Reliable sources at the club say he and Ferguson have stopped communicating since he was dropped for the Carling Cup final. Ferguson has started to think of Van Nistelrooy as a threat to team morale. He has been studying Van Nistelrooy’s body language, grievance building on grievance, and has started to feel that his authority is being challenged.
The newspapers have picked up on it. Van Nistelrooy has been linked to a new club every week – Tottenham, Newcastle, AC Milan, Roma, Inter Milan, Bayern Munich and, in the last few days, Real Madrid. Publicly he has said very little but, in private, he has made it clear he cannot accept Ferguson’s reasons for not including him in the biggest match of the season. Inter’s president, Massimo Moratti, has described it as an open secret that Van Nistelrooy is ‘not happy in Manchester’.
Nobody, however, expected this and the supporters are entitled to be angry. Ferguson even went on MUTV to deny reports of a rift, telling viewers to ignore ‘all this stupid talk in the papers’. David Gill went further, saying that the fans should pay no attention to ‘mischief-making’ and insisting there wasn’t a word of truth in it. ‘If you are looking to improve your squad you are not going to sell a player who can deliver twenty-five to thirty goals a season. Ruud is very much part of our plans and we are looking forward to him playing a part in what should be a successful next season.’
Somehow it feels appropriate that the season should end on a note like this – controversial and shocking.
United may have won the Carling Cup but Ferguson will still remember this season with all the affection reserved for appendicitis: early elimination from the Champions League, the abuse he suffered during the Blackburn game, humiliation against Burton Albion, the breakdown of his relationship with Keane, the unwanted takeover by the Glazer family, the nearincessant speculation about his future and, now, a parting of the ways with Van Nistelrooy.
This is supposed to be the autumn of Ferguson’s career but it has felt more like its winter, harsh and unforgiving. It has been the season when fans have called for him to be sacked, the press have parked their tanks on his lawn and his relationship with the media has hit an all-time low. It has been the season of Chelsea, Jose Mourinho, Frank Lampard, John Terry … and FC United of Manchester.
Winning today at least guarantees an automatic place in the Champions League and a little more Premiership prize money, which will not go unnoticed by the Glazers. But it has been three years since United could call themselves champions. The mentality of this club is that second is first-last, that nobody remembers who finished second. Ferguson began the season wanting to fight the world. He has ended it looking solemn and depressed and in need of a holiday. The beautiful game can seem very ugly when seen through tired eyes.
2006–07
Annus mirabilis
GODZILLA
18.8.06
We asked Ferguson once whether he had mellowed. We wanted to know about his temper. How did he sustain that blowtorch of a personality? And was it true, as some of his old Scottish acquaintances say, that he had lost some of the harder edges? One of the things that is often said about Ferguson is that he operated on a shorter leash when he was younger and that he is more of an avuncular figure now than twenty or thirty years ago. It is said he does not shout at his players with the same ferocity or regularity. ‘I’m a pussycat compared to what I used to be like,’ he told us.
He found it all rather amusing. He said he had lost some of that inner rage and, teasing him, we rolled our eyes disbelievingly. But he insisted it was true. He said he was far more aggressive when he was younger and he told us a story about when he was St Mirren’s player-manager, in 1976, and took them on a preseason tour of the Caribbean, where the games included a ‘friendly’ against the Guyana national team.
‘They had this one guy at the back and he was absolutely huge,’ he said. ‘He was built like Godzilla and he was kicking the shit out of one of our strikers. I was watching from the touchline, getting more and more wound up. I wasn’t even a sub but I got my boots on for the last fifteen minutes and I was going: “Let me at him.” I had to do something about it.’
He was clearly very fond of this story, laughingly confessing his shame, as if he could scarcely believe it was himself he was talking about.
‘I can remember my assistant, big Davie Provan, pleading with me: “Don’t do it, don’t, I know what you’ll do, I know what you’re like.” But when you’re younger you’ve got that stupid courage, haven’t you? I couldn’t help myself and, first chance, I took him out.’
