by Carson, Mike
Then in the New Year, the dawn broke. Popular belief has it that an unexpected 1-0 win in the third round of the FA Cup away to high-flying Nottingham Forest was the turning point. Certainly that match ignited a run that saw United go all the way to Wembley and win the trophy. But Ferguson would cite the explicit support of the board for his longer-term plans as the main driver for his success. One of the early difficulties he faced was that the team ‘was too old. The problem with human beings is that when they get older and they are playing at a club like this, how many challenges can they accept without being successful? It’s very difficult. So players that have been here a long time and are in their 30s, you have to question whether they can go another battle. By that I mean winning the league. The whole campaign is a battle. It’s not decided in the first game or the last game – it’s decided in 38 matches, or at that time 42 matches. Although we were second to Liverpool in my first full season I knew we couldn’t win the league with that team, so while all that was happening, we were rebuilding the youth in the club. We were doing OK. One or two came through: Lee Sharp and Lee Martin became first-team players. Some were on the fringes: Mark Robins was successful in terms of his goal-scoring ratio and had an ability to score in important games. So there were signs we were on the right track.’ It was Mark Robins, in fact, who scored the winner in that decisive cup match against Forest.
Once Ferguson had done enough to win his first trophy, the seeds of sustained success began to blossom. ‘The definite breakthrough was the youth team of 1992. They were phenomenal, absolutely phenomenal. Seven full internationals came out of that team. Extraordinary, and we continue to see the effects today.’ For the record: the seven were David Beckham, Nicky Butt, Gary Neville, Ryan Giggs, Robbie Savage, Keith Gillespie and Simon Davies. The team won the FA Youth Cup that year, and were runners-up the following season – a year in which they were joined by Paul Scholes and Phil Neville.
What Sir Alex did was a significant act of leadership: like Tiger Woods, he acknowledged the flaws in a winning system, and used them as a springboard for something newer and better – something that would last.
5. Invest in the next generation:
Sir Alex has infused the club with his own character – but it is a two-way street. The two have moulded each other. He speaks with admiration of the United of half a century ago who built for the future: ‘This club has traditionally been good at working with young players. They won five youth cups in a row in the 1950s, and they created the Busby Babes. That would have been a phenomenal team but for the disaster of 1958. Who’s to say how long it would have lasted, that particular team? But they were young; they were only boys, 21 years of age. They were fantastic footballers.’
He attributes his appointment as United manager to his work at Aberdeen, and attributes his success at Aberdeen to the investment he made in the upcoming generation of players: ‘At Aberdeen I did exactly what I would later do at United – I built a football club. We had a great youth system at Aberdeen: we brought young players through continually and that was part of the success at the club.’
When he landed at a club rich in history, but starved of real success, he observed straight away the need to recapture the traditional commitment to youth in order to develop sustained success for the future: ‘When I arrived there wasn’t really a good youth system. So at first I was involved completely in the youth effort. We started a system. I set up a meeting with all the scouts throughout the country and told them exactly what I intended to do and what I expected from them. Scouts are as important as your coaches – it’s only through a good scout you get the right quality of people into your football club. In the early days all [assistant manager] Archie Knox and I did was trial, trial and trial, so that the coaches would have the material to work with. We were bringing in boys from everywhere. The scouts set about their jobs very well and by doing that got the message across to the board what my long-term approach was to building a football club: focus on young people. By hard work we got to a level around about 1990 where we were starting to make a change to the dynamics of the club.’
Sir Alex acknowledges this wasn’t easy: ‘No criticism of [predecessor] Ron Atkinson, because management is a job – was then and still is today. It is a results-based industry, so for a lot of managers they have to concentrate on the first team. I’ve never been that way. The club’s got to be out there for sure – we’ve got 11 men on the pitch and five on the bench and we’ve got to be out there performing today. But at the same time you are thinking long term about bringing the talent through. So I’ve never worried about the result of the first team, I’ve always worried about the foundations of the club. I’ve always felt it’s not building a football team; it’s building a football club. There needs to be a foundation there built on young players. We have over time got to the level where now we are turning out some very, very good young players who are all playing today – and not all at our club. Many of the ones we didn’t take are playing for Scotland and England, and we felt they weren’t as good as the ones we had – a fantastic position to be in.’
For certain, his plan caught fire. ‘Bobby Charlton in particular was a great support. When we found young Ryan [Giggs] at 14 years of age I said to Bobby, “You need to come down and see this kid – he’s unbelievable.” So Bobby came down to the far pitch on Littleton Road down the far side and I’m standing there and I’m watching a game. Bobby’s walking across and by the time he gets to me, Ryan’s been on the ball about 20 times. He walks from the pavilion end over to the pitch and says, “That must be him there!” He knew right away because Ryan was like a terrier chasing a bit of silver paper in the wind, his head was up and he was off the ground, floating about the place. Fabulous. Bobby and [then chairman] Martin Edwards supported us in everything we tried to achieve with youth.’
