Fergie Rises

by Michael Grant

  He would talk about individual reporters to his players, telling them how much this or that hack disliked coming all the way to Aberdeen; that they made the effort only because it was a game against Celtic or Rangers. Neil Simpson said: ‘It would be, “Oh aye, they’ll all be up today, we’re playing Celtic, aye, look, here they are”. They were like hated characters, some of these boys! You didn’t know any different because it was almost like you were behind the lines. Everyone was in it together.’ Ferguson extended this domineering stance to even the Aberdeen press and periodically banned any local reporter who displeased him. He also had several skirmishes with the journalist for Grampian Television, Frank Gilfeather, often because of tension over Ferguson’s demand that he be paid for interviews. Ferguson also caused trouble if a player appeared on television without his prior approval. When he wanted to be, he could be wantonly awkward. Grampian once asked Gilfeather to contact all ten Scottish Premier Division clubs and ask if they would submit a team for a televised summer indoor five-a-side tournament to be held in Perth. Nine clubs said they would. Only Ferguson refused.

  On the way back from the Argeş Piteşti tie in Romania Gilfeather asked Ferguson if he would agree to be filmed for an interview during the flight. The mood on the plane was relaxed and Ferguson, happy with the result, said yes. The piece was broadcast two nights later and the content was innocuous, but when Ferguson next saw Gilfeather he lambasted him in front of other reporters. He said his wife Cathy had watched the interview and thought he looked as though he had had a couple of beers. He had, but Ferguson blamed Gilfeather for talking him into doing the piece. The argument continued in front of an increasingly uncomfortable press pack. Gilfeather, a former Scottish amateur boxing champion, let slip his usual affable and courteous demeanour: ‘Eventually, tongue in cheek, I said, “Alex, if you continue this you’ll force me to make a comeback”.’ The situation was defused, but Gilfeather’s refusal to kowtow meant the pair were never close.

  The mythology of the Glasgow press working to obstruct Aberdeen does not square with the private behaviour of either Ferguson or the club. When Ally MacLeod was identified by Aberdeen as the man they wanted in 1975, Chris Anderson initially contacted Alex Cameron, chief football writer with the Record, to act as an intermediary. Jim Rodger acted as a similar conduit to bring Ferguson north in 1978. Anderson, in particular, had open channels of communication to the Glasgow sports desks and was shrewd enough to know the press could be used to Aberdeen’s advantage. Dick Donald was less trusting and kept his distance, though he was not beyond cowing the local press pack with threats about leaking stories straight to Glasgow if they failed to toe the line. ‘We’ll get the boys from the south on to this,’ he would growl.

  Ferguson derided the ‘pro-Glasgow’ press, but he had a keen appreciation of its needs and its market. He knew newspapers had space to fill and it was within his power to give them material. It was harder to get prominence for Aberdeen stories than for Celtic or Rangers ones, because of the respective size of their supports, but a winning team with a dynamic and outspoken manager was a seductive combination. His relationship with journalists was complicated. He would occasionally bully, intimidate and ban them, and yet he enjoyed their company and the feeling was generally mutual. After games at Pittodrie he held court. He would sit with them for his post-match press conference and then a select few would move through to an ante-room for long and relaxed conversations over drinks. Ferguson always insisted on pouring the booze himself. He would tell stories which were funny, rude, revealing, gossipy and indiscreet, while picking the reporters’ brains about what other clubs and managers were up to. After a while the mood might temporarily darken as he got something off his chest. Most of those present lapped it up and enjoyed him, though not all. ‘There were some people who wanted him to fall on his backside, absolutely,’ said football commentator Archie Macpherson. ‘Those who were Glasgow-inclined, if I could put it that way, thought of him as just a bombastic loudmouth at times. But I think winning the league changed things.’

