By now Ferguson himself was laughing at the recollection. ‘They knew I needed them. They knew I needed winners.’ The kettles might also have found it amusing to be called black by such a notorious pot as Ferguson, the firebrand striker turned referee-baiting manager. But he did hope the message had got through. ‘There’s got to be a dividing line,’ said the serial crosser of it, adding: ‘We hardly had a problem after that talking-to I gave them. In fact our disciplinary record has been really good over the years considering that everyone’s trying so hard against us in every game we play.’
Hardly a problem? Only a few months after his reading of the Riot Act came the incident at Selhurst Park in which Cantona, having been sent off for a foul on Crystal Palace’s Richard Shaw, launched his kung-fu assault on a spectator. And only a few months after that it was Keane’s turn to get nasty, stamping on Gareth Southgate in a 2-0 victory over Palace in the FA Cup semi-finals.
It was one of four occasions on which David Elleray dismissed Keane, who, while an infinitely more talented player than Ferguson had ever been, was perhaps the closest approximation of the manager temperamentally. And yet Elleray quite liked Keane: ‘Everything he did was for all to see. You never got the elbow on the head when no one was looking. He once saw me before a match and said, “I expect you’ve got my name in the book already.” And I said, “Yes, and I know what it’ll be for. All I have to do is fill in the time.” And he laughed. Well, half laughed. You couldn’t really have a laugh with Keane.’
Although United’s behaviour did gradually improve, their image was to be damaged by the vehemence of some players’ protests to the referee Andy D’Urso in a match against Middlesbrough in January 2000.
He had awarded a penalty against the United defender Jaap Stam for fouling Juninho and was immediately confronted by a posse of five: Keane, Stam, David Beckham, Nicky Butt and Gary Neville. D’Urso kept saying ‘Go away’ but backpedalling – acknowledging his mistake later, he pointed out that he was new to the Premier League and refereeing his first match at Old Trafford – and the impression was of attempted bullying by a team who considered themselves above punishment on their home ground.
Even Ferguson could see the harm in that. ‘I gave the players a lot of stick,’ he said. ‘It was a watershed.’ Not that he could resist the temptation to indulge in a bit of special pleading. ‘We continued to get silly sendings-off from time to time, of course, because at the end of the day we’re judged differently from the rest.’
Back in 1993/4, temperamental issues did not prevent a side rated by Ferguson – and Bobby Charlton, and many outside observers – as up there with his greatest from completing the first Double in United’s history. Despite the dismissals they conceded only three goals in seven FA Cup matches culminating in the 4-0 victory over Chelsea during which Elleray inadvertently helped them by giving a penalty without thinking. ‘My whistle was in my mouth when Frank Sinclair challenged Andrei Kanchelskis,’ the referee was candidly to admit much later, ‘and instinct took over. I went up to get my medal feeling awful. I knew I’d made a mistake.’ It was the second of two penalties converted by Cantona, and much debated – though not by Ferguson, who happily accepted it in the spirit of selective justice.
United also reached Wembley in the League Cup before succumbing to Atkinson’s Villa. Only in Europe did the short fuses inflict self-damage. Back in the top competition for the first time in more than a quarter-century, United easily beat Kispest-Honvéd of Budapest before drawing 3-3 with Galatasary at Old Trafford and 0-0 in Istanbul and going out on away goals. Cantona was red-carded for dissent and took a whack from a police baton on the way off; it had been a stormy night for both United and their followers.
Fury was never far from the surface, even in the privacy of the dressing room. In mid-season Liverpool, by now clearly in decline, had managed to fight back from 3-0 down to draw with United at Anfield (Nigel Clough scored twice) and afterwards Ferguson was particularly scathing towards Schmeichel. The big Dane responded in kind, questioning Ferguson’s qualities as both a manager and a person and feared Ferguson might well react by throwing a cup of tea in his face. Later Schmeichel apologised but Ferguson let him stew for a while, insisting he would have to be sold, before the incident was quietly forgotten amid the mourning for Sir Matt Busby, whose death in January 1994 was a reminder that lapses of dignity were not always a prerequisite of footballing success.
