different for me – as a lifelong Sunderland fan (sufferer) I am more used to talking about all things red and white. Despite some improvement to form in recent weeks (we’ll not talk about the recent 3-1 defeat at the Theatre of Dreams) I felt like a change of direction. As I was looking for something in the spare room, a certain person’s autobiography caught my eye so I thought I’d have a go at writing about one of football’s all-time greats. Ironic really given our latest opponents but there you go.
I’ve been a Sunderland supporter since before I could walk (thanks dad, for that “gift”) but there’s just something about Manchester United. I know that’s not a popular opinion, but I don’t care. I was six years old when the Premier League was created and as I grew up and started to take more of an interest in football, there was one team that dominated the league and the headlines. Manchester United. And at the centre of that, the big, brusque Scotsman who had steered them to success.
Adored by the Manchester United fans – after a small hiccup at the start of his tenure – liking Sir Alex Ferguson isn’t a particularly popular opinion to hold. Let’s face it – neither is liking Manchester United. Few people could argue with his success; his records speak for themselves. But to actually like the man – admitting that without being a Man United fan is often like admitting you happy slap grannies in your free time.
He’s the best there is, the best there was and the best there every will be. Can you see anyone achieving what he’s achieved in our lifetime? 38 trophies. 13 Premier League titles. Countless independent awards celebrating his brilliance as manager of Manchester United. THAT treble. Is he everyone’s cup of tea? No. Does he have the charisma of Gordon Strachan, or the wit of Ian Holloway? No. But his unbelievable record is a distant dream for managers of similar football teams. Arsene Wenger, now the longest serving Premier League manager has steered Arsenal to a collection of trophies and three league titles. This isn’t to be sniffed at – although someone might want to tell the Arsenal fans that, the amount of foot stamping we have to witness when they “only” finish second in the league again (my heart bleeds, it really does. Try supporting a club where finishing 17th is cause for celebration!). Everyone’s favourite loose cannon Jose Mourinho isn’t short of a plaudit or two – but he’s got a long way to go before he comes close to Sir Alex’s dizzy heights. Man City racked up the trophies and title wins in recent ways, but with how many different managers? Okay, not as many as some clubs but they haven’t had a steady captain at the helm of their ship like Manchester United did. A few months in and the murmurings have already begun about Pep not being up to the job. I mean they’re currently second in the league and they’ve scored more than the current leaders but there’s still more complaining than there ought to be.
It’s hard to imagine most managers staying 25 months, never mind 25 years. 25 minutes is more like it at times. Growing up watching Man United dominate not just England but Europe, Ferguson WAS Manchester United. Let’s be realistic, he still is. He’s been “gone” for three years but yet there he is at every match, chewing his gum and generally looking glum at the state of play. Some people have criticized him for this (how dare they?!), citing him as some sort of cuckoo in the nest. But why shouldn’t he be there? He created the Man United that we know today and passing the baton must have been harder than balancing Harry Redknapp’s chequebook at the end of the transfer market.
Anyway, enough about Fergie’s accomplishments. Most people have at least a general idea of all that he’s done and I’m not going to list them all. It would take up too much time and it just makes me feel depressed that the most exciting thing that’s happened at Sunderland in my lifetime has been a Capital One Cup Final at Wembley. That we lost. The trophies that SAF has won aren’t the only reason that I have been fascinated by the great man for more than half of my life. Anyone who knows me knows how much I love him and won’t stand for a word said against him. My dad dared to criticize him a few months ago – it didn’t end well! My football-hating sister queued up for 5 hours in Manchester to get my autobiography signed for me as a Christmas present, knowing how delighted I would be with such a personalised present from the great man. (It says from one Alex to another, thanks for asking.) This isn’t something I usually advertise but what the hell – for a few years in my early teens I decided marrying someone with the Ferguson would be ideal as then my name would be Alex Ferguson. (Sad but true!)