We were all laughing now. ‘Oh, I was sent off,’ he continued, ‘but it never got out. I made sure of that. I went into the dressing room afterwards and I told the players: “If anyone ever talks about this I’ll find out who it is and I’ll kill you.’‘’
He can laugh about this side of himself sometimes: the way others see him with devil horns and steam coming out of his ears. On other occasions, though, it gets on his nerves. Drives him barmy. ‘How do you want me to be?’ he will ask. ‘Why can’t you just accept me for the way I am rather than constantly analysing my manner and temperament?’
What he doesn’t seem to grasp is that there is nobody like him anywhere else in football. Television may have sanitised his press conferences but we are still wary around him. It’s all in his eyes. Testing you, checking you out, looking for vulnerable areas. Trying to put you on the back foot. Always probing. They may be a touch rheumy these days but one injudicious remark or question and those eyes will be screaming ‘don’t go there’. Or the demons will overtake him and Lord help you if you are in his way.
One interviewer once asked him if he ever regretted it and he said, yes, sometimes he ‘wished it had been with somebody six foot ten. Sometimes it’s a small guy, sometimes it’s a medium-sized guy. I’ve no discrimination that way. Sometimes there’s guilt. Sometimes you say to yourself, “Why did I do that?” But if someone argues with me I have to win the argument. So I start heading towards them. That’s where the hairdryer comes in. I can’t lose an argument. The manager can never lose an argument.’
And the hairdryer tag? ‘It was started by Mark Hughes. I can understand it because of my policy in the dressing room. When somebody challenges me in there, I have to go for them. That’s me, you know. I believe you cannot avoid the confrontation.’
There was nothing wrong, he said, in losing your temper. ‘You still have to create a little spark sometimes. If it’s in your nature to lose your temper, let it out. Don’t keep it bottled up otherwise you can end up growling and kicking doors and not getting across what you actually feel. I’ve thrown more teacups across the dressing room than I can tell you. But as far as I’m concerned, anger is not a problem. Losing your temper is OK – as long as you do it for the right reasons.’
Fair enough. Yet Ferguson once complained to another interviewer that the public perception of him was flawed. The truth, he said, was that he didn’t shout half as much as people made out. ‘I’ve lost my temper over the years, but every manager has lost his temper at some time. There’s a lot of myth. The hairdryer and the teacups are just a couple of examples.’
He blamed the press for creating the monster. ‘I read one article, it was in a supposedly responsible, quality newspaper and it said that when I started in management I used to go behind the stand at East Stirlingshire to practise losing my temper. I was going to say you couldn’t make it up, but somebody obviously has! Have you ever heard such nonsense?’
It is certainly difficult to imagine that those explosions of rage are rehearsed in private or planned with strategic motives. Equally, though, it isn’t always easy to believe he has mellowed. At times last season he lost his temper so often that it became almost monotonous. When journalists questioned him he resorted to confrontation as if it were his default position. The more he felt under threat and struggled to get his own way, the more combative and sour he became. He accused us of hating Manchester United, which was simply untrue.
T
his is a new season, possibly a new start. A new season brings new hopes. Yet it has been another summer when the fault lines have cracked open and he has kept us a very long arm’s length away. On a pre-season tour of South Africa, Ferguson was the guest speaker at a charity dinner at Turffontein racecourse, where he apparently accused Chelsea of being ‘hell-bent on ruining football’ because of the way they threw money around. Unbeknown to him, a news reporter from the Johannesburg Star was taking notes in the audience and Ferguson’s comments appeared in print the next day. It was blown up into a huge row and he had to issue a statement saying he had been misinterpreted. ‘It’s unfortunate,’ he said, ‘that you cannot go to a dinner these days without someone sneakily reporting everything you say.’
That particular argument has had repercussions for everyone in the Manchester press pack. It had nothing to do with the English newspapers and many of us actually sympathised with him. But it has felt as though we are getting the blame anyway, just for being part of the same industry.
