This is the One: Sir Alex Ferguson: The Uncut Story of a Football Genius

by Daniel Taylor

  I know the supporters were not happy, but I have to say there has been an awful lot of rubbish in the media trying to blame the shortage of goals on our system of play. It doesn’t make me very happy to lose on our own ground, but we should recognise the core of the problem and admit it was simply down to bad finishing. It had absolutely nothing to do with formations, tactics or an unwillingness to attack, but these criticisms were levelled at us by a number of pundits and even a few fans, swayed by press opinion. The fact is we missed fifteen chances. It was nothing to do with playing 4-4-2 or 4-5-1, the line-up that everyone seems obsessed about.

  He altered United’s formation to 4-5-1, he says, to facilitate Keane as a holding midfield player and he makes it clear he will try to talk him out of leaving:

  When Roy was at his peak and worked from box to box we needed only two players in the engine room, but the day came when we could no longer ask quite so much from our captain. Overall, it was worth altering the framework because Roy brings so many other qualities to the team. I want him in midfield for as long as he can get his boots on.

  It shows how difficult press conferences have become that these notes are more interesting than anything we can conjure out of him face to face. He is in an OK mood, but Chelsea thrashed Bolton Wanderers 5–1 at the weekend, having gone last week to Liverpool and whacked them 4–1, the most emphatic victory for an away team at Anfield since 1969. That’s nine straight wins and Chelsea are ten points clear already.

  ‘We’re only in October so it would be silly to think of them as champions already, but I have to say they are relentless right now,’ Ferguson says. ‘We’re just trying to stay within their slipstream and hopefully they will slip up.’

  The problem is that ‘hopefully’ isn’t a convincing word in football. Ferguson has to say the right things and he has to believe that United can get back into it. But he doesn’t sound particularly confident. That, for him, is very unusual.

  THEY PAY THEIR MONEY

  18.10.05

  Manchester United 0

  Lille 0

  Champions League, Group D

  The latest Red Issue and Red News were being sold on Sir Matt Busby Way tonight. And, if they represent the views of the average match-going fan, Ferguson’s problems might be worse than he realises. United’s supporters come across as cynical and disillusioned and large numbers seem to be turning against him. There are more boos tonight, not as malicious as those during the Blackburn game but still unpleasant, and the fanzine writers have gone for Ferguson. According to Red Issue:

  That we could be so ungrateful as to barrack Ferguson during the Blackburn game predictably led to the football establishment filing out to defend his reputation. The old lines were trotted out: ‘trophies won … should have a job for life … everything he’s done’ ad nauseam. What this has spectacularly failed to take into account is the mantra by which Fergie himself has always judged his players – that medals in the cabinet are only to be admired once retirement dawns. The fact is that United’s support has been incredibly patient. The real wonder about the Blackburn hostility is that it didn’t occur sooner.

  While Red News explains:

  The booing was as if United’s soul was crying out. It was a release of emotion. And it wasn’t because of one poor game. It was a release of everything we’ve suffered.

  The jeers are becoming as familiar a sound at Old Trafford as the Stone Roses and Iggy Pop in the prematch music. There are 7,000 empty seats inside the ground tonight and you can sense the crowd’s disenchantment. The team muddle through. There is no flair, no imagination, no guile, no passion. Rooney is suspended, Keane is injured and it is painful to see how ordinary they look without their two best players.

  ‘How do you spell shite?’ an Irish guy shouts as he passes the pressbox after the final whistle. ‘S … H … I … T … E.’

  CARLOS QUEIROZ

  20.10.05

  Manchester United 1

  Tottenham Hotspur 1

  Some time over the last couple of weeks, Ferguson has received an apology from MUTV. He is talking to them again, although it is difficult to know exactly when the peace summit was arranged, or any more details about what they had to say to persuade him to abandon his boycott. MUTV’s bosses have ordered their staff not to say anything about the subject so they can deal with it in-house. Even when the story was reported in the newspapers – ‘Fergie bans MUTV!’ – it has never been referred to during any of the station’s broadcasts.

  The whole affair has been intensely embarrassing for the MUTV producers. And it has proved a bruising experience for Paul Anthony, who has looked stiff with horror when journalists have asked him for his version of events. It will be a long time before he, or any of his colleagues, dare to question Ferguson’s tactics again.

  Ferguson’s anger is redirected towards the football writers today. His programme notes are dedicated to a carefully prepared diatribe about the way we operate and, specifically, the way we have been scrutinising Carlos Queiroz’s role at the club:

  I was under fire not so long ago over the team’s tactics and now the media have tired of giving me a hard time they have decided to make Carlos a target. He’s next in the firing line because, by now, the press know I’m immune to their sniping. But in answer to a few of the questions stirred up in the media, I’d like to put it on record that I have the utmost confidence in Carlos as my assistant and coach.

