The vengeance of Alex Ferguson

For a quarter of a century Sir Alex Ferguson bestrode football’s narrow world like a colossus. Like his predecessor knight-manager, Sir Matt Busby, he ensured that it was England’s third city that was home to its top football club. His avowed aim in this reminiscence is to explain ‘some of the mysteries in my line of work’.

In that he certainly succeeds. One does not need to know anything about football to recognise that Sir Alex knows everything about it. It is no more necessary to have been a great advocate to become a great judge than it is to have been a great player to become a great manager. Ferguson’s career on pitch, only briefly described, gives no intimation of his future prowess on the touchline, where, purple-faced, gum-chewing and watch-tapping, he was more useful to his side than an extra player, or in the transfer bazaar, where he haggled, usually to excellent effect.

His homegrown ‘Class of 1992’, as gifted a group as the ill-fated ‘Busby babes’, was key to his trophy haul, and his affection for such durable club servants as Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs is palpable. But woe betide any player who defied him; at Manchester United there could only be one master. Sir Alex does not subscribe to the theory that revenge is a dish best served cold. His disparaging comments on dissidents such as Ruud Van Nistelrooy, Roy Keane and Wayne Rooney are piping hot, while his implication that David Beckham under-achieved in the wake of his marriage suggests a somewhat monocular view of success.

What Ferguson does not explain are some of the controversies in his own life. He brushes aside as of no significance his dispute with the Coolmore racing operation in Ireland and its impact on the ownership of the club.