This is the One: Sir Alex Ferguson: The Uncut Story of a Football Genius

by Daniel Taylor

  He will be out for two months, which is a terrible blow. Gabriel Heinze, the club’s player of the year, ruptured his cruciate knee ligaments against Villarreal and suddenly Ferguson is without his best midfielder and his best defender. The season is still is in its infancy but, already, it’s beginning to look as if everything is conspiring against him.

  MUTINY

  24.9.05

  Manchester United 1

  Blackburn Rovers 2

  All the frustration comes to a head today. The crowd turn. Effing this. Effing that. Thousands of them, in every part of the ground, but particularly around the dugout. Ferguson is a ‘disgrace’. He is ‘fucking clueless’. He does not know what tactics are. He is a ‘shambles’. It is time he ‘fucked off’ and took Queiroz with him.

  Towards the end, a big fat guy in a leather jacket to the right of the dugout is jabbing his finger at Ferguson, all pent-up anger. Nearby, on another row, there is a middle-aged bloke dressed all in black. Between them, they are giving Ferguson a terrible time, not even watching the game. It is spiteful, vicious, toxic stuff and Ferguson stirs. He half-turns, as if he is about to have a go back. But then something tells him to break the habit of a lifetime. He stares impassively at the pitch, trying to blank it out. But these guys are close enough for him to hear every word. Two stewards in fluorescent yellow jackets move in but it doesn’t make any difference. As soon as they move off, the supporters are back on their feet, yelling abuse. It is a savage, relentless tirade.

  There will be supporters of other clubs who cannot believe how spoilt United’s fans are. They will not be able to comprehend how this could happen to a man who has brought the club such unprecedented happiness. But football can do this. Ferguson will go down in history as one of the most successful managers of all time and surely deserves better. But this is a hard and unforgiving business. Expectations at Old Trafford are so high that every home defeat represents a crisis.

  Managers can suffer from losses of form, as players do, and Ferguson seems strangely out of sorts right now. There is a bad vibe about United and the fans are starting to wonder if this is the Ferguson of old: the guy who used to dismiss every ‘crisis’ the way the rest of us would swat away a bothersome fly.

  Many supporters, Ferguson loyalists, won’t have a bad word said against him, but others are querying his transfers and belittling his tactics. They have started to turn against some of the players – Darren Fletcher, John O’Shea, Kieran Richardson – and they have flooded the fans’ websites with their vitriol.

  Retire Fergie

  Fergie Out

  Fergie Must Go

  Inside Old Trafford it is only a minority, maybe twenty or thirty per cent – but it is a vociferous twenty or thirty per cent.

  They are grateful for everything he has done, of course. They want him applauded out the front door rather than shooed out the back. They respect him for his achievements and will always afford him the status of a legend. But it is not the unconditional love that Sir Matt Busby once enjoyed. They have seen Chelsea overtake United as the best team in the Premiership and they have gritted their teeth and watched from behind the sofa as Liverpool, the archenemy, won the European Cup. Now they are wondering when the good times are coming back. Losing today leaves them ten points behind Chelsea. For some, it is too much to bear.

  ‘Fuck off Fergie.’

  ‘Fuck off Queiroz.’

  It is ridiculous, of course. Manchester United are a big, scary club and they need a big, scary manager. Yet the outpouring of anger is astonishing. Rooney, the crowd’s favourite, has been left out and when Blackburn go one up the supporters in the old Scoreboard End are on their feet. Demanding that he is brought on. Demanding an end to 4-5-1.

  Rooney! Rooney! Rooney!

  Four-four-two! Four-four-two! Four-four-two!

  When Van Nistelrooy equalises, everything calms down. But Blackburn score a deserved second, with eight minutes to go, and it explodes again. More swearing, more abuse and then a mass walkout.

