By Myles Palmer
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The Boss – The Many Sides of Alex Ferguson
By Michael Crick
(Simon & Schuster £17.99)
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Sir Alex has written so many books about himself that we need this corrective account of his life and times.
Crick is an experienced TV reporter and investigator,and that kind of forensic, fact-collecting writer is invaluable in pointing out contradictions and inconsistencies.
Here, for instance, Crick shows how Fergie’s own accounts of his playing career are somewhat more technicolour than the reality.
Some of what he says is a revision of Managing My Life, Fergie’s best-selling autobiography. He quotes from scores of books and newspaper articles and credits them all meticulously.
Overall, he has assembled all the important facts into a 562-page biography which says that Sir Alex Ferguson is a big bully as well as a warm-hearted charmer.
A pugnacious striker, he did well at Dunfermline, failed at Rangers,learned his managerial trade at St Mirren, and then moved to Aberdeen.
At Old Trafford, after huge successes, he seems to have become an even more abrasive bully than he was in Scotland.
The cuttings library of the Manchester Evening News refused to allow Crick access without a fax from United to say it was OK.
Are you reading that sentence again because you don’t believe your eyes?
The Manchester Evening News allows researchers to use its archives for £75 a day.
But NOT if the writer is doing an unauthorised biography of Alex Ferguson.Amazing! Quite amazing!
Crick says that Fergie told his players not to use Mel Stein as their agent.Young full back John O’Kane defied this ruling and was later sold to Everton, where Mel Stein negotiated new wages of £4,000 a week.
But then, suddenly, Everton offered the player half that.Why? BecauseFerguson had phoned Howard Kendall and told him that O’Kane was only on £1,800 a week at United.
One incidental pleasure of such books is the occasional reminder of intriguing events that nearly happened.
In 1971 Matt Busby met Jock Stein in a motorway service station off the M74, near Haydock Park, and agreed to manage Manchester United. But Jock’s family did not want to leave Glasgow, so he changed his mind.
Unfortunately, Crick has a rather pedestrian style which lapses into footiespeak, but his command of the book’s themes makes the story easy to read.
One of the main themes is anger. Fergie has a volcanic temper and it erupts at some strange times. It’s not just directed at referees, linesmen and players.
It was no secret that Ferguson was tapped up by Aberdeen before he was sacked by St Mirren in 1978. He joined Aberdeen two days later.
Incredibly, he claimed unfair dismissal by St Mirren at an industrial tribunal, which took place six months later. Crick points out that if his 1999 memoirs are to be believed, Ferguson must have lied to the tribunal.
But he lost the case anyway.
The first time I met Ferguson, when he was managing Scotland,was in the press room at Wembley in April 1986, and he came over as a well-groomed dynamo. Charming, friendly, had time for everybody.
Soon after that he proved clueless in Mexico, using, I seem to recall,about 19 of his 22 players in three games.
In Mexico, according to Crick, Lawrie McMenemy told United boss Ron Atkinson that Ferguson had been approached to take over his job at Old Trafford. The messenger was probably Bobby Charlton, who was also working for television in that World Cup.
Some of the best anecdotes come at the end.
On page 521 Crick describes a match in October 1995, when Roy Keane was sent off against Middlesbrough.
BBC commentator John Motson asked Ferguson whether Keane would be dealt with internally.
He replied,”Well, John, you’ve no right to ask that question. You’re out of order. You know full well my ruling on that. Right, that’s the interview finished.”
He then told Motson,”I don’t want to fucking watch it! Cancel it!Fucking make sure that does not go out.”
Great TV, but the BBC did not have the bottle to screen it.
Des Lynham wanted to show it, bleeping the f-words.
But the editors of Match of the Day were too timid to upset Ferguson any further.
What wallies!They blew a golden chance to let their viewers see something important, something they had never seen before.By being such cowards they made a rod for their own backs, and everyone else’s backs.
The BBC should have broadcast Ferguson’s disgusting outburst and said,”We shall not show Manchester United again on Match of the Day until Alex Ferguson apologises to John Motson.”
Crick makes it clear that Ferguson has an ability to win more than just matches and trophies.
He has won a lot of battles off the field as well, and victory in that confrontation with the BBC confirmed him as the most successful bully in the history of British football.
Still, he may not be around much longer. He may have shot his bolt.His time may have passed.I think he might regret not retiring this summer.
Consider the events of February 2002, when Ferguson decided not to retire.
He told chief executive Peter Kenyon he would stay for another three years. Then, the following day, he informed the players that he would still be their manager next season.
In The Sunday Times Ferguson said, “when I had finished speaking,there was a moment of silence, and then they started clapping.”
In the Times next day Gary Neville gave an alternative account. He said, “There was no applause or anything.”
Fergie seems to have heard so much applause that he hears it even when it’s not there.
You might enjoy The Boss as summer reading, but it may not be wholly suitable for the beach.
After all, who wants to go on holiday with Alex Ferguson?
20th July 2002.