Fergie Rises

by Michael Grant

  In the two autobiographies which cover his time at Aberdeen Ferguson wrote briefly of his regret over what happened without explaining quite what had made him so angry. One of the beaten Rangers players that day, Davie McKinnon, suspected it might have been triggered by the Aberdeen players’ reaction at the final whistle: ‘Their players were saying to us, “The better team lost” and “You didn’t deserve to get beaten”…until Alex Ferguson went out on the pitch. I don’t know if he was too enamoured with that sort of attitude from his players. Maybe he saw it as a sign of weakness.’ McKinnon’s theory gains some credibility from the observation that during the game and extra-time Ferguson behaved quite normally in the dug-out. Assistant Archie Knox said: ‘I had no idea what was coming. He was fine on the bench. There was nothing like that, absolutely nothing.’

  In the years that followed, Ferguson never succumbed to another public outburst as ferocious as the one unleashed at Hampden in 1983. But two traits would remain constant: his angry assertion of control and his unpredictability. The players became used to coming in at half-time or after a match believing they had played well, only to be slaughtered by him. Or feeling they had played badly only to be overlooked, or even praised. What later came to be known as the ‘hairdryer’–the loud, expletive-laden, nose-to-nose vilification of some unfortunate player at Manchester United–was no doubt a fearsome experience, but for those who remember Ferguson at Aberdeen the fury of its prototype was of a far greater magnitude. Stuart Kennedy said: ‘It wasn’t a “hairdryer” when he was thirty-six or thirty-seven years old. It was a blast furnace. Brutal. A total examination of an individual’s failings–according to Alex Ferguson–delivered in front of his team-mates. Over the years it reduced to the level of a hairdryer.’

  Hampden 1983 was different only in that the evisceration of the players was delivered in public, covering almost all of them, and came after a major victory. Otherwise the intensity and the anger were familiar. Being an Aberdeen player under Ferguson was the equivalent of occupying a place on a fairground’s moving shooting gallery: it was only a matter of time before everyone passed into the crosshairs and took a hit. Players became experts in the treatment. Those delivered at half-time were preferable to the ones at full-time because at least they were guaranteed to end quite swiftly. Those after a game could last far, far longer. One secret was not to catch his eye when returning to the dressing room. Sometimes that was all it took to become the victim. Ferguson would stand at the dressing-room door eyeing them all as they came in.

  Anything could set him off. Once, during the players’ routine pre-match lunch in an Aberdeen hotel, McLeish walked in and from across the room told John McMaster that his wife wanted him to drop off the pram for their baby. McMaster was aware that Ferguson and Knox’s eyes were burning into him. He remembered: ‘I had a nightmare in the first half that day. At half-time Fergie says, “Spammer, you just sit on your arse, you’re not going out again. Fucking prams. That’s all you have in your heid. You’re too much of a family man, ya cunt.”’ Eric Black, then just nineteen, received an angry mouthful after scoring a hat-trick against Celtic at Parkhead, a feat no player has equalled since. He said: ‘It was frightening, embarrassing, uncomfortable, all of those things. Your fellow players are watching. We always knew somebody was going to get it. You just had to look at your boots and hope it wouldn’t be you.’ What had he done wrong? That was never made clear. In all probability the tirade was simply an act calculated to ensure he would not let his prodigious talent go to his head.

  Dougie Bell, meanwhile, made his debut in a 1979 friendly against the Tottenham midfield of Glenn Hoddle, Steve Perryman, Ossie Ardiles and Ricky Villa. ‘I thought I’d done OK. After the game he showed me the video–I’d never seen myself on video before–and he slaughtered me. “Look. Where the fuck are you? What are you doing up there?”’ Defender Tommy McQueen similarly had every aspect of his performance stripped down to the bone: ‘He said, “See you…I don’t know what it was you did out there. You didn’t run with the ball, you didn’t pass the ball, you couldn’t control the ball. In fact, you’re a non-descript!” I actually felt like laughing but I knew he’d kill me.’ Before one game in foul weather at Morton Ferguson asked if any of the team wanted to play in long-sleeved shirts. Defender Doug Considine said yes, he’d take one. Ferguson was livid. He wanted to take Considine straight out of the side and play Doug Rougvie instead, but the official team line-ups had already been submitted to the referee and it was too late to change.