  There are early leavers at every match, but today they are not fans trying to beat the traffic, or hoping to get a good place in the tram queues. Thousands of people are streaming towards the exits and it feels like a choreographed protest about what they are watching. Ferguson’s United, particularly the 1999 team, were famous for the way they could rescue, or win, games with dramatic late goals. But these supporters have lost faith. There are four minutes of stoppage time but Blackburn see out the game with alarming ease. It is only their second win of the season.

  Old Trafford is half-empty at the final whistle and when Ferguson makes his way to the tunnel it is the longest walk of his life. Mark Hughes, manager of Blackburn, is in front and the fans stand respectfully to applaud one of their former players.

  Hughesy! Hughesy! Hughesy!

  Ferguson follows ten yards behind, his head bowed, shoulders hunched. When he flashes his eyes at the crowd, the hostility hits him like a mallet. There are V-signs, middle fingers raised and faces contorted with anger.

  There is nothing to prepare you for seeing and hearing Sir Alex Ferguson being jeered and abused by Manchester United’s supporters. It is unthinkable. The last time he was subjected to this level of abuse was in December 1989. The crowds were dwindling, Liverpool were champions and Old Trafford was a place of brooding discontent. United lost 2–1 to Crystal Palace and the fans on the Stretford End sang ‘Bye bye Fergie’. They chanted for Bryan Robson to take over and they held up a banner that read: ‘Three years of excuses and we’re still crap – ta-ra Fergie’.

  Ferguson went home that night and buried his head in a pillow, confessing later that he was ‘feeling uncomfortable’ about the possibility of losing his job. There are people at Old Trafford who recognise that same careworn look when they see him today. He looks washed out, with drooping bags beneath his eyes and heavy creases lining his face. He seems emotionally drained. Maybe a little scared.

  The only thing going for him is that he doesn’t have to face the press and a forensic examination of what has happened. Any other manager would take a deep breath before trotting out some clichés about seeing ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ and knowing that he could ‘look himself in the mirror’. Yet Ferguson has nothing more demanding than his usual interview with the radio reporters – the ‘Disc of Doom’ – and he gets off very lightly. He is never asked for his reasons for leaving out Rooney, or for plugging away with 4-5-1. Amazingly, he isn’t even asked about the crowd’s reaction.

  SORRY IS THE HARDEST WORD

  27.9.05

  Manchester United 2

  Benfica 1

  Champions League, Group D

  There are some things you never expect to see. One is journalists and television cameramen stopping fans outside Old Trafford before a game to ask whether Sir Alex Ferguson is still the right man for the job.

  The response is interesting. Some of the supporters who booed Ferguson are sticking to their guns. They have legitimate grievances, they say. They pay good money to watch the club and they are entitled to shout and holler if they don’t like what they see.

  Others are beginning to feel uneasy. They are wondering whether they over-reacted. One or two say they feel ashamed and wish they could turn back the clock. Guilt has set in and they have started to regret all the rancour and hostility.

  The request for forgiveness comes sixteen minutes into the game.

  Stand up if you love Fergie

  Stand up if you love Fergie

  STAND UP IF YOU LOVE FERGIE!

  It is an outpouring of noise and passion and genuine affection. Ferguson remains impassive, staring intently at the pitch, not a flicker of emotion crossing his face. Yet the hairs must be standing up on the back of his neck. Sixty thousand people are on their feet, clapping and singing, rising as one to applaud him. Old Trafford looks as it always does under floodlights, timeless and seductive, and this feels like a special moment. A stadium saying sorry.

  Half an h
our after the game, he walks into the pressroom, with his chest puffed out and a defiant stare. He talks about the team’s spirit, the contribution of senior players, how important it is to win home games in a Champions League group. He talks of a turning point, of not feeling sorry for himself and, most of all, of the character of his team.

  He is asked about the goals, one apiece from Giggs and Van Nistelrooy. Then Oliver Kay, the Times correspondent, asks about the team’s tactics. ‘You seemed to use Paul Scholes in a slightly different role, a little bit further forward perhaps.’

  ‘Different?’ Ferguson replies tersely. ‘Different from when?’