The academy system at Manchester United is at the heart of the club’s long-term success and represents the dynasty that Ferguson built. This work appeals deeply to his people skills. But he did not do it all himself and had to rely on his academy team to implement his vision: ‘Building up young players to the necessary level of self-belief and skill is a job for our academy when they arrive. They are rebuilding their character. If they can rebuild a player’s character to the level that he can handle me, then he’s got a chance. That’s a fact, because when they got to me they would have to be men.’ Here again, the focus is on people, but without a trace of sentimentality: ‘We’ve no time for a weak person in the first team. When they see weakness [at the academy], they keep working at it. Because a player would not only be dealing with me, he is dealing with 76,000 people expecting them to win each week – and that’s a different issue altogether. So the rebuilding of a character that’s strong in terms of handling a crowd and the senior players in the dressing room: big stars, expectations, media, all these things – it’s not done in the wind. It’s a building process, and the academy people are good at that.’
There is a real pride in Sir Alex’s eyes as he considers how this academy team has reproduced something in the finest traditions of the club: ‘They have recreated history at Manchester United by developing these fantastic young players. It has given everyone the satisfaction that they are doing their jobs properly: the scouting, the coaching, the decision-making about who was the best one to bring into the club, all these things. So this has created a foundation for Manchester United as it is today. This is absolutely what has built lasting success.’ For Sir Alex then, building a football club is synonymous with investing in the next generation and in creating sustained success.
And the final part of the loop? While Sir Alex entrusted this sacred work to his academy team, he was far from losing touch. Peter Schmeichel recalls a visit to United’s training ground in the later years of Ferguson’s managerial time at the club: ‘I walked around Carrington with him and we watched the kids train. He said, “That fella over there will make his debut in 15 or 16 months.” That’s how he plans. But he
never says that to the player. He just talks about the next game.’
Ferguson is not the only manager to place such emphasis on youth. Brendan Rodgers was convinced of the power of youth work from his earliest days at Reading, and makes the connection between the next generation and the club’s culture and values. ‘Some young players grew and went right through to the first team. Development is a decade really. It starts with the youngster who can’t tie his laces at the very beginning, making him feel important, secure in the environment, allowing him to play with freedom.’ So the work on mindsets begins young. Culture, philosophy, values, morals are all words Rodgers uses to describe his focus during his decade as a youth coach. ‘I worked on interpersonal skills in relation to the young players: shaking hands, little simple things, please and thank you, not simply expecting things, reiterating hard work, making them work. It was important to operate on their level, getting myself feeling how they feel, building rapport, building trust. Once they could trust me, I could incorporate core values: collectiveness, unity, pride. It was a commitment to nurturing.’ This is significant, core work for a leader in any sector. Business leaders – like football leaders – need to invest real energy and resource in ensuring the flow through of talent to where it can best be used.
And nor does it stop there. For those who will move up to the elite squad, there is considerable preparatory effort: ‘I want them to smoothly come across, and then be able to go back and forth. At Swansea, young players used to jump from youth straight to the first team, which was too big a jump for them. So instead we put in place a bridge, to prepare them for that jump. The biggest thing with the young players is managing their expectations: walking alongside them, understanding them, creating possibilities.’
Dario Gradi talks of the ‘extreme pressures’ on young players moving up. He recalls the moment when the young Rob Jones moved on to the high-intensity environment of Anfield. ‘When I signed him as a schoolboy, I went round to his house with his forms and promised we’d look after him. When we accepted the offer from Liverpool, I rang his mum and said we’d accepted and she asked if that would be good for him. She reminded me that we’d said we would only do what was right for him. I told her he’d be playing against Manchester United on Sunday and marking Ryan Giggs and I thought that was quite good for him! So when he went, I said, “You’ll be alright on Sunday. You’ll do alright against Ryan Giggs. He might beat you but, when he does, you’ll know what you did wrong. You know how to play full back. There’s nothing you don’t know about playing full back. So don’t worry, you’ll cope. If you are worried when you get the ball, just kick the f***ing thing up the pitch as far as you can. Don’t worry about it, don’t overplay.” Anyway, he played well. The following week I had reason to speak to [then Liverpool manager] Graeme Souness and I told him what I’d said. He said, “I told him the same thing. I told him to kick the ball out of the ground if he wanted! But he didn’t, he played well.” Six months later he was playing for England. Terrific.’
Rodgers also agrees there is a considerable role for the senior players here: ‘The young players are only as good as the senior players and the senior players at Swansea were magnificent, taking that responsibility themselves. They work with them on the field – they support them and encourage them, they give them advice. The key thing is they aren’t distant with them – that they don’t see themselves as Premier League superstars, but instead they see themselves as people united in what they are doing as part of the club. And to have individual, assigned mentors is also a great idea. We had that process at Chelsea: John Terry, Didier Drogba and others were great for the young players. There was a lot of integration there.’ Another connection between the youth and club culture: if senior players take a leadership role in this way, club values get passed on and become even stronger in the first team itself.
