Fergie Rises

by Michael Grant

  A few days after Ibrox he tried to reassure the Aberdeen support: ‘One lesson for the players was the reaction in Glasgow because they had beaten us. The desire to put one over on Aberdeen has to be sampled to understand. Rangers’ reaction to their win was simply a reminder of how much we have achieved and how eager they now are to do the same. We have had plenty of resounding successes in Glasgow and there will be more.’ As the manager of Aberdeen, Ferguson never set foot in Glasgow again. Within six weeks he was gone.

  Chapter 22

  A DEATH IN THE FAMILY

  Tragedy struck at just after 11.30am on 6 November 1986. The Chinook helicopter was carrying forty-four passengers and three crew members on a routine 135-mile journey from the Brent oilfield to Sumburgh Airport in Shetland. There were strong winds and wintry showers off the southern tip of the island but visibility was good. A couple of miles from land a sudden transmission failure desynchronised the rotors and the blades collided. The effect was catastrophic. The Chinook dropped from the sky into the sea and immediately began to sink; radio contact cut out instantly. In that single helicopter crash, more lives were lost than in the previous twenty years of flights to and from the oilfields combined. Only two men survived. It was the world’s worst civil helicopter disaster and it had happened in the North-East. At the offices of the Aberdeen papers, the Press & Journal and the Evening Express, it was all hands to the pumps. Pages were cleared to make room for the coverage.

  Among the few exempt from the hubbub were the football writers. Which was fortunate, as a major sports story was breaking in Aberdeen that Thursday morning. Just over 350 miles to the south, Manchester United manager Ron Atkinson had been called in by chairman Martin Edwards and sacked. ‘Big Ron’, with his sunglasses, cigars and swagger, had brought flamboyance and a Champagne style to Old Trafford. Since taking over in 1981 he had finished third, third, fourth, fourth and fourth again in the First Division while winning the FA Cup twice. Major investments had been made: Bryan Robson, Remi Moses, Gordon Strachan and Jesper Olsen were big-money signings; and the club had brought through Mark Hughes, Norman Whiteside and Paul McGrath. United had talent, but often they were deeply mediocre. The one constant was their place in the shadow of England’s pre-eminent club, Liverpool. Nearly twenty years had passed since their last league championship, in 1967, and Big Ron, though consistent, had brought them no closer to another. In the opening months of 1986–87 their league form was pitiful. They won only three of their first thirteen games and were rooted in nineteenth position, one above relegation. The crowd against Coventry City on 1 November, in what proved to be Atkinson’s last home game, was 36,946, way short of the ground’s capacity. Going out of the Littlewoods Cup at Southampton the following Tuesday night took Big Ron to the point of no return.

  As the news media gathered information on the stricken helicopter and its victims, the sports reporters reacted to Atkinson’s sacking. The likely consequences were obvious. FERGUSON THE FRONT RUNNER ran a secondary story on the back page of the Evening Express’s later editions, with the main story, perhaps surprisingly, the sacking itself. The paper reported that there had been no approach to Aberdeen. There was even a quote from the man himself: ‘Manchester United have not been in touch with me and they have not asked our directors for permission to speak to me.’ That quote would have been supplied sometime late on Thursday morning. However, as Ferguson confirmed in his 1999 autobiography, he had spent Wednesday evening with United’s entire board of directors. Aberdeen were yet to realise it, but the deal had been done there and then: they had lost their manager. In Friday’s Evening Express, just twenty-four hours later, there was a picture of Ferguson in United gear taking his first training session in Manchester.

  Manchester United and Ferguson had periodically crossed paths during his years at Aberdeen. In the autumn of 1981 United travelled north to participate in a four-team tournament at Pittodrie. Two years later Aberdeen were at Old Trafford to play a testimonial for Martin Buchan, who had moved to United back in 1972. The following year Ferguson tried unsuccessfully to sign Arthur Graham on loan from United when Peter Weir was injured. At the end of 1984 he showed up for two European games at Old Trafford: United against Dundee United and Celtic versus Rapid Vienna, played at a neutral venue because of Uefa precautions against crowd trouble. In turn, United were seduced by Ferguson’s energy and charisma, and watched with mounting interest as he clocked up trophy after trophy, growing into a figure of real substance. His football was aggressive, bold and exciting; it was how United saw themselves.