  ‘Well, from the previous few games. I just wondered if you could explain the thinking behind it.’

  Kay is a respected broadsheet writer, one of the best in the business, but Ferguson is eyeballing him ominously.

  ‘I’m not explaining anything to you.’

  The Portuguese journalists think he is joking and start to laugh, but they quickly realise that he is deadly serious.

  ‘I’m not explaining anything,’ Ferguson continues. ‘You’ve got your own ideas of the game so, please, carry on. I wouldn’t want to blunt your imagination with the facts.’

  It is weird – United have won yet Ferguson is in a stinking mood, staring us down, looking like he would rather eat broken glass than listen to any more questions. There is not a flicker of happiness on his face and soon afterwards he gets to his feet, looking to the door.

  ‘Thank you,’ one reporter says.

  ‘And who are you to decide it’s finished?’ he shoots back. Then he’s gone.

  THE ROBOT, THE MADMAN, THE WINNER

  29.9.05

  Roy Keane has been on MUTV for a question-and-answer session with the club’s supporters. He talks about his broken foot, the team’s form, the demands of playing for a club like United and, twenty minutes in, a woman from Belfast comes on the line.

  ‘Two questions, Roy. Tell me, from your heart, how much longer you would like to go on here. And then, from your head rather than your heart, how long do you think it will be?’

  He barely pauses for breath. ‘My contract runs out at the end of the season and I don’t expect to be offered another one,’ he says. ‘Even if they do, it will be too late because I’m looking to sort out something elsewhere. I’ve still got one or two years left in me but it won’t be at Manchester United. Every player has to move on eventually.’

  Steve Bower, MUTV’s front man, gawps into the camera. In hushed tones, speaking very, very slowly, he asks Keane to spell out exactly what he is saying. Again, Keane doesn’t blink.

  ‘It’s time to move on. Players come and go – that’s football – and it will do me good to experience what it’s like at another club, maybe in another country. I’ve had twelve great years here and I don’t think I could stomach coming back to Old Trafford in the away dressing room, but I would like to play for another big club in another country. I’m thirty-five in the summer and I’d like to play on for a year or two, but I’ve not been offered a new contract and I don’t think I will be. My gut feeling is that it would be better to make a clean break.’

  In newspaper offices across the north of England, there are journalists staring blankly at the television, saying, over and over again, ‘Fuck me’.

  Football is a cynical business. There will be people who suspect Keane is simply angling for a new contract, using his best acting skills to try to accelerate the club into action. Tonight, though, it feels very real. Keane looks and sounds deadly serious and if he is being genuine, if he really wants to go, then it is difficult to overstate the importance of this announcement.

  Some footballers who leave United are barely noticed: pennies in an arcade, pushed over the edge by the surge of new coins behind. But Keane is a once-in-a-lifetime legend at Old Trafford. He may be thirty-four, in the final phase of his career, but he is still the player who gets everyone else going. The talisman, the captain, the inspiration. The player who lifts the crowd and imposes himself, without fail, in every match. The best player, Ferguson says, he has seen in fifty years of football – and it is not a statement that anyone has ever deemed it necessary to question.

  Ferguson’s squad is thin enough without losing his most important player and the news from Old Trafford is genuinely shocking: he did not even know Keane was contemplating leaving, never mind on the point of announcing it to the world. Ferguson, it emerges, has been caught completely cold. He may even be angry, quite possibly embarrassed, although it is difficult to know because we have no way of getting to him, or Keane, to find out exactly what is going on.

  At times like this, as journalists, it is very easy to feel inadequate. In an ideal world we would be able to phone Keane and write about it from the inside rather than relying on second-hand information or educated guesswork. Yet the days when we can ring United’s players have all but disappeared. There are rules in place – Ferguson’s rules – and anyone who breaches them is subject to one of the club’s banning orders. We can call the player’s agent, or his image-rights consultant, or his press officer, but never the player himself.