Gradi’s three decades at Crewe Alexandra – including a 24-year unbroken spell as manager – make him one of the most enduring figures in the industry. He is acknowledged as one of the most dedicated and successful developers of young people in the game. He has great technical focus – a commitment to footballing skills that has launched a significant number of highly successful careers. David Platt, Rob Jones, Danny Murphy, Robbie Savage, Neil Lennon and Dean Ashton among others bear testimony to his abilities. ‘There are certain core skills a successful footballer needs – and he has to learn them young. I say to our under 12s when I’m working with them, “We might be doing this every week but it’s a skill that you won’t be able to develop when you are 18 or 19. We can’t get you to receive the ball from the back players in tight situations if you’ve not done it as a kid. You are going to make too many mistakes, which means you’ve got to be able to screen it. You need to use two feet and you’ve got to be able to do that in the game, and you’ve got to get into the drag so you can dodge people. They’re simple skills and quite easy to teach, but if you haven’t mastered them by the time you’re 15 or 16 then you aren’t going to.” I remember working with Alan Hudson and he had a weak foot when he was 17 or 18 at Chelsea, and we worked ever such a lot on his weak foot. But he never used it in the game. It was too late.’
At a big-club level, Sir Alex believes the cornerstones of good youth work are a consistent environment, and an all-round view of care – including the tough subjects: ‘The people we have running our academy – some of them were with the club for 20 years. They are part of the fabric of the club. So what you’ve got is consistency and experience of how to handle young people, and of what Manchester United really means. It’s not always an easy job. We get a lot of kids from broken homes now – the father and mother have split up, and you have to deal with both sides of it. The most important thing is the care we can give them. Of course, we do the educational thing, but there’s also development of character – getting them to understand it’s not an easy job. We tell them, “It’s a commitment. You’ve got to do it 100 per cent – you can’t do it part-time at this club.” We have to make them well aware of the dangers of drugs, we help them understand financial matters and all about what’s appropriate. There’s been a real change here. We got Ryan Giggs to sign his first professional contract for four years on a quarter of what these guys are getting. You sometimes see them drive off in their flash car, and we immediately do something about it: the insurance is ridiculous money, and the message it sends out is all wrong. Drink can be a problem too. And then girlfriends come into their lives, of course, from 16 to 19. Then there are agents – do they have a good one or a bad one? We support them across this whole range of challenges.’
From the tireless work of Sir Alex comes this clear message: building the next generation is the essential work of a leader if he is to achieve truly sustained success.
Solution Part Two: Build Something Bigger Than Yourself
One of the toughest balances for a dynastic leader to strike is around how much personality to invest in the organisation. Too little, and he loses the power to shape something; too much and it becomes dependent on him – with all the limitations and the dangers that carries. This part of the solution has three elements.
1. Infuse the organisation with your character:
Exactly how dependent Manchester United has become on the personality of Sir Alex will only be seen now that he has retired from the front line. But no one could argue with the extraordinary success that has sprung up from the marriage of the institution and the person.
Ferguson does not think of himself as a leader in the traditional sense – more as a person who shapes others: ‘I would never describe myself as a leader. I think time has given me an opportunity to influence people’s beliefs, to give them faith in themselves. Confidence and your personality get through to them. I always feel my teams mirror me, my personality, and that’s what I always head for, that one personality.’
Paul Ince explains how, over time, Manchester United has become almost a direct expression of the manager’s character: ‘When you sign for
Manchester United, you want to play for Manchester United because for me it was the biggest club in the world. After about a year of being there I wanted to play for Alex Ferguson. In my eyes, he is Mr Manchester United. I wanted to learn from him and pick his brains and play for him. You know what he expects from you and the fact that he wants you to come and play for his team gives you such a lift in your career. That someone like Sir Alex has recognised you as a player that can actually come and do a job for Manchester United and be a part of a side that won the title after 26 years was great.’
George Graham, a highly talented, title-winning contemporary of Sir Alex in management, agrees with Ince: ‘His biggest strength without question is his desire, and age has nothing to do with desire – you can have it as a youngster, you can have it at middle age and you can have it in your older years. Alex has always had that desire and he’s still got it. He’s actually built his Manchester United success from scratch and he’s instilled his own personality and character. It’s very, very hard to define that.’ In other words, there’s no way of bottling and selling what Sir Alex does. But the message is that any leader seeking to build long-term success needs to ensure his character – that is, his behaviours, values and beliefs – permeate his organisation.
Bill Shankly was another leader with plenty of charisma. Keegan will never forget his first day of training under him: ‘It was the end of the first day. I was just someone they had plucked from obscurity. Shankly walked over to me and said, “You will play for England,” and just walked off. In that moment, I knew I would.’ In all his dealings, Shankly communicated a deep affection for the club and especially for its supporters: ‘He would remind us, “You are privileged to play for these people. Everything you do here, you do it for them.”’ He also communicated a very personal interest in the players: ‘He was unbelievable. He had something special with everyone. With me, I think it was that we were both miners’ sons. But he was like that with everybody – he didn’t have favourites. He was always going over to people and talking to them and giving them messages. Some would get it, others wouldn’t. He would go over to someone if he wasn’t very fit and say, “Chocolate is no good for you, son ...” Of course he was actually saying they could be fitter, they could be a bit slimmer, they could maybe train harder. Little personal cryptic messages.’