European Nights Off
The previous close season had been a deeply satisfying one for Ferguson. On the day that first United title had been clinched, he said, echoing his words on making a similar breakthrough at Aberdeen in 1980, he felt he had truly become manager of Manchester United and ‘master of my own destiny’. He had then used what was to become a familiar ploy, challenging his players, telling them he had put in an envelope the names of six whom he feared might not reach the next level – and their response had been vibrant.
So what would he do for an encore? Conquer Europe, of course. It was the miracle that took a little longer. In fact, the 1994/5 season ended with United deposed as champions of England – by Dalglish’s Blackburn – with neither domestic Cup as consolation. After a third-round defeat at Newcastle in the League Cup, in which Ferguson was sprinkling his team with gilded youth, they did go all the way to Wembley in the FA Cup but lost 1–0 to Everton.
The real disappointment was the Champions League. It began with a group stage. Indeed, for United it ended with the group stage. They beat IFK Gothenburg 4–2 at home, drew 0–0 away to Galatasary and drew 2-2 at home to Barcelona before visiting Camp Nou on 2 November for a chastening experience.
At that time Uefa had a rule that teams could field only three foreigners plus two ‘assimilated’ players (in other words, foreigners who had come through the youth ranks and played in the country for five years). Ferguson decided to sacrifice Schmeichel for an outfield player, giving the goalkeeper’s jersey to the Englishman Gary Walsh. The likes of Pep Guardiola, Hristo Stoichkov and Romario were ruthless. Barcelona were 2–0 up at half-time when Ferguson called Ince a ‘fucking bottler’ and they had to be pulled apart. On the field, nothing changed. It ended 4-0. United then lost 3-1 in Gothenburg and a 4-0 trouncing of Galatasary proved academic.
The significance of the campaign had been in terms of youth opportunity. Likewise in the League Cup. The year before, the European exit at Galatasary’s hands had convinced Ferguson of the need to rest first-teamers in the lesser of the domestic Cups, a habit that was to spread through the top level of the English game. So now he threw the kids in at Port Vale.
In the build-up to a League Cup final fourteen years later in which United, featuring young Darron Gibson and the even younger Danny Welbeck, were to beat Tottenham on penalties, he looked back in amusement to the trip to Burslem: ‘The local MP complained about it in the House of Commons. He said the Potteries public were being denied the chance to see great players. He didn’t realise they were getting the privilege of a look at even greater players! Because among the young ones I used that night were David Beckham, Paul Scholes, Gary Neville and Nicky Butt.’ Two goals from Scholes gave United a 2-1 win.
In Europe, Butt had been a beneficiary of the nationality rule, appearing in every match. Beckham came in for the concluding home match against the Turks – and scored. Gary Neville, who also played in that match, was embarking on a prolonged run in the team. He and Butt were the first to establish themselves. Neville beat David May, a central defender or right-back for whom Ferguson had paid Blackburn £1.2 million, in the race to take over from the injury-afflicted Paul Parker. Butt deputised for Keane in midfield.
The other change in the team that season was enforced. Even before the Cantona incident, Ferguson had been considering a tweak at the front. Hughes was thirty-one and, for all his qualities, Ferguson felt a more penetrative player would make better use of Cantona’s service.
The two at the top of his list were Stan Collymore and Andy Cole. That was when he r
ang his erstwhile centre-forward Mark McGhee and teasingly thought aloud before intimating that Cole it would be, for his predatory skills. Bang went the transfer record again. Cole left Newcastle for United and was soon playing alongside Hughes as Cantona took his involuntary leave of the game, being banned by United until the end of the season and the FA until the beginning of October and, having been hauled before Croydon magistrates for his kung-fu kick, given a two-week prison sentence that was replaced by 120 hours of community service on appeal.
That was when he talked of seagulls (journalists, we presumed) following trawlers (him) in the hope of being tossed sardines (tasty verbal morsels). He had always appeared much more troubled by separation from football than the prospect of a loss of liberty.
As for Ferguson, the manager was lucky in having failed to sell Hughes to Everton to make way for Collymore or Cole. At least now he had a front pair capable of keeping the pressure on Blackburn. As United chipped away at their lead, Ferguson tried to add to that pressure, echoing the old Jock Stein trick by saying: ‘Blackburn can only throw the League away now. We must hope they do a Devon Loch.’ This was a reference to a racehorse that had mysteriously stopped while in the lead only yards from the winning post in the 1956 Grand National.