In recent years I have dragged the same football-hating sister to Old Trafford more times than I care to admit, insisting she comes to see the Sir Alex Ferguson statue each time. Poor thing! She only lives ten minutes from the ground but it wouldn’t be the place that she would choose to visit at 9 am on a drizzly Sunday morning. In 2013 I dragged her down to the Premier League winners parade through the streets of Manchester where my day was made when I received a thumbs up and a grin from Sir Alex himself. Look, it’s highly unlikely that the streets of Sunderland are ever going to be awash with supporters following open top buses after we’ve become Champions of England – for one day only it was nice to hop on the coattails of another team’s success and enjoy a little taste of what it must feel like to celebrate something so huge. I know I know, Leicester have shown us that anything is possible but I am used to living in a perpetual cycle of will-we-get-relegated-yes-probably-oh-no-maybe-not-we’re-safe-again-by-just-grazing-17th-will-we-do-better-next-season-no-of-course-not. To support a team like Man U who never have to worry about that is a distant dream!
Of course Sir Alex is synonymous with Man United, but like I mentioned before that’s not the reason I love him. It’s not just the successes and silverware, although looking through everything he achieved is still breathtaking. Many people might openly dislike Alex Ferguson as a manager, but anyone who loves the beautiful game would be hard pushed to deny a respect at the very least for all that he has done, and how he has shaped the history of the Premier League. My dad would say that he is arrogant and entitled but is that not possibly part of his secret? Most successful people have an air of arrogance and a sense of importance that they don’t just believe themselves, but have everyone else believing as well. (Mourinho? Balotelli? Ibrahimovic?) Alex Ferguson could have had the chant “he does what he wants” written for him, because during his career that’s precisely what he did.
Refusing to speak to the BBC for seven years after he was unhappy with something they insinuated about his son in a documentary. He didn’t want to speak to them – so he didn’t. He dug his heels in and sent other people out to do it for him. Making disparaging remarks about referees before high profile games, declaring them a disgrace and questioning their fitness. Evicting reporters from training grounds and press conferences when he didn’t like what they were saying about his tactics or his players – usually with a good helping of expletives filling their ears as they shuffled out. If he didn’t want someone there, they didn’t get to stay. Just to add a bit of variety to the mix, he also had form for walking out himself when he didn’t like what he heard from reporters and journalists. There’s a theme here – upset Sir Alex at your peril.
Who could forget “Pizzagate,” where Sir Alex was fuming after being left covered in mozzarella after an altercation with Wenger and Fabregas (among others) in the tunnel. Whoever threw that pizza was either very brave or just plain reckless with Sir Alex claiming the loss that Arsenal suffered prior to the flying bread-based snack had “scrambled Arsene’s brain.” Over the years the insults were flung back and forth with Fergie seemingly delighting in the torment of his nearest rival, only for a grudging respect and truce finally being reached in the latter years of Sir Alex’s employment.
The list of feuds that Sir Alex has found himself embroiled in is lengthy to say the least. The man can certainly hold a grudge! Beckham, Keane, Strachan, Van Nistelrooy, Benitez, Keegan, the majority of referees past and present (not you, Howard) – none of these cats are likely to be on his Christmas card list. He doesn’t hold back on his opinions and he could never be accused of sitting on the fence. Some of his quotes about Liverpool in particular are brilliant – my favourite being his famous venom-spitting about knocking them off their (f***ing) perch. And you can print that.
The most controversial of all the great Scot’s controversies has to be the boot kicking incident aimed at Golden Balls himself. Furious with the slip and slide into celebrity culture that occurred after his union to Posh Spice, and talk of his head being turned by Real Madrid, Beckham was famously on the receiving end of a low-flying football boot in the Man United dressing room. The beginning of the end of what was once a relationship likened to father and son saw Beckham sporting a war wound just above his eye. When accused of doing it on purpose, Fergie answered in a way that only he could get away with; claiming if he could guarantee a shot on target like that, he would still be playing competitive football himself.
He may be well past playing competitive football, but there’s still hope in the back of my mind that he’ll come back in a managerial capacity. Stranger things have happened – there’s certainly still life in the old dog yet. He’s never far from the stands and this week he’s been back at Carrington at Jose’s request. Now there’s a party you wouldn’t mind being invited to!
If Sir Alex is fancying a bit more of a challenge, however, there’s a club just off the A19 who could do with his expertise. No offence to David Moyes, but I know which former Manchester United manager I’d rather have at the helm – although perhaps that’s too impossible a dream even for a man of his skill and stature . . .
