Man with Midas touch

Driven by ambition and determination, Sir Alex Ferguson succeeded in a furious pursuit of his goals

Alex Ferguson is a knight of the realm, rich beyond his dreams, revered and respected the world over, yet his approach to life and work remain unchanged from when he first rolled up his sleeves in the Clydeside shipyards of the 1960s.

Hard graft, pride in your work, respect for your colleagues and a refusal to back down when you feel you are right were the values Ferguson learned as a boy in the tough streets of post-war Glasgow and which were honed as an apprentice tool-maker in one of the most unforgiving work environments imaginable.

Like many great managers, Ferguson is somewhat frustrated that his playing days are dismissed as an appendix to his career but he was no mean performer. Rangers were happy to pay a then-Scottish record fee of 65,000 pounds ($100,600) to take the scrawny but fearless striker from Dunfermline in 1966.

It should have been the glorious peak of his playing days with the club he supported as a boy but things did not go to plan and, after famously being blamed for a Scottish Cup final defeat, he eventually left, angry and unfulfilled as his playing career drifted to an end at Ayr United in 1974.

The challenge of gelling the competing egos of his current multi-millionaire playing staff might seem a light years from when he set out on his 39-year managerial adventure as part-time boss of minor Scottish club East Stirling but the values he established from the start remain in place now.

Known as a hard taskmaster, few have crossed him and stayed around long to tell the tale, but at the heart of his success is his pure and enduring love of the game.
At 71, with an army of staff at his disposal, Ferguson is still the first to arrive at United's training ground. He may not now have such a hands-on role in terms of coaching but his presence is everywhere.

He displays the same boyish enthusiasm whether watching the latest crop of 16-year-old hopefuls among a scattering of friends and family or overseeing the first team in a Champions League clash watched by hundreds of millions the world over.
Many of those viewers, and United fans whose memories begin with the advent of the Premier League in 1992, will probably never fully understand the depth of the fundamental and surely permanent transformation in the club's fortunes brought about by Ferguson. Today, United bestride the game on and off the pitch, their worldwide brand ensuring a torrent of income that enables an ever-changing playing staff to win trophy after trophy.

In a sport where managers, even successful ones, have a mayfly lifespan, Ferguson's reign of more than 26 years is nothing short of astonishing. He has been knighted and honoured by people and institutions the world over and sits proudly at the top table of the most influential people ever to have had a hand in the sport that dominates every corner of the planet. Ferguson will walk away from Old Trafford having won 25 major trophies and having established such a level of consistency that United have never finished outside the top three in the Premier League. Yet when he arrived from Aberdeen to replace Ron Atkinson in November 1986, United were a very different animal.

Not only had they gone 19 years without winning the league, they had barely challenged for it. Only five top-three finishes, and of course the ignominy of relegation in 1974, underlined that decline. Despite being the best-supported club in the country, and arguably the most famous in the world, they had only a handful of FA Cups to show for their efforts and were just not a powerful force.

Ferguson certainly had pedigree in breaking down the established order, having ended the dominance of Celtic and Rangers in Scottish football with his remarkable transformation of Aberdeen, which culminated in them beating Real Madrid to win the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1983.

England proved a tougher nut to crack, however, as Liverpool remained top dogs, ably supported by Everton and then Arsenal. Finishing second in his first full season in charge in 1986/87 proved something of a false dawn as 11th and 13th in subsequent campaigns put him in danger of being sacked for the second time in his career following his dismissal by St Mirren in his fledgling days.

Ferguson was trying to build a base, shipping out some established and popular players in his bid to instil his values and remove the drinking and gambling culture that he knew was undermining the club's prospects, but United's patience was not bottomless. Few fans will now admit to holding "Fergie Out" banners in those frustrating days, but they were there alright as the club hovered around the lower reaches of the top flight.

It has become accepted folk history that Mark Robins' winner against Nottingham Forest in a 1990 FA Cup third-round tie saved his job, and certainly United's triumph in the final, Ferguson's first trophy in four seasons, bought the Scot time. He showed in that success too that there was no room for sentiment, dropping goalkeeper Jim Leighton, one of the stalwarts of his Aberdeen days who followed him south, for the replay of the final against Crystal Palace.

The Holy Grail of the league championship after a 26-year wait eventually arrived in 1993, buoyed by the signing of Eric Cantona, considered by many to be Ferguson's shrewdest-ever deal and the catalyst for much of the success that followed.

From then on it was a cascade of silverware, culminating in the 1999 treble of Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League. Having finally achieved his stated ambition of knocking Liverpool "off their perch" and making United England's best team, Ferguson then proved adept at rebuilding his sides, unloading key names and bringing in ever-more costly replacements with deft moulding.

Nobody was too big to go, whether for past-their-best footballing reasons or if Ferguson felt they were getting too big for the boots, as the likes of Roy Keane, David Beckham and Ruud van Nistelrooy all discovered. He did announce plans to retire at the end of the 2001/02 season but opted to continue, reinvigorated and driven by the desire to make United a European Cup heavyweight.