Blackburn did slow up a bit and had lost two matches out of four as they approached the final Sunday. If they lost or drew at Liverpool and United won at West Ham, Ferguson’s team would be champions for the third time in succession. Blackburn lost, but United could only draw. Ferguson had been less than gracious to the new champions, saying he would not like to win the title playing as they did (they defended stoutly and attacked without ceremony, wingers repeatedly crossing for Alan Shearer). The central defender Colin Hendry had an apt reply. Had Blackburn not been a bit boring? ‘I don’t recall being bored,’ he grinned. Ferguson took the FA Cup defeat with equal indignity, describing Everton as an ‘ordinary’ team.
And the end of that summer was a funny time, you might think, for Ferguson to demand another improved contract. Even though Arsenal had sacked Graham by now, he had been the highest paid manager in the country (even without Hauge’s contributions) and that was what Ferguson thought he should be. Moreover, he wanted a six-year term, taking him to the age of sixty, and an understanding that he would be retained in some sort of advisory capacity beyond that, passing wisdom to his successor just as Sir Matt had helped him.
Edwards suggested he take this wish-list to the plc chairman, Sir Roland Smith, who proved a formidable adversary, going straight on the attack with a claim that the directors were unconvinced by his recent performance as manager; Smith referred, among other things, to the loss of the popular Paul Ince to Internazionale of Milan, Andrei Kanchelskis to Everton and Hughes to Chelsea, all in the same summer. No, Smith told Ferguson, there would be no six-year deal, and no staying-on because it would cast a shadow over the new manager, just as Busby’s presence had done to the likes of Wilf McGuinness and Frank O’Farrell. And that was that.
The decision to sell Ince had indeed surprised the directors and Edwards tried hard to change Ferguson’s mind. But when one element of his management was threatened Ferguson seldom bent, and this was a case in point. ‘I needed to be in control,’ he said, ‘of my team.’ Ince had become too gung-ho tactically. Ferguson made this point in blaming him for Everton’s goal in the FA Cup final; Ince resented it and told everyone who would listen that he was fed up with Ferguson. His £6 million departure for Italy made many fans question Ferguson’s judgement afresh. Ferguson refused to accept any responsibility for Kanchelskis’s departure, or even that of Hughes, despite his age and the fact that he had bought Cole to replace him.
Ideally, he would have liked to keep Kanchelskis, but the Ukrainian had manifested a restlessness which Ferguson ascribed to a clause in his contract of which the manager had not been aware guaranteeing the player a slice of any profit if he were sold; no wonder Essaoulenko could hardly contain his generosity.
The baggage that came with Kanchelskis had always been awkward. There had been that £40,000, for a start, concealed inside a samovar Essaoulenko had given Ferguson; why the money had been put in United’s safe and not reported to the Premier League inquiry into ‘bungs’ which followed Graham’s punishment was to become a pertinent question when the affair came to light in Ferguson’s autobiography. But it was returned eventually, when Kanchelskis finally went to Everton, after another colourful episode when, according to Ferguson, Essaoulenko threatened Edwards and the United board decided to hurry the deal through.
Dirty deeds of another kind troubled Ferguson in the summer of 1995 according to Ned Kelly, who said Ferguson suspected the press were on to some aspects of his private and professional lives and ordered the former SAS man to organise a counter-surveillance sweep of his home and offices. While the Fairfields stage of the operation was going on, Kelly recalled – an expert from his army days was combing the rafters for bugging devices – Cathy made him a cup of tea. ‘A true “lady” long before her husband was made a knight . . . here she was, going about her normal household chores, unaware of what was really going on.’ In a parallel universe, football proceeded.
Towards the end of the domestic season there had been outings for Beckham, Paul Scholes and Neville’s younger brother Phil. But in Europe it had been a case of evenings by the television, watching as Barcelona and Gothenburg went out in the quarter-finals to Paris St-Germain and Bayern Munich, who in turn were ousted by Milan and Ajax. Fabio Capello’s Milan had won the previous year’s final, beating Barcelona 4–0 with a performance hailed as one of the greatest ever given by a club side. But they could not overcome this young Ajax team of Louis van Gaal’s.