  The connection between Ferguson, chairman Martin Edwards and director Bobby Charlton evolved during the transfer of Gordon Strachan to United in 1984. Ferguson had been infuriated by Strachan’s decision to join Cologne and was determined to invalidate the agreement and manoeuvre Strachan to United instead. His handling of the negotiations impressed United. And when the deal was completed Ferguson took the surprising step of accompanying Strachan to the signing in Manchester. ‘Think about it, he came to the signing with me,’ Strachan said. ‘Meeting Martin Edwards and all the rest of it. I always remember Martin asking a couple of questions about him in my first season there [1984–85]. “What does Alex do with this? What does he do with that?” I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong by answering.’ Ferguson also attended the 1985 FA Cup final, when United beat Everton, and was at the evening reception as Strachan’s guest. Over the course of the weekend they discussed the idea of him leaving Aberdeen to manage a bigger club. Strachan recalled: ‘He said, “I’m only leaving for Barcelona or Man United.” I thought to myself, “I hope it’s fucking Barcelona!”’

  Rumours that Ferguson was being lined up by United had rippled through British football for months. Atkinson believed Ferguson had been given the nod long before his arrival in November. In Big Ron, his 1999 autobiography, Atkinson claimed that Ferguson had been offered the position by Charlton at the 1986 World Cup finals in Mexico. The United legend was at the tournament commentating for television and spoke with Ferguson at pitchside before Scotland’s game against Uruguay in Neza. Charlton’s version is that he simply asked Ferguson to let him know if he ever fancied managing in England. Atkinson also recalled bumping into Ferguson in Glasgow having travelled north to watch Celtic play Dynamo Kiev in a European Cup tie on 22 October. Previously the pair had been friendly, but on this occasion Atkinson claimed Ferguson seemed distant and uncomfortable, unwilling to engage with him. Fifteen days later Ferguson replaced him at Old Trafford.

  Ferguson has always dismissed such speculation as groundless, but he could not deny that the rumours were widespread, as he acknowledged in Managing My Life. When Don Howe stepped down as Arsenal manager in March 1986, their board approached Ferguson and he went to meet them. The talks were not especially enthusiastic. ‘They had this idea that I was all set on joining Manchester United,’ he wrote. ‘It was genuinely the first I’d heard of it.’ In 2011 Ferguson revealed that he had been offered the Arsenal job and had asked Walter Smith to join him as his assistant. Smith, however, was about to join Rangers.

  For his part, Smith remembered Ferguson being approached by the North London club in April while they were in London for the England versus Scotland game at Wembley. ‘He was starting to get the approaches to go to England prior to going to the World Cup finals. You always got the impression that it was only a matter of time; that he felt he had done what he could at Aberdeen and he was prepared to move on. The progression to English football was a natural thing.’ As it turned out Ferguson was unconvinced by Arsenal, and the job went instead to George Graham.

  One of Aberdeen’s greatest triumphs in the 1980s was keeping hold of Ferguson for as long as they did. Overturning Scottish football’s established order made him an intriguing figure to club chairmen in England and beyond. And that remarkable defeat of Real Madrid in Gothenburg had been like a flare going up to alert the football world to a new managerial talent. It was inevitable that Aberdeen’s tyro of a manag
er would attract interest from further afield. Indeed, while he was in Australia with Scotland the previous December, he had been approached by someone claiming to represent Inter Milan. But he offered no encouragement.

  In the course of the 1985–86 season there was also interest from Barcelona. Michael Crick’s 2002 book, The Boss, detailed the informal talks Barcelona president Josep Núñez and three directors held with Ferguson, Howard Kendall and Bobby Robson in London’s Connaught Hotel. The Barcelona manager at the time, Terry Venables, was considering stepping down and Ferguson later said it was Venables himself who approached him. The discussions were amicable but did not result in a job offer. Closer to home, Aston Villa also wanted him when Graham Turner was sacked in September 1986, but again he showed little interest. By coincidence the job went to his old sparring partner Billy McNeill.