  On European trips he would make a point of knowing which hotel the press were in so he could pay an evening visit. His readiness to buy a round was much appreciated. And so was his participation in the journalists’ cards schools, not least because he was a poor player who could be quickly cleaned out. There were times, on the eve of a European away game, when Ferguson might still be with the press at 1 or 2am. His ability to charm even an unfamiliar group of reporters was evident when Aberdeen were in Hamburg for the European Super Cup late in 1983. Tottenham Hotspur were playing Bayern Munich in the Uefa Cup in the same week. A number of leading English journalists had travelled to Germany for that tie and they decided to make a detour to familiarise themselves with the charismatic young manager of Aberdeen. Ferguson had them eating out of the palm of his hand, letting them run up a large bar bill at his expense. He told them Tottenham would be too strong for the Germans. Bayern narrowly won that first leg, but Tottenham turned the tie around at White Hart Lane. The Fleet Street gang, remembering Ferguson’s prediction, were impressed.

  Until Ferguson’s emergence only Jock Stein displayed such an astute understanding of the role played by the football press in Scotland, and of how to work the journalists. Archie Knox said: ‘Fergie was always aware of that, he knew he had to give them something. Something controversial, maybe make something up, plant a seed with them. He was very conscious of all that. He knew they had their job to do and space to fill. But he really did feel there wasn’t enough recognition for Aberdeen. How would a paper sell in Glasgow with an Aberdeen headline? He was aware of that and that it meant Rangers and Celtic would get more publicity.’

  During his time with Aberdeen, Ferguson attended a management and coaching course at the SFA’s complex at Largs. He was asked at what point on a match day did he start thinking about his post-match press conference. To a room full of hardened football men, his answer came as a revelation: ‘Twenty minutes or maybe even half-an-hour before the end of the game.’ To illustrate the point he gave an example from a match when Aberdeen had lost and Willie Miller had been shown a red card. Tony Higgins, the former Hibs and Partick Thistle striker who later became a prominent figure in the players’ union, was in the audience: ‘He said that twenty minutes before that game ended he knew they’d get a doing in the press, that the papers would doubt Aberdeen’s ability to win the league. So he decided to berate the Glasgow press. “You can’t wait for us to get beat, Willie Miller should never have been sent off”, all that stuff. So for the next couple of days Fergie got slaughtered. The columnists were saying, “Is this the way you behave, Fergie?” On the Saturday they won again. He stood there and told the room the last thing he wanted was for those players to have doubt in their minds, so he was prepared to take the criticism on to himself. Most of the coaches couldn’t believe he was thinking about all of this long before the game was over, thinking about his press conference while he was still sitting in the dug-out. None of the other coaches could understand that. He was miles ahead of them.’

  Chapter 12

  THE OLD FIRM: ‘WE DIDN’T LIKE ABERDEEN, THEY DIDN’T LIKE US’

  In many respects the 1982 Scottish Cup final looked like a replay of 1978. Aberdeen were back at Hampden to face Rangers. Willie Miller, Stuart Kennedy and John McMaster were in the team, just as they had been four years before. Lining up against them were Sandy Jardine, Colin Jackson, Davie Cooper, Bobby Russell and Tommy McLean, all of whom had been in that winning Rangers side. John Greig, captain in 1978, was now manager. This was a squad of proven winners. And on the terracing their support again vastly outnumbered Aberdeen’s. Many knew that Aberdeen had managed only three wins in the previous eighteen Scottish Cup meetings between the clubs. This time Aberdeen were heavily fancied, but that had been the case in 1978 when they froze. ‘I don’t care how many make the journey from Aberdeen,’ said Rangers captain Ally Dawson on the eve of the final. ‘Our fans will outnumber and outshout them.
That will give us a tremendous lift and maybe even unsettle them a bit.’

  The remark was revealing. Few doubted Aberdeen’s ability, only their character. They had beaten Rangers and Celtic twenty-one times since Ferguson took over, and nine of those wins had been in Glasgow. But he had yet to take them to Hampden and triumph when it mattered most, in a cup final. In his Sunday Mail preview of the final Don Morrison wrote of Aberdeen: ‘The in-form team, talented and skilful, they look stronger in practically every respect. Yet there is one question which niggles away at the back of the mind: do they really have the temperament?’ Dawson’s line about Rangers’ support unsettling Aberdeen was understandable. A Rangers crowd in Glasgow is a force of nature, matched in scale, volume and fanaticism only by neighbours Celtic. For decades Rangers had seen club after club crumble and fold when faced with this assault on the senses, Aberdeen among them.