  Queiroz has certainly been getting a hard time. We have suggested that he has too much influence on the training ground, that his tactics are negative and uninspiring. He is such an influential figure on the training ground that we have questioned whether it would be more accurate to describe him as joint manager rather than assistant manager. The fanzines have nicknamed him ‘Carlos Queirozzz’ and we have floated the possibility that he, not Ferguson, is to blame for the team’s problems.

  Ferguson goes on:

  Whenever we lose the media want an instant answer, preferably something a little bit different so it makes a good headline. The latest target was our formation and because I didn’t respond to the prodding they widened the issue to suggest it was Carlos who was behind the way we were playing and that I was giving him too much authority. I want to make it quite clear that Carlos and I are a team. As for me allowing him too much influence, he has no more authority than any of our previous coaches, but he is allowed to get on with his own job. He knows the theme and gets on without constant interference.

  We would be pretty shallow if we thought we could fire a few shots at Queiroz and then take offence when someone aims a few back. The point, though, is that Ferguson would not have to bother with these irritations if the team were doing well, or even threatening to do well. It might not be fair to blame Queiroz for everything, but the fact is that United have won only one league game at Old Trafford in the last three months. They are poor again today, despite taking a seventh-minute lead through Mikael Silvestre. Tottenham equalise, deservedly, with a Jermaine Jenas free-kick, twelve minutes from the end, and there is more booing at the final whistle.

  ROCK BOTTOM

  29.10.05

  Middlesbrough 4

  Manchester United 1

  It is difficult to believe things can get any worse than sieving four goals against a Middlesbrough side who are sixteenth in the league. This is surely the nadir. The worst Manchester United performance since Ferguson took over, according to the pundits on Match of the Day, and he won’t be suing. United look like a team whose bad days have all come at once. A tired, depressed side with low morale. A side that is conceding all manner of goals – lucky ones, bad ones, great ones. A side that accepts their fate the first time anything goes against them.

  There are mitigating circumstances – a long injury list, no Neville, no Heinze and, most importantly, no Keane – but the facts are stark. And, for a club with the racy glamour of Manchester United, it is numbing to lead this kind of life.

  Charlton Athletic are above them in
the league. Wigan Athletic are above them in the league. To put it into context, Middlesbrough have scored only three goals at home all season. Their two most experienced players, Gareth Southgate and Ugo Ehiogu, are both injured and an eighteen-year-old, Matthew Bates, is making his debut in the centre of their defence.

  It is a game United should win comfortably, yet the standard is set as early as the second minute when Van der Sar drops one in from twenty yards. The goal seems to disorientate United. There are two more before half-time and a fourth, from the penalty spot, after seventy-eight minutes. United’s consolation goal arrives in stoppage time, courtesy of Ronaldo, but it scarcely matters. They have been outfought, out-thought, outplayed and, ultimately, outclassed.

  Everyone is so flat. Fletcher has been brought into the centre of midfield to compensate for Keane’s absence, which is like Will Young taking over from Roger Daltrey in The Who. Silvestre is having a terrible season, a danger to his own team. Richardson has been found out. Scholes looks a shadow of the player he once was. O’Shea is making mistakes as soon as he comes under pressure. Ferdinand is at fault for two of Middlesbrough’s goals, an elegant giver of second chances.

  United are sixth, thirteen points behind Chelsea, and if anyone sums up the present malaise it is Ferdinand. He plays for England and he cost £30 million when United signed him from Leeds in 2002, but he has been struggling for form and consistency all season. After eighty-two minutes Ferguson has seen enough. He appears on the touchline, all arms and larynx, looking as if he could burst a blood vessel. Even the humblest viewer can make out the F forming on his lips. The substitutes’ board goes up and Ferdinand is hauled off for the first time in his United career. Ferguson does not even offer a consoling pat on the arm, expertly blanking him on the touchline.

  The players are locked in the dressing room for forty minutes after the game and Ferguson takes his time coming out for his post-match interviews. He is monumentally cheesed off, not even attempting to conceal his disbelief about what he has just seen. His tension shows in his urgent movements and his impatient manner. When he is asked whether he is angry with the players, there is an abrasive edge to his voice.

  ‘It doesn’t matter whether I’m angry. The players should be angry with themselves. That was a shocking performance. I expect my players to play with passion and when they get results like that I expect them to search within themselves and accept that it is totally unacceptable.’

  He describes it as ‘another page in the history of Manchester United’. Typically, he is already turning to the next. ‘Middlesbrough have cuffed us,’ he says. ‘But we’ll get a response. That’s without question. That’s what we’ve always been good at. And that’s my job.’

  Yet the next visitors to Old Trafford are Chelsea. Another flash of anger crosses Ferguson’s face. ‘A lot of people look at us as the team that can stop Chelsea,’ he says. ‘But not on this showing. On today’s form I don’t think we could beat anyone.’