He did manage one further Champions League triumph, via a penalty shootout against Chelsea in 2008, but his tally of two following Matt Busby's first in 1968, when stood alongside his 13 Premier League titles, will remain the one relative blip on his otherwise glittering career.

Fergie time, Hairdryer treatment and other slightly lesser-known facts about Ferguson

*  ONCE RAN A PUB: Ferguson has worked outside soccer, starting out as an apprentice tool-maker and shop steward in Glasgow and much later running a pub that he renamed Fergie’s with a downstairs bar named the Elbow Room in memory of his physical style as a player.

*  INTRIGUED BY JOHN F KENNEDY: Gordon Brown sent him numerous CDs about the assassination of JFK. Ferguson bonded with Brown over a shared interest in US politics. “Gordon sent me 35 CDs on it, which was brilliant of him,” he told Manchester radio station Key 103in 2007. Ferguson is fascinated with JFK. He said he kept JFK’s autopsy report by his bed. He also has a copy of the Warren Report signed by Gerald Ford.

*  GAVE KENNY DALGLISH RIDES: When Ferguson was at Rangers, he gave rides to a young Kenny Dalglish,who was hoping to be signed. “Fergie used to give us a lift into town. He had such a big car,” Dalglish told The Guardian. When Dalglish was picked up by city rivals Celtic he was forced to play centerback and mark Ferguson in a reserve team game.

*  TOLD ALASTAIR CAMPBELLTO GET A MASSEUR FOR TONY BLAIR: Ferguson was a big Labour donor and advised Prime Minister Tony Blair on leadership. The idea of getting a masseur for the election “battle bus” may have been a step too far, he later admitted. Better advice was when he said, “So long as you can keep all your key people in the same room at the same time, you’ll be fine.”

*  NOT THE LONGEST-SERVING MANAGER: Ferguson was manager of Manchester United for 26-1/2 years. The longest serving league manager in Europe was Guy Roux, who occupied the hot seat at French team Auxerre for 44 years, finally stepping down in 2005. Ferguson isn’t even the longest serving Scottish manager. Willie Maley was Celtic manager from 1897-1940, clocking up 43 years.

*  USED TO JUMP OVER WALLS AS A BOY: He grew up in a poor area of Glasgow where there wasn’t much to do apart from play soccer, fight and jump over walls, known as dykes. “The dangerous ones had names – the king, the queen, the suicide, the diamond, the spiky,” Ferguson once said. “You’d go to different areas of Govan to challenge each other into jumping dykes because it was very dangerous. But you do that when you’re a kid because you’ve got no fear.”

*  ‘FERGIE TIME’ IS 79 SECONDS: “Fergie time” is the widely held belief by supporters of other team, that if Manchester United is losing after 90 minutes, the referee will extend injury time long enough for them to tie or win. Last year, the BBC analysed Fergie time. It found that Manchester United was not unique in  being given extra injury time when they were losing, although it appeared they got more than other teams. Games went on 79 seconds longer when Manchester United was losing than winning. Manchester United’s towering achievement – securing the triple with victory in the 1999 European Champions League – was achieved in Fergie time, when they reversed a Bayern Munich lead, by scoring two goals after the 90th minute.

*  ALEX OR ALEC?  Many people in soccer refer to him as Sir Alec, assuming that his Scottish background will mean his name is pronounced in that way. But Scotland is strangely split on the Alex/Alec question, with people slipping between the two, often without noticing. BBC Sportsound presenter Richard Gordon said he had found himself using both forms. He said that former Ferguson colleague Willie Miller often calls him Alec when talking on the radio and ex-Scotland manager Craig Brown is prone to using the informal Alec, quickly followed by the more respectable Sir Alex. Carole Hough, professor of onomastics, says she can think of no particular reason why people would choose one or the other, except that Alec is slightly shorter. She said both names were popular in Scotland and England.

*  THE ‘HAIRDRYER TREATMENT’AND ‘SQUEAKY BUM TIME’: Ferguson was responsible for two memorable coinages. Players speak in awestruck tones of what it is like to be on the receiving end of Ferguson’s temper. The “hairdryer” – for its sound and heat – became the chosen phrase. Players talk of the moment a switch is flicked in Fergie’s head, he presses his face close to the you and emits a terrifying torrent of abuse. Former United winger Lee Sharpe – famed for his extracurricular activities – has been credited with inventing the term. David Beckham said: “The fear of getting the hairdryer was the reason why we all played so well. He was a manager you wanted to do well for.” Ferguson also put his finger on the agony of watching a tense sporting moment. It is thought he first used “squeaky bum time” in March 2003 as his Manchester United team clawed back the lead from rivals Arsenal in a tense finale. It has become part of the soccer argot, especially at the climax of a season. It first entered the Collins English dictionary in 2005 with the definition “the tense final stages of a league competition, especially from the point of view of the leaders.” Wikipedia notes the act of “squirming or moving forward and back in one’s seat while watching an exciting sporting event.”

*  HOME IS CALLED FAIRFIELDS: Ferguson lives in a mansion in Wilmslow, Cheshire. It is called Fairfields after theshipyard where his father worked.