  No incident, it seemed, was too trivial not to attract his wrath, and occasional misinterpretation. Peter Weir was once given the man-of-the-match award after an Aberdeen victory at Ibrox. The reward was a case of a dozen bottles of Moët & Chandon Champagne handed to him in one of the corporate lounges. He carried it down the stadium’s famous marble staircase to the Aberdeen bus which was waiting at the front door. As he was about to step on to the vehicle Weir spotted his father, sister and team-mate Billy Stark’s father waiting to congratulate him. Instinctively he handed each of them a bottle before putting the rest on a spare seat. A few minutes later Ferguson boarded and quickly spotted the Champagne. Weir recalled: ‘He doesn’t ask me where the missing bottles are or what happened, he just starts shouting and bawling. “Who gave you the right to open those bottles? Who said you could drink on the bus?” This was in front of everyone. I sat there biding my time to try and explain what had happened. It went on and on, non-stop. “Just ’cos you had a good bloody game today disnae give you any right to bloody open the bottles and gie everybody a drink of Champagne.” He was right up to my face. He stormed away back down the bus and I see him talking to Archie, still going on about it. Then he comes back up and he goes, “What the hell happened to the bloody Champagne anyway?” So I says, “Can I get a word in? When I came out of Ibrox I saw my dad, my sister, and Billy’s dad and I gave each of them a bottle of Champagne.” He looked at me. There was a pause. Then he shook my hand and said, “Bloody brilliant! Look after your family. In fact, get another three bottles open now. I’ll get the plastic cups and we’ll all have a drink.”’

  The young players were especially vulnerable because Ferguson saw it as an important tool in the manipulation and shaping of their character. He was constantly on their case. On one occasion, John Hewitt was called into his office and fined £20 for overtaking Ferguson in his car on the way back from training. Hewitt said: ‘Fergie was in front of me doing about 20mph. I had a car full–McGhee, Simmy, Cooper–and they’re going, “Get past him”. So I pulled out to overtake. McGhee’s waving at him, egging him on. We get back to Pittodrie and about twenty seconds later the door bursts open. “Bloody hell, Hewitt, what were you bloody well doing? You’ve got millions of pounds’ worth of talent in that car, you could have caused an accident, you’re fined.” McGhee’s winding him up, going, “You’re right, gaffer, in fact I’m worth at least two million.”’

  Another fine came Hewitt’s way when he delayed signing a new contract and the local press named him in speculation about moves to other clubs. He went to see Ferguson after discovering a £100 deduction in his pay. ‘He told me, “I’m sick of reading about you in the Green Final. You’re getting fined, now get out.” The following week, another £100 deduction! The same again. I was furious because I’d done nothing wrong. That ate away at me for weeks.’

  Steve Cowan and Ian Angus once told Ferguson they intended to move out of the club’s digs into a flat. He stood in front of them and said: ‘How do you make a pot of soup?’ They looked at each other. Neither knew. Ferguson snapped: ‘Right, you’re no’ getting a bloody flat.’ Even the older players were policed. Strachan, married with children, once saw Ferguson driving past his house on a Friday evening, obviously checking he was home. Kennedy recalled a team meeting in which Ferguson praised the importance of family life, talked with regret about how little time he had spent with his children because of work, and of how he had missed them growing up and left too much of
the responsibility to Cathy. And then he said: ‘I’d like some of youse to do the same. We’ve got this big European game. Shut them out. Concentrate totally on Aberdeen Football Club.’

  When Pat Stanton was assistant manager the players could turn to him for a bit of understanding and compassion. Another assistant, Willie Garner, was similar. But Archie Knox was a different character. He was popular with the players, but they knew he was a gruff disciplinarian whose attitude and style was close to Ferguson’s. None of them mistook him for a shoulder to cry on. Knox admitted: ‘People used to ask if we were a good cop-bad cop sort of combination. It looked to me like we were just two fucking bad cops. If Alex got on to somebody I would be feeling the same way. They just had to put up with it.’