On the same tour, a reporter from the Daily Mirror asked him whether after three years without the league title he felt under increased pressure.
Ferguson exploded.
He has drawn a firm demarcation line between himself and us. The press conference restrictions he brought in as a ‘trial’ last season are to remain in force. What’s more, he has stopped his players from having newspaper columns because he is unhappy about the number of stories coming out from the dressing room, predominantly the spat between Ronaldo and Van Nistelrooy. Ferdinand has had to tear up his contract with the Sun and Neville has severed his ties with The Times (though neither player was responsible for the leak). Rooney’s people have been speaking to the News of the World but that is dead in the water now.
Today, though, we see other layers of Ferguson’s personality. When he comes through the double doors at Carrington he is smiling and has his arm draped around David Meek’s shoulder. He answers all our questions with long, considered responses. He is bubbly and confident, happily talking up United’s chances.
‘We’re disappointed about what happened last season but we think we’ve got a great chance this year. We’ve got some fantastic players at this club. If we get a bit of luck and keep the players injury free there’s no reason why we can’t do it. We know the target we must aim for this season. We have to hit the ground running and keep it that way.’
It has not been an easy summer, though. In the World Cup, Rooney was sent off after stamping on Ricardo Carvalho, a Chelsea player, before England went out on penalties against Portugal in the quarterfinals. The winning kick was taken by Ronaldo, who has come back to England to find his windows smashed and enough hate mail to fill a freight train. Ronaldo was caught on camera winking to the Portuguese bench after telling the referee that Rooney deserved a red card and, among other indignities, the Sun have superimposed his face on a pullout dartboard. It has been a shabby campaign of vilification and Ronaldo has spent much of the summer trying to engineer a move to Spain, openly confessing that he did not want to return to Old Trafford and had made up his mind that he wanted to play for Barcelona or Real Madrid. Ferguson has had to pick up the pieces and he has done so brilliantly, not only persuading Ronaldo to change his mind but making sure there are no lingering problems between him and Rooney. Even so, it is a delicate situation and Ronaldo will have to show immense inner strength to survive the coming season. He was never the most popular player with opposition supporters and wherever United play from now on, great flows of invective will be unleashed on that gelled quiff.
The other headline news is that Van Nistelrooy has been sold to Real Madrid for £10 million, which seems an extraordinarily low fee and has gone down badly with the supporters. There has been lots of propaganda and promises about possible signings but the only new arrivals are Michael Carrick, a midfielder, for £18 million from Spurs and Tomasz Kuszczak, a goalkeeper, on loan from West Brom. Chelsea have added half a dozen new players, including two former European Footballers of the Year in Andriy Shevchenko and Michael Ballack, and a lot of United fans are thinking the worst already. They have been singing Van Nistelrooy’s name in the pre-season games, showing their support for a player they always appreciated. But when we asked Ferguson in pre-season about the fans being unhappy he refused to accept that was the case, snapping that there was no evidence whatsoever.
A NEW BEGINNING
20.8.06
Manchester United 5
Fulham 1
There is always something therapeutic about the first game. When we leave in May everyone is knackered, maybe a little disillusioned, but those three months off are like balm and today there is a buzz of excitement again. The sun is shining and Old Trafford looks magnificent, with a new roof and a new capacity. Seventy-six thousand faces. Four vertiginous stands, all packed.
And United, minus Van Nistelrooy, make a statement of intent today. They look confident, purposeful and determined and they play a brand of football so exhilarating it is at total odds with the image we have conjured up in our minds, that of a team in need of rehabilitation and nursing bruised egos.
