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Authors: Patrick Barclay

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I
f fate guided Ferguson to Manchester United, it was Sir Bobby Charlton who kept its fickle finger steady.
Having survived the Munich crash in February 1958 and won the World Cup with England eight years later, then become a European champion with United two years after that, Charlton was football’s most famous Englishman, a distinction he was to retain until the rise of David Beckham.
He was not alone in identifying a prospective new Busby, for the Old Trafford chairman, Martin Edwards, had also been monitoring Ferguson’s career. But Charlton was the first United director to make a semblance of an approach.
Ferguson mentions it in his book but, despite Ron Atkinson’s suspicions, it fell short of the improper. It is understandable that Atkinson, who was to begin the next season in charge, should have felt miffed upon learning of it, but he himself had vaguely offered to go a few months earlier, towards the end of a season whose rich promise had faded dramatically; there was a succession issue to be addressed.
And all Charlton said to Ferguson, while attending a Scotland training session in Mexico as part of his duties as a television analyst during the World Cup of 1986, was that, if he ever fancied moving south, a call would be appreciated.
Charlton had always taken an interest in Scottish football; it was natural, he said, for one brought up only a few dozen miles from the border (he and his brother Jack came from the pit village of Ashington, County Durham). His understanding of what it had taken Ferguson to defeat the Old Firm was acute and he followed up his interest in conversations with the United defender Arthur Albiston at the Scots’ training camp. ‘I never thought much about it at the time,’ said Albiston, ‘but Bobby kept asking what the training was like and so on.’
Not that Edwards needed much convincing by Charlton; his opinion of Ferguson had only been enhanced by the manner in which the Aberdeen manager had done business over Strachan. ‘There was a general agreement on the board that Alex was the outstanding candidate,’ he said.
Edwards remembered being impressed when Ferguson criticised the Aberdeen players on television after they had won the Scottish Cup final. Although Ferguson regretted that, Edwards said: ‘His fury showed the sort of standards he set. Just to win was not good enough. He wanted to win in style.’ The Manchester United way? ‘Well, we were to see plenty of it in his time with us.’
Edwards was no Dick Donald. Not only was he two years younger than Ferguson; the game he had preferred to play, as a consequence of his middle-class education, was rugby union. He had been on the board since 1970 and succeeded his father, Louis Edwards, as chairman in 1980. Louis had become wealthy through meat packaging but died after a hostile television programme about his business ethics which extended to United and an alleged slush fund out of which the parents of promising youngsters were paid.
Martin, too, had his critics, mainly supporters who suspected his heart was not in the club. But his affection for United and its traditions was genuine.
Only a year into his chairmanship, an obligation fell upon him to oversee the dismissal of the manager, Dave Sexton, despite a sequence of seven consecutive wins that had left United in eighth place at the end of the season – the style of football was deemed unattractive, prompting the
Daily Express
to rename the stadium ‘Cold Trafford’ – and the search for a replacement proved embarrassing in that Lawrie McMenemy, Bobby Robson and Ron Saunders all publicly declined the job. Edwards learned from that and went about getting Ferguson more skilfully.
The idea of there being a vacancy had occurred only towards the end of the previous season, which Atkinson’s side had begun as runaway League leaders, looking ready to dominate the English game. They won their first ten matches with Bryan Robson, Mark Hughes and Gordon Strachan to the fore, but were flattering to deceive. The slump was more dramatic than could be excused by injuries afflicting Robson and his midfield sidekick Remi Moses, plus Strachan and Jesper Olsen. United finished fourth.
Edwards and Atkinson agreed to give things another go but, as Arthur Albiston recalled, they went from bad to worse. Hughes had been sold to Barcelona. ‘Also, in fairness to Ron,’ said Albiston, ‘a few of us had come back from the World Cup unfit. Including me – I ended up having a stomach operation after Alex Ferguson took over. And of course Robbo had put his shoulder out with England in Mexico.
‘But we had a big enough squad to have coped better than we did. We were terrible. I remember playing Charlton Athletic and being up against a young Rob Lee. He knocked the ball past me and, feeling my stomach muscle, I took about ten minutes to turn and go after him. God almighty! I could hear the crowd gasping in horror.’