  Manchester United, however, was an irresistible proposition. Ferguson saw the club as the vehicle to realise all his managerial ambitions, including winning the European Cup. It did not matter that United had fallen on comparatively hard times: the size of the club, its history, its fanbase, its association with stylish play, its spending power and its untapped potential seduced him absolutely. For over a decade the official line from Manchester United and Ferguson remained that everything had been done by the book, with no approach made to him or to Aberdeen until after Atkinson had been sacked. In fact, as he wrote in Managing My Life, Ferguson took a call from United around 2pm on Wednesday, 5 November, the day before Atkinson found out he was being dismissed. United director Mike Edelson called the Pittodrie switchboard pretending to be Gordon Strachan’s accountant. When he was put through to Ferguson, the phone was immediately handed over to Martin Edwards. They arranged to meet along with the other members of the United board at 7pm at a service station at Hamilton.

  Before leaving he told his wife, Cathy, and Archie Knox. His co-manager was taking a training session with Aberdeen’s reserves and younger players when Ferguson’s car pulled up. Knox feared the worst: ‘My mother hadn’t been well and I thought, “Oh oh, here’s bad news.” He came along, toots the horn to me and I go across. He goes, “We’re going to Man United.” I go, “Are we?” He says, “You’ll be offered the job here so what do you want to do?” I goes, “I’ll be coming with you.” That was it. No discussions. No agents. No talk of what we were getting paid. And he didn’t say, “I’m going to Manchester United”, it was “We”.’

  Ferguson and the United board of Edwards, Charlton, Edelson and Maurice Watkins, convened at Hamilton then drove in two cars to Ferguson’s sister-in-law’s house in Bishopbriggs, near Glasgow, where the deal was agreed. Ferguson wrote that he thought the wage on offer was ‘disappointing’: it was lower than his combined 1986 salary and bonuses at Pittodrie, but he did not allow that to get in the way. The following morning Atkinson was dismissed and Edwards and Watkins flew to Aberdeen to speak with Dick and Ian Donald. The old chairman made a last effort to talk Ferguson into staying, even telling him he could have the club. Ferguson was moved by the sentiment but felt both of them knew it was a token gesture borne out of desperation. In August Ferguson had joined the two Donalds on the board as Chris Anderson’s replacement. ‘The Dons are my life now,’ he wrote in his programme column, but in the end his ambitions overrode his allegiances. The United job was irresistible. That evening he made a round of telephone calls to the players who had been with him the longest. ‘I asked him if it was to say cheerio,’ said Alex McLeish. It was.

  For the only time in their eight-and-a-half years together there was open tension between Dick Donald and Ferguson. Donald knew it was impossible to keep him, but he resented the way the departure had been handled. He spoke bitterly to the Evening Express, accusing Ferguson of having broken a contract, and United of having behaved improperly and discourteously. ‘We had no idea this was about to happen and Mr Edwards never approached me for permission to talk to our manager,’ said Donald. ‘The first I knew was when I heard he would be flying into Aberdeen to meet Alex. We don’t know when he spoke to the manager or whether this was cut and dried before yesterday. We tried to hold Alex to his contract, but I don’t know if he took it too seriously. This contract business is just a waste of time. A contract doesn’t bind anyone.’ Under the terms of his deal Aberdeen received the £60,000 compensation they were entitled to from United. But as Donald said: ‘How can you evaluate the loss of his services?’

  There was no anger among the players, only numbness. The likelihood of Ferguson moving on had been obvious to all of them, in some cases for years, yet the sudden reality of it was stunning. Even now most can recall their sense of shock. John McMaster said: ‘Suddenly there was a big, giant hole in your life.’ Stewart McKimmie stated simply: ‘It was like a death in the family.’ The young full-back David Robertson found out when he was giving his dad a lift back from the golf course. With typical Aberdonian reserve Robertson senior turned to his boy and said: ‘Well. That’s Fergie away, then.’ Having only just turned eighteen Robertson had never known a manager other than Ferguson. ‘It was like someone taking a chunk out of you. It was devastating. There was an eerie silence in the dressing room the next time we were in. Dead quiet. No one knew what to expect next. It was as if everybody felt lost: the players, the staff, the cleaners, the kitchen staff.’ If anyone was glad to see the back of Ferguson they have never said so. Jim Leighton said: ‘We thought it was inevitable. We were surprised that he was still with us for that length of time because he’d done so well. As soon as we heard that Ron Atkinson had got the sack some of us were in training, going, “Well, that’s him away”. We all knew he’d be going.’