  Greig and his team prepared for the final in the seaside resort of Largs, an hour out of Glasgow. The intention was to release them from the pressure of the city and allow them to relax. But it also gave them thinking time. Time for doubt. No matter how hard they tried to convince themselves that Ferguson and this Aberdeen team would buckle, the evidence was in short supply. They knew something had changed at Pittodrie.

  No longer did Aberdeen travel south to Glasgow cowed and with an inferiority complex. That had become clear from something that had started to happen when they visited Celtic. Parkhead could hold close to 70,000 and often did. It was dark, huge and menacing. But no part of the neglected, misshapen stadium was more intimidating than ‘The Jungle’, the bare concrete terrace with its low roof that ran the length of the pitch. The fans who packed it for the big games were the Celtic hard core. They were noisy, aggressive if they wanted to be, and unforgiving to any team they saw as a threat. Doug Rougvie was Ferguson’s first choice left-back, an enormous, straight-backed, broad-chested Fife giant. Because he was from Ballingry, was missing his front teeth, and would stand with his long arms and legs spread wide when protesting to referees, team-mates nicknamed him ‘The Ballingry Bat’. Yet, although he looked fearsome, Rougvie had a gentle, easy-going nature and possessed the serenity common to many big men who have no need to fear physical confrontation. He was provocative in just one respect, one that became a symbol of Ferguson’s Aberdeen mentality and swagger. Instead of staying well infield during pre-match warm-ups at Parkhead, Rougvie would remove himself from the other players and start doing his exercises right in front of the baying Jungle. There he would be, running up and down the trackside, stretching his arms out wide, doing side-to-side moves or leaping to head imaginary balls. It was an act of mischief and an unequivocal declaration that however much they tried to intimidate him, he did not care. No one had ever shown such nerve to a Glasgow crowd. They went wild, screaming at him, hurling abuse, jabbing their fingers. Rougvie looked back with a huge beaming grin.

  ‘I used to run past the Jungle pumping my arm at them,’ Rougvie recalled. ‘“Up ye, ya bastards”. Terrible, wasn’t it? I just did it to noise them up. It was us saying, “We’ve come down to beat youse and we’re not bothering our arse how we do it”. Oh, I got pelters. Absolute dog’s abuse! It was brilliant! I’d be going, “Oh, I’ve never heard that one, I’ll take a note of that one”. Ach, I’m a big coward really. I’d have run if anyone came on! I knew they wouldn’t catch me because I was quick as fuck!’ Everyone who saw it knew exactly what it was, including the Celtic players. Davie Provan said: ‘It was like a statement. “You’re not going to intimidate us”.’

  Rougvie initially took on the Jungle in the first of the two visits to Parkhead in April 1980. It was his own idea rather than a stunt suggested to him by Ferguson, but it sent out exactly the kind of message the manager wanted. Miller said: ‘Let’s just say Fergie didn’t discourage it.’ Rougvie’s antics subsequently became a theatrical ritual of Aberdeen’s visits to Parkhead. Ferguson encouraged his younger players and new signings to take in the show. Tommy McIntyre remembered: ‘He said, “Go and watch The Bat doing his warm-up.” It was a right hot sunny day, he takes his top off, and he’s ripped. They’re howling at him! He was just winding them up. And Fergie wanted them wound up.’ Miller said: ‘I loved it. I’d say to him, “Big man, on you go; we’ll just quietly do our warm-up over here while you take all the flak”. He loved it. It seemed to energise him. He enjoyed being that kind of figure.’

  Ferguson wanted to reverse the status quo in which visiting teams could seem submissive or meek against the Old Firm. He wanted his teams to be harder than Celtic and Rangers, better than them, mentally stronger than them. And he wanted to make sure the Old Firm knew it. No team had taken such a provocative approach, but Ferguson had players with the skill and attitude to carry it off. McLeish said: ‘When we played Celtic, if we dumped Frank McGarvey on the ground, we used to rub him on the head and say, “Ach, you’re all right, Frank, get up”. He hated it!’ When he was wary of one of the opposition’s key men, like the rugged Celtic captain Roy Aitken, Ferguson would instruct one of his team to confront him from the start. Dougie Bell remembered: ‘He’d say, “Roy Aitken? Roy Aitken? The Celtic fans all sing, ‘Feed the Bear’ about him…he’s a big shitebag. He’s scared of you, Dougie.” Whatever Fergie told you, you believed. So the first chance I got I tried to get in about Roy Aitken and wind him up. Roy probably wasn’t at all bothered about me, but Fergie had me believing he was running scared.’

