By the time the interview is finished we have been reminded why we went into this business in the first place. To see football from the inside. To meet the players, to hear the stories and to feel involved, albeit in a very modest capacity. Interviewing the footballers is one of the most rewarding parts of our job. Yet a lot of them have grown to dislike us. One of their mates might have been turned over by the News of the World’s kiss-and-tell team. Or they might have had a five out of ten in the player ratings. Ferguson is forever telling them we have it in for the club and when we meet them it can be an uncomfortable experience, for them and us.
In another era, Manchester’s football writers were on first-name terms with the players. They would enjoy nights out, drink and socialise together, swap stories and share secrets. Peter Batt, who covered the club for the Sunday People during the Sir Matt Busby years, can remember admiring Paddy Crerand’s right hook on raucous Saturday nights out in Manchester city centre. Sunday lunch would be spent at the home of George Best’s parents. Then on Monday morning he would collect Noel Cantwell to take him into training.
Mike Morgan, formerly of the Sun, shared a house with Sammy McIlroy, the last of the Busby Babes, when he started working in Manchester in the early 1970s and David Meek, correspondent for the Manchester Evening News, was allowed to travel on the team coach for his first fourteen years. Meek was considered ‘one of the lads’ until 1972, when he criticised the sacking of Frank O’Farrell, after a barren run of results, under the headline ‘Be Fair to Frank’. United regarded this as treachery and the club secretary, Les Olive, wrote a stiff letter to Meek to inform him he would have to make his own arrangements in the future.
The process now is one of tactical isolation, not just at United but at all the big Premiership clubs. The players are fenced off like A-list actors on a Hollywood film set. To a different generation of journalists, footballers were people to protect as well as admire. Now, apart from a few exceptions, they are simply celebrities we write about and struggle to identify with, television personalities we sometimes bump into at airport check-ins. They travel in coaches with blackedout windows. They are flanked by security guards, along corridors where nobody else gets in. They play. Then they go back the same way.
The general rule at Old Trafford is that Ferguson doesn’t like his players doing in-depth interviews with anyone apart from MUTV, Sky (occasionally), the match-day programme or Inside United, the club’s in-house magazine. We still find ways to quote the players but very often the comments that appear in the newspapers are second-hand recycled as new. The modern-day journalist has to be resourceful, because even the club’s favourite reporters can go three or four seasons without being granted an interview.
This is a shame because there are some outstanding interviews to be had at Old Trafford. Gary Neville is a dream of a talker, bursting with opinion and not afraid to tackle any subject. Alan Smith is the same. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is polite and unassuming. Ryan Giggs is witty and sharp, though strangely uncomfortable in front of the television cameras. Edwin van der Sar, like most Dutchmen, is never slow to speak his mind. Put a microphone in front of Paul Scholes and he looks as uncomfortable as a man putting on wet swimming trunks but, generally, the players are confident enough to handle a few questions.
The interview everyone wants, of course, is Ferguson – but that really is like asking for a sitting with the Pope.
Even when his relationship with the press was at its strongest he would limit himself to two or three big interviews a season. Only on one occasion, with Robert Crampton of The Times, has he allowed a journalist to visit him at home.
Crampton remembers being driven to Wilmslow by Jason Ferguson: ‘I kept expecting us to arrive at a really big house, something at the end of a very long drive, quite possibly with iron gates. So when we drove on to a new-ish, private estate – nice houses, but nothing out of the ordinary – I thought we’d go through it. Then, when we turned into the drive of one of these houses, a short drive, I thought Jason was turning round for some reason. But then I saw that the house – mock-Tudor, leaded lights, lantern-style illumination by the door – had a name-plate which read Fairfields.’
Inside, Crampton remembers a beautifully kept house – named after the dockyard where Ferguson’s father, Alex senior, worked in Govan – with the stripes and swirls from a recent vacuuming still visible on the carpet. Cathy was in the lounge, watching a Martin Kemp drama on UK Gold, and Ferguson led the way to a snooker room, complete with a tartan carpet and small busts of John Wayne, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. ‘I’m unbeatable on this table,’ he boasted. ‘Unbeatable.’