  The pair of them kept a baseball bat behind the door of Teddy Scott’s room. Ferguson would sometimes grab it and threaten some of the younger players while they played snooker. It was done in jest, but was unnerving nonetheless. Knox was prepared to go further: ‘I’d take it to the boot room and I’d say to the young boys, “I’ll meet youse in the boot room, any of you that fancy it?” I’d put the lights out and wave this baseball bat around. Sometimes you would clout them…not hit them properly. Maybe jab them a bit. Some of the things we did then, you’d get jailed for now.’ One of Ferguson’s later signings, Robert Connor, laughed as he remembered that period: ‘Considering some of the things he used to get up to with the players it’s a surprise the European Court of Human Rights never sat in Aberdeen.’

  All the players have their tales. Now, more than thirty years later, most laugh and shake their heads when asked to recall the times Ferguson turned on them. Their personal hairdryer anecdote is worn like a badge of honour. After one game Joe Miller returned to the dressing room later than the other players because he had been collecting the man-of-the-match award. Miller said: ‘I could hear him going ballistic. Maybe we’d conceded a goal. He had been banned from the dug-out and was using the walkie-talkies. I just walked in the dressing room right at the moment when he hurled this walkie-talkie. The aerial hit me in the face and the rest of it smashed against the wall. He knew he’d done something wrong, but he just went, “And you…sit on your arse. You think you’ve done it all but you could have scored four, five, six. It’s not good enough!” I’ve seen him kick a wee coffee table and the whole teapot came back at him and scalded his legs. He’s got his trousers down at his ankles in the middle of the dressing room, standing there with his pure white legs all scalded. The physio’s trying to treat him. All the boys were laughing into their towels! I’ve seen the hairdryer umpteen times. For not holding the ball up, not trying hard enough, whatever. What he was really doing was testing me: could I handle it or would I curl up and cry like a wee boy? And I saw some boys doing that.’

  Ferguson could also show his disapproval silently. A player passing him in the narrow corridor between Pittodrie’s reception and the dressing rooms might be totally ignored if he had just contributed to an Aberdeen defeat. Weir said: ‘He’d just walk by you. You’d be looking at him as if to say, “Well, nod your head at least…” But he was mentally letting you know you hadn’t done the business. He’d just ignore you in that wee corridor.’

  The capacity to induce obedience stretched beyond the players. During Garner’s spell as assistant manager Ferguson sent him to watch a Hearts-Hibs derby. It was a dreary match and with five minutes remaining Hibs were winning 1–0. Garner decided he had seen enough. ‘Just as I’m going out I hear this roar and I think, “Aw shit, I’ve missed a goal, well, I’ll get it on the radio.” So I get to the car and switch on the radio and it’s 2–2. I’ve missed three goals in the last five minutes! In the morning, being naïve and instead of just getting a report and telling him about the goals, he asks me what they were like, and I said, “I never saw three of them, I left.” He goes, “You left? You fucking left? Before the end of the game?” Oh, he slaughtered me. Slaughtered.’

  Even supporters could be brought to heel. Billy Stark’s tall, languid-looking presence in midfield often received a cool reception from Aberdeen fans, for no obvious reason other than that he was not Gordon Strachan. Stark said: ‘If I was playing well I was “elegant”. If I wasn’t playing well I was “a big lazy bastard”.’ This lack of appreciation irked Ferguson: Stark worked tirelessly and was a prolific goalscorer. When he scored a hat-trick in a cup tie against Alloa, Ferguson used his post-match press conference to criticise Dons supporters for jeering him. In the very next game, at Dumbarton, Stark scored the opening goal. He said: ‘There was a wee knot of Aberdeen supporters and suddenly I could hear them chanting my name. It was so bleedin’ obvious! Basically Fergie had given them a row and they’d followed the party line.’

  Ferguson appreciated the fact that the majority of his players–Miller, Kennedy, Strachan, McLeish, McGhee, Leighton, Weir, Bell, Rougvie, McMaster–were married with young children. That spared him worries about them being out on the town. The most prominent exceptions were Neale Cooper and Bryan Gunn, the midfielder and goalkeeper, both instantly recognisable for their mops of curly blond hair. Neil Simpson said: ‘He was always getting on to the pair of them. “I know what you were bloody up to this week!” It would be, “Cooper, Gunn…in my office!” He wanted players settled down, eating well, getting rest at the right times.’ Gunn said: ‘We were always getting hauled over the coals for something. “You’ve been seen speaking to my friend’s daughter!”’

