‘The other change of course was the Bosman rule. It was a massive change and it caught us all on the hop. Nobody expected it. All of a sudden you were panicking, and that created the explosion of agents – there’s no doubt about that. You had guys who were agents in the music industry who wanted to be football agents, and that was a seismic change for managers, having to deal with all that. So the manager had the training through the week, he’s got to pick the team on the Saturday, he’s got a board meeting to answer to directors and he’s got his television interviews. But on top of that you’ve got agents plugging away. They’re maybe phoning other clubs – “My player’s not happy” – we know it happens, not everyone, but some of them do, and they negotiate with you knowing they’ve got a full deck of cards under the table. “Well, we’ll think about it.” I don’t know how many times I’ve heard that – “We’ll think about your offer.”
‘If you were to write down the things a manager has to deal with, managers wouldn’t want to be managing! They have a massive task – the managers of today – massive, and the media is a big problem. They are under pressure. They need to be successful – just like managers – and get a piece in the papers, but they’re up against things like the internet and Sky television. They used to run my press conference on a Friday, or bits of it, through the whole day. That used to get me really annoyed.’
Alex has always had a great affinity with other managers, and was invariably there to wish a young manager luck when they got their first job. He knows just what a tough profession it is for everyone, whether they achieve the level of success he has had with a top club like Manchester United or simply toil away in the lower leagues. They are at either end of the managerial spectrum, and then there are all the other managers in between who do a great job week in and week out but perhaps never hit the headlines. Only a handful of managers can win trophies or get their side promoted each season, but so many others have done fantastically well throughout their careers, and it’s clear he not only values them as friends but also knows just what good work they’ve done.
‘When I was at Aberdeen the most regular calls I used to get about players in Scotland were from Lennie Lawrence, who was at Charlton, and John Rudge, who was at Port Vale. Rudgie must have been on the lowest budget in the history of the game! But he used to live with that. He would find a way of getting players on loan, and only if you’ve been in the job do you realise how difficult that is. Lennie Lawrence would be on the phone asking about players, and when I first came down to England, if you went to a reserve game these same guys were at the matches.
‘They were a great example of perseverance and staying in the game – surviving. They were good guys and I enjoyed working with them. David Pleat was another one who phoned a lot, and Mel Machin, who was at Norwich. When I came down to England I relied on one person for my information on other teams – John Lyall at West Ham. John Lyall and I met on holiday once and we got very friendly. When I came down here he was fantastic for me. He sent me all his reports on the players, the games, the teams. For the nine months until I got my feet under the table, got my scouting staff sorted out, he was very good to me.
‘There were quite a few managers I knew reasonably well, like Keith Burkinshaw, and another manager who needs recognition is Dario Gradi, who was at Crewe – and he’s still there. You look at these managers, the Lawrences and the Rudges, they’re still in the game. So they were there before I came and they were there after I’ve left! Realistically, you should have a reasonable amount of success with a club like Manchester United. With the resources, the history – you should have reasonable success. These guys have a place in the game. They’ve not won the FA Cup, or the Premier League or European cups, and they’ve had harder jobs than I’ve had. If you look at Lennie Lawrence and John Rudge, their success has been relative to their resources. As a manager it’s up to you to make the best of what you’ve got.’
You don’t stay in any job for as long as Alex did without being able to adapt and change as the game around you changes. I think his ability to do this, and at the same time retain the kind of football beliefs and attitude he always had, was a key factor for him. He embraced change and innovation but at the same time trusted his own ability and experience as a manager, maintaining a level of authority at United that saw him stamp his own personality on pretty much everything at the club. Sir Alex Ferguson was Manchester United, while the traditions and history of the club very quickly became a part of Sir Alex, something that stayed with him throughout his time at Old Trafford.
‘Accepting change is really important,’ he says. ‘You should look at change. The way I addressed it was if someone gave me a paper that convinced me it was going to make us 1 per cent better, I’ll do it, particularly the sports science. With video analysis I trusted my own eyes. I looked at it and used it for the players. We needed to in the sense that we’d break it down into what I said, and that’s all you need to give them, because it was about us. When the video analysts showed me things, I knew all that because I’d seen all these players before. I’d been in management a long time, I trusted what I knew about my players and my opponents.
‘My team talk when it came to opponents was, “Who’s their best player, who wanted the ball all the time? Pay attention to that one,” in terms of reducing the space or time he had on the ball. I never bothered about any of the rest of it. I talked about certain weaknesses. But it was all about our own team. I know more about my own team than I know about any other team. I think a lot of people rely on video analysis too much. It’s important, the details are important, and if it helps you 1 per cent, do it. But I never made it my bible.’
Many people wondered what life would be like for Alex after he decided to retire, but he’s as busy as ever with various engagements that fill up his diary months in advance. It strikes me that the work ethic that has always been such a feature of his life will never leave him. No matter what he does, that drive and enthusiasm come shining through. But there are some things that he misses about not being a manager, including the family feel he loved at the club.
‘The buzz of the big games,’ he admits. ‘And you miss people, like the staff you had there, and the players and training. You miss that part, and I had a great staff – not just my own playing staff, but the people, the groundsman, the girls in the laundry, the girls in the canteen. When I went to United the stewards were all in their sixties – they were all older guys. They were hand-me-downs, from grandfather to father to son, and they were never paid. The way they were repaid was that if we got to the final they were all invited to the game for the weekend. If we didn’t get to the final they used to have a big dinner at Old Trafford. Me and the staff all went. There’d be maybe 1,000 people there, and in a way they were the institution. They had a bigger tie to Manchester United than anyone, because they went back to their fathers and grandfathers. But then the law changed in terms of security and insurance, and they had to stop it. Today the stewards are all paid.
‘My best period at United was every time I won the league, the first one and the last one, the European cups – these are the moments we’re in it for. That’s what I miss today, the big finals. You can’t beat that, or the game where you win the league and you’re waiting to see the results of other teams. The tingle you get from that.’
For a large part of Alex’s time Arsène Wenger and the various teams he produced as Arsenal manager proved to be among United’s main rivals. Arsène took over at Arsenal twenty years ago, and his management has not only seen the north London club win Premier League titles and FA Cups, as well as consistently playing in the Champions League year after year. He has also been a major factor in building the club both on and off the field.
During his time he has produced great sides, including the ‘Invincibles’ of 2003–04, who went the whole season unbeaten as they won the Premier League title. He also oversaw the construction