There were books along one wall, hundreds of them. Tony Benn. Mandela. Elvis. Terry Waite. Vince Lombardi. Bob Monkhouse. Books about the Alamo and Rorke’s Drift. Biographies of Eamon de Valera and Michael Collins. Parker’s Wine Buyers’ Guide. Sinatra. Ali. Thatcher’s memoirs. ‘Never read it,’ Ferguson hastily pointed out. ‘It was a present.’
Crampton’s memories are of a man who was pure Dr Jekyll, all twinkle-eyed merriment, bouncing his newest grandchild on his knee. ‘On occasions, however, his face would settle into a harder shape, his eyes locking on to mine, and I would catch a glimpse of what Mr Hyde might be like. This change, I came to realise, always preceded him saying something he wanted me to remember, some part of his creed.’
Meeting Ferguson for a prearranged interview is certainly very different from seeing him at a run-of the-mill Friday press conference. He has an extraordinary mind and, quite often, he will have a little nugget stored up for the interviewer, something that he knows will make a good headline.
His last one-on-one with the Guardian included the immortal quote that his greatest achievement was knocking Liverpool ‘right off their fucking perch’, in response to comments that Alan Hansen had made in his Daily Telegraph column. Ferguson gave a dramatic pause that Al Pacino would have been proud of, then turned to his interviewer, Michael Walker, and exclaimed: ‘And you can print that.’ Journalistic gold dust.
WAYNE ROONEY’S BLIP
13.10.06
Today is the first time we have seen Ferguson for a month. There was an international break last week and he didn’t turn up for the previous two Fridays because of ‘other commitments’. Carlos Queiroz stepped in but it was difficult not to feel slightly underwhelmed. Queiroz is a nice guy, with the air of an affable old vicar, but in newspaper terms there is nothing about him that is Hold The Back Page. And we have been waiting to ask Ferguson a very important question – what is going on with Wayne Rooney?
Questioning a player of Rooney’s gifts can feel like a pointless exercise, like taking Tiger Woods to task about his backswing or criticising Roger Federer for his serve, but something has malfunctioned recently. His touch has deserted him and his head has gone down. Simple things like trapping the ball or the execution of a short pass have seemed beyond him. He has been giving the ball away, missing chances he should really score, allowing defenders to get the better of him. For a player of such immense self-belief, he looks riddled with insecurity.
Lots of strikers go through periods when they are struggling for their best form. When we asked Queiroz about it he made it clear he wasn’t overly concerned, that it was just the kind of blip that young players occasionally go through. Our prodding, however, is getting on Ferguson’s nerves. ‘You know his heart is in the right place, you know his desire is right, you know his attitude is always good, so why create problems?’ he asks us today, and it is obvious we have pricked his temper glands. ‘Are you hoping I’m going to tell you, “That’s the end of Wayne Rooney?” Because I really think you are. Wayne’s your number one seller and, without him, you wouldn’t sell half as many papers. So you want me to say something to make you a good headline, don’t you? But you know deep down, and every defender in the country knows deep down, that the lad is going to be fine.’
A braver group of reporters would point out that it is still a legitimate talking point. Yet we know
Ferguson too well. His face says ‘stop’ and ‘danger’. And when he has that kind of aggressive mien, what is the point of challenging him? He never tolerates any media criticism of his players. He always stands by them in public. Never questions them, defends them to the last.
Even now, he won’t talk about why he felt he had to get rid of Roy Keane, how it hurt him to hear what his captain had said on MUTV and know that things would never be the same again. He still speaks about Diego Forlan, one of his least successful signings, with dewy-eyed affection, as if he has forgotten about the days when the Uruguayan’s shots were more of a danger to low-flying pigeons than they were to opposition goalkeepers. And he won’t hear a bad word against Juan Sebastian Veron. He will never admit that Veron’s form was erratic or that, for £28.1 million, it caused him a great deal of embarrassment.