  Ferguson left Aberdeen in fifth place in the Premier Division. His final game was a friendly in the Highlands to mark Inverness Caley’s centenary on Monday, 3 November, but the last league game was a 2–0 win at Dundee two days earlier. Jim Leighton and Willie Miller played in that last competitive game, just as they had in Ferguson’s first, back in 1978. ‘I regarded that as our best display of the season,’ said Ferguson after the match. ‘And a sign that the old, essential Aberdeen qualities are still there.’ Others were less enthusiastic about where the team was heading. In a letter in the Green Final sports paper the same evening, R. Smith of Deeview Road wrote: ‘Aberdeen’s season is all over. They are not good enough at the moment to finish better than fourth in the league. Ferguson seems to have lost his way, maintaining too much faith in his regulars.’

  The real issue was not that Ferguson was losing his way, but that his time with Aberdeen had run its course. Successes at home and especially in Europe had elevated the club but the glass ceiling remained low, especially as football began to focus on those clubs with the greatest financial power. The potential for investment and growth at Aberdeen was limited. Its status as the oil capital of Europe offered the tantalising prospect of the club securing lucrative sponsorship deals from the offshore industry, but none materialised. The market leaders were BP, but no matter how hard the club lobbied, the oil company fought shy of their advances. BP’s policy was to support football in a broad sense: they took executive boxes and backed the game in schools, but they did not invest in individual clubs. The bitter irony was that Hamburg, Aberdeen’s great rivals from 1981 and 1983, were sponsored by BP throughout the 1980s. The company explained that its European arm followed a different policy. So the long-cherished plan to raise Pittodrie’s capacity to 30,000 was never realised. Even Chris Anderson’s ambition to install electronic scoreboards in the stadium never came to fruition.

  Replacing players of the calibre of Steve Archibald, Gordon Strachan, Mark McGhee, Eric Black, Neale Cooper and Frank McDougall became more challenging as the top of the transfer market moved further and further beyond Aberdeen’s reach. Ferguson simply could not afford players like Terry Butcher and Chris Woods, whose arrival at Ibrox had shown the magnitude of Rangers’ revolution under Graeme Souness. Aberdeen had gone from beating Bayern Munich and Real Madrid to being knocked out of
Europe by Dynamo Berlin and Sion. If Ferguson was to realise his own soaring ambitions, he would have to move to a club with deeper pockets.

  Club secretary Ian Taggart worked with Ferguson on a day-to-day basis, and observed the subtle shift in his mood: ‘The season before he left I don’t think he was as interested as he’d been. It’s not that Aberdeen became an encumbrance to him but he wanted to do something more. You couldn’t blame him, for God’s sake. He’d wrung every bloody success he could out of a limited resource. The team was starting to age and he was losing players. He had outgrown Aberdeen. He got to the stage where he needed and wanted something else. When it happened, the timing was right.’ The broadcaster Archie Macpherson knew Ferguson well enough to pick up on it, too: ‘He had to cut himself free from a league that looked as if it was going to be compressed. It looked like Rangers and Celtic would simply sweep up. He wanted out of that and that’s why he had to get to a big club.’

  Aberdeen were left to pick up the pieces. After losing Ferguson, the club were stunned to discover that Knox was going with him. The board had blithely assumed that the co-manager would take over whenever the vacancy arose. Ferguson clearly knew the club’s succession plan when he told Knox he would be offered the job after receiving Edwards’ call. Knox turned Donald down but agreed to stay on as caretaker manager until a permanent successor could be found. Like Old Trafford, the tunnel at Pittodrie was unusually at the corner of the pitch and required managers to walk half the length of the track to reach the dug-outs. When Knox emerged before the home game against St Mirren two days after Ferguson’s departure, he was booed and verbally abused by the normally conservative regulars in the Main Stand. ‘Caretaker manager Archie Knox received an astonishingly hostile reception at Pittodrie,’ wrote the Green Final. The game finished 0–0 and the two biggest cheers of the day were for the public address announcer telling the crowd that Manchester United were losing 1–0 to Oxford at half-time and 2–0 at the final whistle.