  Hairstyles proved a particular source of irritation. When he ordered the younger players not to follow a fashion of the time by having perms done, one of them, teenager Alan Lyons, unwisely did so anyway. Ferguson made him train wearing a balaclava. Cooper and Gunn were inevitable focuses of his attention. After a defeat away to Hibs the squad was ordered in to Pittodrie for a Sunday-morning dressing-down. Gunn said: ‘We were in the boardroom, actually sitting on the floor because there weren’t enough seats. We were the first two he picked on, “Gunn and Cooper, get your hair back to its bloody original colour”. Me and Neale were single so we spent a little bit longer getting our hair done with hairdressers who were quite happy to add a bit of colour now and again. Every so often we would come in with blond streaks. It was always noticed but never mentioned…until the next defeat. Our hair colour got blamed for that defeat at Hibs. It was back to its original colour that afternoon. We had to follow orders.’ Another time Cooper returned from a holiday with highlights. ‘I had this big mop of curly hair. So I walk in and he says, “Take that stupid thing off.” It took me a second to realise he thought I had a wig on. I said, “But this is my hair.” He came over and felt it, then he goes, “Right, up to the hairdressers, get a beige tone put through it.” For a while I was going around with a beige barnet.’

  Cooper was the most effervescent character among all the Aberdeen players, with an infectious laugh and an endearing sense of fun and mischief. As a young boy he had grown up without his father. He had been born and raised in India by his mother and sister until the family moved to Aberdeen when he was two and a half. Ferguson felt protective towards him even if he did more than most to push the boundaries. All the lads called him ‘Tattie’ (as in tattie peel: Neale). Cooper said: ‘You were always feart of Fergie. But he was also a nice guy. I used to get the bus from where my mum lived and he would pass most days. I used to hide behind the bus stop in case he stopped and gave me a lift. He’d listen to Terry Wogan on the radio. The boys would wind me up if they saw me getting out of his car: “teacher’s pet” and all that. But he was very likeable. There was a Celtic game in Glasgow when Tommy Burns smashed me in the face. I had to get my nose re-set. Fergie was straight to the hospital to see me after the game, straight into the theatre, “How’s my boy?”’

  John McMaster savoured the level of attention Ferguson gave him when he was ruled out for a year by the knee injury suffered against Liverpool. The manager ensured McMaster continued to receive the team’s win bonuses while he was out. ‘Fergie looked after me. Brilliant
. He kept encouraging me. He made sure everything was all right with the family.’

  There was, of course, an element of manipulation in such kindness. Not all mind games are intimidating. Now and again he would have a quiet word in a player’s ear to give him the impression he was a little more special than the others. He would tell McMaster: ‘They could have played music to your performance today.’ When he passed Simpson in a corridor he would say: ‘How’s my favourite midfielder doing?’ That alone would leave Simpson with a spring in his step for a day or so. But when Ferguson passed Cooper he would say exactly the same thing. It was years before the two players realised they were both being fed the same line. Similarly, Ferguson would approach a player privately and tell him he had been given a bonus, saying, ‘Here’s a wee bit extra in your wages, but don’t tell anybody, don’t say a word, or they’ll all be chapping my door.’ Joe Miller remembers a ploy Ferguson used as he was going about his chores as a teenaged member of the ground staff. ‘Sometimes Fergie would have a word with you, saying, “You can’t be happy putting his gear out? He’s not half the player you are and you’re here washing his strip and cleaning his boots?” Little did I know he said the same thing to everyone. But it made you feel great.’

  Ferguson’s use of psychology may have been devious, but the camaraderie around Pittodrie was genuine nevertheless. The manager would occasionally be the butt of the joke as well. When he was getting himself fit for the Aberdeen half-marathon he did lap after lap of the pitch, checking his time by glancing at a stopwatch he hung on a nail at the mouth of the tunnel. After one of the laps he saw the stopwatch had been swapped for a calendar, the less-than-subtle implication being that he was far too slow.