  The Old Firm did not take it well. Animosity and bad blood developed. After three seasons and a league title Ferguson’s Aberdeen had become hate figures for Rangers and Celtic supporters. Tellingly, this also extended to the dressing room. Davie Provan said: ‘The thing about that Aberdeen side was this: even after an Old Firm game there is a mutual respect between the two sets of players. Most of the players shake hands. That didn’t always happen against Aberdeen. We didn’t like them and they didn’t like us.’ At the end of one season Aberdeen and Celtic were both booked into the same resort in Majorca, a fact which only became evident when the Celtic players walked into a pub and found several of the Aberdeen team already inside. Provan said: ‘You could have cut the atmosphere with a knife. It was bizarre because everybody had been drinking. Normally you’d meet another Scottish team and it would be “How you doing, how long you over for?” Not this time. It was a very curt “aye” and that was it. That was the feeling between the teams.’

  Both halves of the Old Firm were of a similar mind. Aberdeen got right under Rangers’ skin, too. ‘It wasn’t a nice experience playing against Aberdeen,’ said defender Davie McKinnon. ‘That was part of their strength. They wound people up something awful on the pitch. Rangers players and Aberdeen players just didn’t get on whatsoever. There was a huge amount of needle. I think there was respect from both teams for the abilities of the players, but when you played against them there wasn’t a respect for the way they went about their business because they were in your face quite a lot. That’s a strength, I suppose. You don’t need to be liked to be a winner. And they had that winning mentality.’

  The 1981–82 league season finished a week before the cup final with a dress rehearsal. Rangers were smashed 4–0 at Pittodrie. If Celtic had suffered an unlikely home defeat to St Mirren, Aberdeen might have snatched the league title on goal difference. Instead they came second, ten points above third-placed Rangers. It was a strong finish to the season and Ferguson said: ‘The present successful spell reflects the all-round efficiency of this club from the top to the bottom, from match-day stewards to the highly competent office staff who look after the administrative side of our football affairs.’ He had a spring in his step, naming his cup final team to the press on the eve of the game. ‘I have absolutely no fear about the game–well, no logical fears. The only thing is that a final is a final and I suppose anything can happen on the day.’

  Back in Largs, John Greig had taken aside Davie Cooper, his wonderfully talented but inconsistent winger. He told Cooper he could be the
man to win the cup for Rangers. Ferguson thought Cooper was a player of rich skills, with a wonderful left foot, but he liked the balance of his own midfield for the final: John McMaster’s intelligence and smooth passing on the left, the two young bulls, Neale Cooper and Neil Simpson, in the centre, and Gordon Strachan offering energy and menace behind the attackers. It was a quartet to worry Rangers and also protect the back four of Kennedy, Miller, McLeish and Rougvie. Mark McGhee was partnered up front by young John Hewitt, and there was more youth on the bench in the shape of Eric Black.

  Ferguson believed in his two young players in central midfield. Simpson was an uncomplicated, popular Aberdeenshire boy who was already in the club’s youth system when Ferguson arrived. He offered midfield strength, drive and goals. Cooper had been a stand-out in Aberdeen schools football, his height and mop of curly blond hair adding to the sense that he was something different. He had trained with Aberdeen since the age of ten and signed for them at fourteen. A bubbly, boyish enthusiasm and sense of fun made him hugely popular with the other players, and with Ferguson and his staff. Hewitt had also come through from the Aberdeen schools scene, as a quiet, introspective lad blessed with speed and finishing ability. Black had been raised near Glasgow until his family moved to the Highlands so his dad could get work in an oil fabrication yard. All four of them had emerged under Ferguson and been indoctrinated by him. They shared two key character traits: they had ferocious wills-to-win and were nerveless. That allowed them to handle big occasions and large intimidating crowds without missing a beat.