  UP YER BOLLOX

  31.10.05

  Football writers can be an ungrateful lot. Friends tell us we have the best jobs in the world, but we say ‘puh’ and try to explain what it is like asking a pimply nineteen-year-old for an interview and hear him call over his shoulder ‘Speak to my agent’. We get to watch great football from free seats and we travel round the world, staying in five-star hotels, all expenses paid. And yet we still moan and carp about how the game has changed and how football clubs have come to think of us the same way a dog thinks of the fleas on its back. We don’t realise how lucky we are.

  Football is known worldwide as the ‘beautiful game’. But, just as someone who works in a Cadbury’s factory will go off the taste of chocolate, many reporters no longer see the game’s aesthetic qualities. They think of it as only a four-letter word: work. Football, in their eyes, has ceased to be beautiful and has turned into a relentless slog. The newspapers have become marginalised and many journalists are embittered. In a few cases, they have turned their back on the sport for good. Others have gone to war with it, barely capable of writing a positive word about a game they once loved. They can no longer see the stars in the sky because they are looking at the mud in the gutter.

  But then there are days when you are reminded how grey and bland life might be away from the soap opera, how football can never be classed as drudgery. Days when you cannot sleep because of the buzz of nailing a story that is going to pick up the sporting world by its lapels. Days when you find yourself switching on Sky Sports’ rolling news channel at five to midnight just to hear the sharp intake of breath when they go through the first editions of the newspapers. Days when you realise that there can never be a replacement for football and you can happily see yourself doing this job for ever.

  At six o’clock this evening, every football writer in Manchester is positioned by a television, pen and paper in hand, watching MUTV. We are waiting for a show called Play the Pundit, in which a different player every Monday joins Steve Bower in the studio to go over the weekend’s game and, according to the MUTV blurb, ‘bring you a unique inside view of the Reds’ latest performance from the only people who can really tell you what happened’.

  So we wait.

  And we wait.

  And we wait.

  Something strange happens. There is no announcement about a change in the schedule but Play the Pundit never appears. The information button on our remote controls tells us it is on, but what we actually see is a re-run of an old youth-academy match. And when that is finished, the next programme – a documentary about Gary Pallister – comes on as scheduled, without a word of explanation.

  Any other week we would assume that the show has been rescheduled. The guest tonight, though, is supposed to be Roy Keane. And that makes us suspicious. In football, there is usually no smoke without fire. With Keane, there is no smoke without arson – and it is normally him holding the empty can of petrol.

  We ring MUTV. ‘We were expecting a Roy Keane interview but it’s been replaced by a kids’ match. Can you tell us what’s going on?’

  ‘We can’t go into details,’ says a girl who sounds as if she is going to burst into tears. ‘We’ve been told to say nothing.’

  A cub reporter on the Junior Gazette would be able to pick up that something is seriously wrong.

  Our minds are galloping now. This could be big. It could be nothing – but it could be big, really big.

  We ring everyone we can think of – the club, the press office, the directors, the supporters’ groups, the fanzines, Keane’s solicitor – but for two hours we hit a brick wall. Nobody has the faintest clue what is going on. Or nobody is saying. We get absolutely nowhere. But we’re still getting vibes that something has happened.

  We ring MUTV again. No answer.

  But we persist, in the knowledge that United find it almost impossible to keep a secret. If there is a story to be told, at any major football club, there will nearly always be someone who goes to the newspapers, especially when there might be a few quid in it from the tabloids. There are 500 full-time employees at Old Trafford … and, sure enough, just as we are on the point of giving up, someone blabs.

  Keane has been on MUTV. The show was recorded early in the afternoon, in the MUTV studio at Carrington, and the blood drains from our faces when we hear the words used to describe his performance: ‘Explosive … calculated … chilling … X-rated … dynamite …’

  When he opens his mouth it is as though he has assumed the role of boss. He is brisk, assertive and to the point. He tells it how it is: no bullshit, no fucking about. He uses MUTV to unburden himself. And by the time he has finished he has broken the golden rule of dressing-room conduct. He names players.

  It is only football and we really shouldn’t work ourselves into such a state of frenzy. But it is difficult to overstate the importance of what has happened. Never in the history of Manchester United has a captain gone public with such cold, sorry anger. Never has someone, other than the manager, named and shamed
the players he doesn’t think are putting in enough. Keane, though, carries a grudge like a sack of bricks. He didn’t even play against Middlesbrough but he is described as ‘almost foaming at the mouth’. He had seen a thrashing coming, he says. He is sick of trying to get his message across, sick of being ignored. He is worried the club are never going to catch Chelsea, worried about the dressing room, worried that he is the only one who cares. He feels like he has been banging his head against a brick wall and he has to speak out. He has to because if he doesn’t, who will?

  It is the kind of story that thuds against a journalist’s skull. We spend so much time in this profession droning on about hamstring strains and trying to make 0–0 draws sound vaguely interesting that it is easy to find each news story and match report merging into the next. But this is different. It is a story that should come with flashing blue lights and a government health warning. This is going to be bigger than we can ever imagine…