  Not that Keane has ever handed out his numbers, or made himself readily available to the press. He has never had any desire to acquaint himself with the media or with the lifestyle of the modern-day footballer. Keane has never had any interest in what journalists do, or why. In his world, winning football matches is all that matters. The rest, as Harvey Keitel puts it in Mean Streets, is bullshit. And Keane belongs firmly to the rest-is-bullshit school.

  A couple of Ireland’s top writers, Tom Humphreys of the Irish Times and Eamon Dunphy of the Irish Star, are occasionally allowed inside Keane’s world, treated to a snapshot of his life. But it is always on Keane’s terms. Nobody is allowed the Access All Areas badge apart from his family and a handful of friends back in Cork, where he grew up. We football writers spend so many hours debating whether he is a genius or a lunatic that we have gradually deluded ourselves into thinking we understand what makes him tick. We talk about his ‘demons’, but that is just a way of concealing our ignorance about what is really going on behind that dark, impenetrable scowl.

  On a rare occasion, maybe once or twice a season, when United play a cup final or a big European tie, he feels duty-bound to speak to us. An audience with Keane is not something to be taken lightly and there is always a pensive air beforehand. We are never quite sure how to handle him or how far we can push him. Some journalists are far too familiar in these situations. Having met someone once or twice, they think it is acceptable to refer to them by their nickname. They nod at Rooney and say, ‘All right, Wazza?’ Or sidle over to Giggs and go, ‘How’s the hammy, Giggsy?’

  With Keane, the best policy is simply to remember to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, because he is the only footballer we have ever dealt with who makes a point of pulling us up on our manners.

  ‘Have you got two minutes, Roy?’ we will ask.

  ‘Have you got two minutes, please?’ he will shoot back, not even breaking stride.

  So the golden rule is to remember our Ps and Qs – but not to overdo it, in case we come across as fawning and servile. He would see through that as well. We worry and we worry and then he makes his way over, smiling sheepishly. The first thing everyone notices is how surprisingly slight he is, with those sloping shoulders and lean limbs and, no kidding, the blackest eyes you have ever seen.

  ‘How long are you going to need?’ he wants to know, looking at his watch.

  ‘Twenty minutes OK?’

  ‘Twenty minutes? Nah, I’m going to be longer than that…’

  He has a nice line in self-deprecating humour. But there is something elusive about him that tells you not to ask a duff question or fluff your lines. Maybe it is the pace at which he walks, as if he is trying to burn off excess nervous energy. Maybe it is the hardwood handshake. Or maybe it is the way he fixes those eyes on you. Challenging you, seeing what you are made of, looking for sig
ns of weakness. You are half a dozen words into a difficult question when his head tilts slightly and his gaze intensifies with peculiar interest, as if you are about to reveal the secret of eternal life. It is like that terrible teenage moment when you realise you have offered a fight to someone twice your size. And it is at that point that you begin to stutter and ramble.

  Generally, though, he is a dream of a talker. He never rules anything out. He answers instinctively, he has strong opinions and he refuses to go in for the clichéd claptrap that other footballers fall back upon.

  He turned up once with a PR representative in tow and looked mortified when she produced a sheet of paper specifying the three questions she wanted us to ask. He didn’t want to offend her but when she left the room he took the piece of paper, screwed it up and shook his head.

  ‘We’re all adults, aren’t we? Ask me what you like. If I don’t like the question I won’t answer it. How does that sound?’

  It is an attitude that endears him to us. When we interview some footballers, they give us the impression we are eating into valuable MUTV time or that we have pulled them away from an important frame of snooker. The best interviewees tend to be those players who can still remember what it is like to turn out in front of tiny crowds and shower under dribbles of cold water. Keane doesn’t have a diamond earring or a Louis Vuitton holdall and he prefers to talk in English rather than in jargon. The modern-day Keane is a considered individual and a deep thinker, albeit one with a fuse just as short as Ferguson’s – maybe even shorter.