His argument at the time was classic Ferguson, a mixture of spin and deflection to make it look as if United were the victims of some elaborate jingoistic plot. England had been drawn against Argentina in the World Cup and Ferguson said the press had set out to persecute Veron for the simple reason that he was Argentinian. ‘Seba is a marvellous player but ever since England drew Argentina the press have turned on him,’ he said. ‘It’s a witch-hunt. I don’t know what the agenda is, but I don’t like it.’
He has stuck to his guns ever since and in the opinion of many Manchester-based journalists, the Big Veron Debate was an important factor in shaping how he has come to see us. He grew so protective of his player, so sensitive about any criticism, that the muscles round his eyes would tighten ominously every time it was brought up. This period coincided with some of the older journalists retiring or moving on and younger ones coming through. And it was here that his press conferences went into a tailspin.
At one briefing, only a single question had been asked when he threw his hands in the air, as if he had suddenly decided he should never have agreed to see us in the first place. ‘That’s the end,’ he shouted, pointing to the door. ‘Get out! I’ve had enough of you already.’
He turned to Diana Law. ‘Get the Sunday papers in. This lot are done.’ The whole thing had lasted less than a minute.
Veron was a beautiful passer of the ball, full of subtle touches and elegant flicks, but there were also moments when he disappeared in important games. And, excruciatingly, he pulled his foot out of a tackle when United were behind in a Champions League semi-final against Bayer Leverkusen. His price tag meant that every poor performance was highlighted and, at the end of his first season, Ferguson threw us out again after a reporter from the Sun asked him whether he was disappointed with the player’s lack of consistency.
At first, Ferguson wanted to know what the reporter thought. When the reporter said he did not think Veron had been worth the money, Ferguson erupted.
‘On you go. Out of my sight. I’m not fucking talking to you any more. Veron’s a great fucking player.’
We headed for the exit, his eyes scorching holes in the back of our heads.
‘Youse all fucking idiots.’
TOTAL FOOTBALL
28.10.06
Bolton Wanderers 0
Manchester United 4
Everything is clicking. Rooney looks a lot happier today. The team play brilliantly and he scores the kind of hat-trick that demonstrates two things. The first, to borrow Ian Botham’s phrase, is that form is temporary and class is permanent. The second is that we might be witnessing the start of something very special indeed.
At the very least United have restored a genuine sense of intrigue to the top of the Premiership. In their opening ten games they have won eight, drawn one and lost one, scoring twenty-three goals and conceding only five. They are three points clear of Chelsea, squatting defiantly in first place and daring to believe, for the first time in a long time, that maybe they can mount a serious challenge for this league.
Bolton away is a tough fixture, one that most teams approach with equal measures of dread and caution. Yet United’s football is the type usually seen only on a PlayStation – one-touch, fast and incisive. It’s Manchester United playing the Manchester United way: 4-4-2, picking off their opponents like flies. ‘The best we have played for years,’ Ferguson says proudly. ‘No other team will come here and get a result like that. We were outstanding from the first minute to the last.’
There are still three-quarters of the season to go, so this is no time to be making rash predictions, but United certainly look like a side who believe they can be champions.
Their football has rippled with intelligence and purpose. They have played with touch and life, in the fashion of a real team, and their big players all have the bit between their teeth. Ronaldo, in particular, is in show-stopping form, silencing the boo-boys wherever he plays. Scholes is passing the ball as if he has a computer device in his boots. Saha is slick and athletic, determined to show he can lead the attack in Van Nistelrooy’s absence. Rooney has been the weak link since the first few weeks of the season, but today he looks like the player with whom we are all familiar. The one who could fall into the Manchester Ship Canal and come up with a salmon in his mouth.