In goal was Edwin van der Sar (later to win the Champions League with United too). He was twenty-four. Among those in front of him were Michael Reizeger, Edgar Davids and Marc Overmars (all twenty-two) and Clarence Seedorf (nineteen). By the end of the final there had been significant performances as substitutes from the eighteen-year-olds Kanu and Patrick Kluivert, who scored the only goal against a defence featuring Paolo Maldini. Vienna hailed the new champions of Europe and never again, you might have thought, would we hear the words: ‘You win nothing with kids.’
Yet that was what Alan Hansen said on the very first day of the next season.
UNITED: APRÈS MOI LE TREBLE
Ted Beckham’s Lad
‘You win nothing with kids.’
The assertion, made on Match of the Day a few hours after Manchester United had lost 3-1 at Aston Villa, was to dog Alan Hansen for many years. While it was a reasonable enough statement of the sweeping kind for any pundit to make, it ignored not only what Ajax had done a couple of months before but the entire history of United in the pre-Munich era.
Matt Busby’s team had been champions for two seasons when the tragedy occurred in February 1958. The team that might have brought the club its first Double in 1957 but for the injury inflicted on their goalkeeper, Ray Wood, by the Aston Villa forward Peter McParland in the FA Cup final (there were no substitutes) featured five players of twenty-two or under, including the nineteen-year-old Bobby Charlton. No fewer than eight had made their debuts as teenagers; it was a settled team, even though it contained only one player, John Berry, who was over thirty.
The team with which Ferguson started the 1995/6 season at Villa Park lacked Ryan Giggs, by now twenty-one, but still featured four players of twenty or under, including the eighteen-year-old Phil Neville. In addition two twenty-year-olds, David Beckham and John O’Kane, came on as substitutes. No fewer than seven of the thirteen had made their debuts as teenagers; most of them were to form the core of the modern equivalent of a settled team which, by the end of that season, had not only retrieved the League title from Blackburn but won the FA Cup.
In the space of less than a year, Ajax and Manchester United had proved that you win nothing with kids except the Champions League and the Double.
Before this, even Alan Hansen would hav
e conceded that there was one competition you could win with kids: the FA Youth Cup. It began in 1953 and Busby’s United won it in each of its first five seasons. The team lists make poignant reading. Eddie Colman and Duncan Edwards, each of whom played in the first three finals, died at Munich (in Edwards’s case, fifteen days later). David Pegg played in two finals. In 1954 the team included three who were to perish, Colman, Edwards and Pegg, and two who were to survive, Charlton and Albert Scanlon. Charlton took part as late as 1956 and another survivor, Ken Morgans, in 1957.
Busby, while recovering from his own injuries, rebuilt the team as best he could, but while taking care not to turn his back on youth. By 1964, when United took the trophy again, the team run by Busby’s esteemed assistant Jimmy Murphy had George Best, David Sadler and John Aston, all of whom were to play in the European triumph over Benfica in 1968, the excellent goalkeeper Jimmy Rimmer and Bobby Noble, a full-back of extraordinary talent which injury was to dim.
There were to be two defeats in finals in the 1980s, each supervised by Eric Harrison, whom Ferguson was so gratefully to inherit. Norman Whiteside, Mark Hughes and Clayton Blackmore played in the first. The second featured the group who were to become Fergie’s Fledglings. The Manchester City team to which they lost – including Andy Hinchcliffe and David White, who were to represent England, and Paul Lake, who might have gone on to be an outstanding international but for injury – showed who were local top dogs in youth development. Until Ferguson took a hand. The snaffling of Giggs was only the start.
It was David Pleat, Ferguson’s old friend, who proved more sage than Hansen. In 1992, when he was manager of Luton Town, someone mentioned that Manchester United seemed to be on the march under Ferguson and Pleat issued a further warning: ‘This is only the start. Have you seen their youth team? These kids are capable of dominating English football for ten years.’ So I went to see United’s youth team. It was to win the Youth Cup that season and lose the next season’s final to Leeds United and much detail of that first sight remains in the memory.
Football – Bloody Hell! Page 22