It is only one game and we should not be sucked into that classic journalistic trap, the knee-jerk reaction, yet it is difficult not to feel a surge of genuine excitement. Rooney plays as though he is on firstname terms with the ball. Scholes radiates confidence, showing United what they missed last season. Giggs shimmers and dazzles and Ronaldo dances past the Fulham defenders as if they were no more of an obstruction than a set of training-ground cones. Old Trafford holds its breath every time he collects the ball and sets off on one of those mazy yet penetrative runs and it is evident that the summer’s controversy has been overstated. Rooney scores twice, Ronaldo gets one, and they bear-hug after each goal as if the World Cup was nothing more than a playground game of marbles. The Fulham fans boo Ronaldo’s every touch, but it seems to inspire him to greater heights of excellence.
Ferguson surveys all this from a new seat – a red, leather-padded seat the size of a throne and complete with an in-built heater – and he is nodding his head in satisfaction, fond of his players, happy to be back. He had talked to us about the importance of getting off to a good start, but even he seems taken aback by the elegance of their play and the blitz of goals. It is first-touch, pass-them-to-death football and four goals arrive in the opening nineteen minutes. United settle for just one more and Fulham get one back but, even so, it is a performance of stunning quality, the club’s biggest opening-day win since 1966.
The sting comes at the end. Fulham are so comprehensively outplayed that their manager, Chris Coleman, refuses to come to the pressroom to talk about the game. His press officer goes down to the dressing room to see what is wrong. She is gone for ten minutes and then she comes back looking embarrassed and very, very apologetic.
‘I’m afraid he’s getting on the bus. There won’t be any interviews today.’
And so a small piece of history has been made: the first-ever top-flight match in England in which neither manager talks to the press.
Ferguson has not attended post-match conferences in the Premiership since a 3–1 defeat against Liverpool in November 2001. The nineteen other managers in the Premiership will usually set aside time to speak to the dailies, Sundays, radio and television in separate briefings and Coleman, in fairness, is usually very media-friendly. Today, however, he is so angry with his team’s performance that he says he cannot trust himself not to say something he might later regret.
FERGIE AND THE BBC
26.8.06
Watford 1
Manchester United 2
Fraser Dainton of Sky Sports put in his first appearance at one of Ferguson’s press conferences for nine months yesterday. He hasn’t dared show his face since Ferguson told him he was ‘finished’ for daring to ask about Roy Keane when everything blew up last season. He was never officially banned but he has been on a ‘self-imposed exile’ to take the heat out of the situation, with his co
lleague James Cooper taking care of United’s briefings.
These things have to be treated with a certain delicacy and Dainton timed it well. It has been an immaculate start to the season. All wins. No problems yet, no battles. Ferguson narrowed his eyes and gave him a knowing look, as if to say: ‘I remember you, son.’ But that was all. Dainton eased himself in with a couple of deliberately uncontroversial questions. Afterwards he stood in the car park and blew out his cheeks like a man who had just heard the judge utter the words ‘not guilty’.
The BBC have had no such luck. BBC Radio Manchester wrote to Ferguson at the start of the season asking if there was anything they could do to persuade him to lift his boycott of the station. Writing a letter was, in their words, a final act of desperation. But he has written back to confirm it is a lifetime ban. He makes it clear he doesn’t want to hear anything more about it. That life means life.
A lot of people who are not au fait with the way Ferguson operates might not understand why he should freeze out a local radio station that generally gives him nothing but positive publicity. But the history relates to his grievances with the BBC in general. Radio Manchester has never done anything to upset him but the BBC has been Ferguson’s least favourite media organisation for many years – and he punishes every arm of the corporation as one.
The list of his grievances would fill a book but, in short, he cut off all contact in 2004 after BBC3 ran a Panorama-style documentary probing his son Jason’s dealings as a football agent. He also took legal action in 2000 after a profile of him appeared in Match of the Day magazine. The article was written by the editor, Tim Glynne-Jones, a United supporter who started one of the club’s earliest fanzines, The Shankhill Skinhead. Ferguson’s solicitor described it as ‘character assassination’. The BBC agreed to pay out £10,000 and publish an apology.
This is the One: Sir Alex Ferguson: The Uncut Story of a Football Genius Page 16