United’s only defeat so far this season has come at home to Arsenal but, since then, they have beaten Newcastle at home, Wigan away, Liverpool at home and now Bolton away. They have won at Crewe in the Carling Cup and they have beaten Celtic, Benfica and FC Copenhagen in their first three Champions League group games. All they need now is a point from the next three, starting in Copenhagen next week, and they will be through to the knockout rounds and can start forgetting about what happened last season.
The average supporter is still wary, concerned about the strength of the squad, worried that thirtysomethings such as Scholes or Giggs might not last the pace. For now, though, it’s championship form. And, if we are being truly honest, not many people can genuinely say they expected this.
COPENHAGEN
1.11.06
FC Copenhagen 1
Manchester United 0
Champions League, Group F
Grim scenes tonight. Everyone expected United to qualify for the Champions League’s knockout stages – a draw would have been enough – and Ferguson looks thoroughly fed up when he comes into his press conference. The standings in Group F haven’t dramatically altered, but he is in one of those moods when any reporter who has dealt with him over a certain period recognises the danger signals and knows to give him a little space.
We saw this expression yesterday when we had our five minutes with him at Copenhagen airport. A girl in a United top, maybe eighteen or nineteen, came too close as she was snapping away with her camera and he reacted: ‘Can you please leave us alone? Bloody hell!’ and tonight he takes exception again when a Danish journalist starts to quiz him about his team selection.
Ferguson has chosen an odd, unbalanced side. Older players such as Giggs, Neville, Ferdinand and Scholes are rested and Saha is also on the list of absentees because he has a slight twinge. The Danes think it is because Ferguson has underestimated their team. ‘Why didn’t you play your stronger players?’ the guy from Ekstra Bladet, Denmark’s equivalent of the Sun, is asking, adopting a barrister’s tone. ‘Why did you leave out someone like Louis Saha when he has scored so many goals?’
‘Saha’s injured,’ Ferguson snaps, ‘and you should know your facts.’
He is grumpy because it is an unforgivably poor performance. Some of the players who have come in – Fletcher, O’Shea, Silvestre – have let him down badly, culminating in a scrappy goal from a Copenhagen corner seventeen minutes from the end. Copenhagen are not even a good side, but United struggle to play their passing game other than in occasional flashes. There was a Bruce Springsteen concert at the stadium four days ago and the grass has been badly trampled, with large areas worn down to the mud. It looks like someone’s allotment, churned up and uneven. Ferguson, who believes a football pitch should be as smooth as a bowling green, is thinking about making an official complaint.
; He takes these things extremely seriously. He is an expert when it comes to what goes to make an acceptable football pitch – how much water should be applied, how much sunshine is needed, the perfect length of grass. It is one of his specialist subjects and it drives him to distraction when United have to play on a rutted, pockmarked pitch where the ball will not run straight.
Sometimes, when we are finishing in the Old Trafford pressbox, an hour or so after a game, we will see him stride out on to the grass to run his eye over the playing surface, like a forensic scientist looking for clues at a murder scene. On one occasion we saw him haranguing the head groundsman, Tony Sinclair, on the day he received the club’s Employee of the Year award. Sinclair looked distinctly uncomfortable as Ferguson fastidiously examined the goalmouth in front of the Stretford End, pulling up blades of grass and holding them to his face – even sniffing them.
TWENTY YEARS
6.11.06
Today is Ferguson’s twentieth anniversary as manager and Tom Tyrrell of Piccadilly Radio presents him with a bottle of Bordeaux at the end of his press conference. Tyrrell, who has covered the club for forty years, bought this wine when Ferguson first came down from Aberdeen in 1986. ‘I’ll keep it for when you have done your first twenty years,’ he told him at the time, and he has been true to his word. Ferguson is touched. He has signed one of Tyrrell’s books: ‘Thanks for having the faith in me to last so long. Alex.’
This is the One: Sir Alex Ferguson: The Uncut Story of a Football Genius Page 18