10 - Peter Schmeichel
A lesser-known tale, but all that success, all that brilliant
goalkeeping, the blonde Danish wall that occupied the United goal for so
many years, none of it might have happened if a row between the pair
had not been resolved. During a game at Anfield that United were winning
3-0 but ended up drawing 3-3, Ferguson blamed Schmeichel for the goals,
the goalkeeper disagreed, and a row ensued.
"Obviously I stepped over the line," said Schmeichel. "The next day
he [Ferguson] was in the office. I was called in and he said: 'Listen, I
have to sack you. I can't tolerate my players speaking to me like that.
It goes against my authority'." Schmeichel eventually apologised, and
kept his job.
9 - Aberdeen players
You didn't have to be against Fergie to incur his wrath and
devastating tongue. You didn't even have to be with him but disobedient.
You didn't even have to be with him and lose. One of Ferguson's most
memorable and excoriating pieces of criticism came while with Aberdeen in 1983, after they had just beaten Rangers in the Scottish Cup final.
The win in itself apparently wasn't good enough for Fergie, who was
asked by a slightly baffled TV reporter for his reaction. Ferguson said:
"We're the luckiest team in the world. It was a disgrace of a
performance. (Willie) Miller and (Alex) McLeish won the cup for
Aberdeen. Miller and McLeish played Rangers themselves. They were a
disgrace of a performance. And I'm not caring, winning cups doesn't
matter. Our standards have been set long ago and we're not going to
accept that from any Aberdeen team. No way should we take any glory from
that."
8 - Jaap Stam
You don't question Fergie. It mattered not how good you were, or how
many trophies you'd won with him. You especially don't suggest that he
tapped you up when he recruited you, which Stam did in his 2001
autobiography. Of course, Ferguson claimed the motivation for his
subsequent sale to Lazio was that £16.5 million was too good an offer to
turn down, and that he thought the Dutchman was finished, but he has
since changed his mind on that one. Given Stam would go on to play
another 150 games for Lazio, Milan and Ajax, it would have been a tricky
assessment to stand by, but still...
7 - The media
Quite a large group to take on, but take them on he did. From refusing to talk to the BBC for
years after objecting a documentary they made about his son, to banning
one journalist over a book Ferguson hadn't read to casting out another
for accurately reporting news of a Rio Ferdinand injury, the old boy's
relationship with the media has been pretty, well, confrontational, at
times. Actually, scratch that -- he was a bit of a git to them for about
20 years. Still, that didn't stop them greeting his retirement by giving him a cake shaped like a hairdryer.
In his recent interview with Charlie Rose on American television,
Ferguson offered an important piece of advice to would-be managers:
"Never hold a grudge, that's very important." Many, not least his former
assistant Brian Kidd, would presumably scoff at that. There was more
than a little of the Mafia to Ferguson's methods, the sense that you
were with him or against him, and if you fell into the latter category
you might as well be dead, no matter how close you once were to him.
Kidd helped Ferguson build his first great team and was around as
the second one was under construction as well, but decided to strike out
on his own, leaving Ferguson's side to become Blackburn manager in
1998. This was seen as an abandonment, a betrayal of sorts, as Ferguson
made clear in his first book, and when the ever-humourous hand of fate
dictated that it was a draw against United that sent Blackburn down,
Ferguson claimed not to be aware that his team had just demoted his
former right-hand man. "Perhaps he feels the need to put on a front
following his momentous decision to walk away from the success he
enjoyed with us," he said after Kidd reacted to the game with some
dignity. Ouch.
5 - David Beckham
There was more than a little of the stern but protective father and
the bright but vaguely errant son relationship between Ferguson and
Beckham. The father didn't really understand the son, but knew he had
something special. The son respected the father, but wanted to do his
own thing. Then came the hair, the clothes and the unsuitable
girlfriend, and it all went a bit south. Of course most fathers don't
welly a football boot into their son's forehead, but different people
express their disappointment in different ways. "He got drawn into that
celebrity status, you know?" Fergie told Charlie Rose. "And for me, I'm a
football man. He lost the focus."
4 - Kenny Dalglish
One of the many, many complaints Liverpool fans had about Roy
Hodgson was that he was too pally with Ferguson. It's hard to imagine a
man as affable as Uncle Roy not being pally with anyone, but that he
spoke with deference and affection towards the United manager was a
source of much ire. That of course changed when Kenny Dalglish returned
to replace Hodgson, an age-old feud rekindled, and the Kop were much
happier for it.
Glaswegians of a similar age, Ferguson would often give a young
Dalglish lifts around town when they were playing for Rangers and Celtic
respectively, but when Ferguson arrived in Manchester, intent on
knocking Liverpool "off their f****** perch", the old friendship
withered. "You'll get more sense out of her," said Dalglish when asked
about his old foe. The 'her' in question was his six-week-old daughter.
Of course, it wasn't total hatred, and a mutual respect remained, so
much so that Ferguson wrote the foreword to Dalglish's autobiography.
3 - Arsene Wenger
"They say he's an intelligent man, right? Speaks five languages!
I've got a 15-year-old boy from the Ivory Coast who speaks five
languages!" That was one of many, shall we say 'caustic' comments
directed at Wenger when his Arsenal were a genuine domestic threat to
United. In more recent times, when their title challenge had usually
disappeared by February, Ferguson would speak in warmer tones about
Wenger, a sign for most that he was no longer threatened, and that newer
foes needed cutting down with a well-chosen jibe.
Many arguments in football have more than a dash of pantomime to them.
Passions rise in the moment, you call the other guy something horrible,
he calls you something horrible back, you have a drink after the game
and say sorry, all over. More often than not, it's the desire to win,
combined with pressure and tribalism. Feelings tend not to run too deep.
However, these two really didn't like each other -- the antipathy was
genuine, and not just for theatre.
Ferguson constantly goaded Benitez, including accusing him of
'disrespecting' Sam Allardyce when all the Liverpool manager had done
was vaguely wave his arms a bit. He of course succeeded in winding his
rival up so that he eventually exploded in a flurry of paper and 'facts',
although it's well to remember that Liverpool only actually lost one
league game after this 'rant' (though they did fail to win for three
league matches), so how much tangible impact it had on the 2008-09 title
race is open to question.
1 - John Magnier
For United fans, this is probably the most significant, because it
ultimately led to the arrival of the Glazers. It started, as many things
do, with friendship. "Nobody could wish for better friends than them,"
said Ferguson of Magnier, a hugely successful Irish horse owner, and his
wife, with whom he was listed as 'joint owners' of Rock of Gibralter.
When the horse was retired to stud, Ferguson felt he was entitled to
half of the earnings from the offspring, which could have totalled
€50-70 million, whereas Magnier saw Ferguson's stake as more of an
honorary thing, and not worth nearly that much.
All of this wouldn't have had much impact on United had Magnier and
his business partner JP McManus not been steadily building up their
stake in the club, so when the dispute over the horse reached the
courts, the investors started asking some pointed questions about how
Ferguson was conducting business, in particular in reference to his
agent son, Jason. The dispute was eventually settled, but Magnier and
McManus had one last card to play, and that was to sell their shares,
with Malcolm Glazer only too happy to take them off their hands for an
estimated £230 million. All leveraged against the club, naturally.
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