On Saturday 1st of November 1986, a home draw with Coventry left United nineteenth out of twenty-two clubs. It was relegation form.
On Tuesday the 4th, they went to Southampton for a League Cup replay and were beaten 4-1. The game was up. On the private flight back north, Edwards and his fellow director Mike Edelson resolved to replace Atkinson with Ferguson. The only other candidate mentioned was Terry Venables.
On Wednesday the 5th, Edwards gathered the other key board members – Charlton and the lawyer Maurice Watkins – and there was unanimity.
Edelson rang Aberdeen and, faking a Scottish accent, pretended to be Strachan’s accountant in order to get through to Ferguson. He then handed the phone to Edwards, who gave Ferguson a Manchester number to ring. Was he interested? Yes. Could everyone meet that night in Scotland, somewhere safe from prying eyes? Yes. Ferguson would ring back in an hour.
Meanwhile, he spoke to Archie Knox and, with less relish, to Cathy, whom he knew would be upset at the thought of uprooting herself and the boys; she did not surprise him. He also rang his journalist confidant Jim Rodger for advice about handling media interest.
Then he gave Edwards the meeting place – and, fortunately for all concerned, no prying eyes were to swivel across the car park at Hamilton service station on the M74 south of Glasgow at 7 p.m., when Edwards slipped out of his car into Ferguson’s, leaving Edelson and Charlton to follow them to the home of Ferguson’s sister-in-law in the Glasgow suburb of Bishopbriggs.
There, the questions became harder.
What was the salary? Disappointing. Less than he would make in a good year at Aberdeen. Less than those of most of the star players he had been hired to lead. A lot less than Robson’s (and less, Ferguson would have known, than Strachan’s). Less (though he could hardly have known this at the time) than the £80,000 Edwards got as chief executive. But enough to start with. There was no haggling.
Would he have a transfer budget? At a push, replied Edwards, a small amount might be found. If Ferguson had expected the promised land, he was disappointed. But he was never going to turn his back on Old Trafford.
Was there a drink problem among the squad? Yes, replied Edwards.
Ferguson had not plucked this question out of the air. He and Strachan had kept in touch and the curse of the working classes was, indeed, only too evident in the middle-class Cheshire villages where Atkinson’s players tended to live. Bryan Robson played a captain’s role, leading by example, though the enthusiasm of Paul McGrath and Norman Whiteside for a drinking session could never be questioned.
Ferguson was acutely aware of it. ‘In the phone calls he made to me almost weekly,’ he wrote in his autobiography, ‘Gordon Strachan kept telling me the word in Manchester was that I would be the next manager. There was not the merest hint of an official approach to support these stories and I was left musing on some of Gordon’s comments on how the great club was being run. He cited . . . the drinking that was going on among the players and the alleged indifference of Big Ron to its damaging effects.’
According to Strachan, it was usually Ferguson and not he who made the calls, but they were not sinister. ‘We’d chat,’ said Strachan. ‘He’d ask me how I was getting on, what the training was like and about the players and so on. Later the word got about that I’d been a sort of spy for him.
‘I do remember telling him that some of the lads, including Bryan Robson, liked a drink – but I would never have said that if I’d known he was coming down to be their manager. I was just talking to my ex-manager as a friend.’
Edwards confirmed Strachan’s view at the meeting in Bishopbriggs and before that night of the 5th of November was over – remember, remember – and the bonfires turned to glowing ash, the negotiations became decidedly less professional.
We can only imagine how Edwards felt when Ferguson asked if United would buy his house in Cults to save him the trouble and possible financial loss involved in a quick sale, or if they would clear his debt to Aberdeen, which had risen to £40,000 (if he had been as astute a gambler on shares and horses as on footballers, it might have been different). In each case the answer was firmly negative and Ferguson can never have accepted defeat more philosophically. Hands were shaken.
On Thursday the 6th, Edwards and Maurice Watkins flew to Aberdeen to meet Dick Donald and his son Ian and compensation of £60,000 was agreed for the loss of Ferguson and Archie Knox, to whom Donald had vainly offered the opportunity to stay in sole charge. They told Ron Atkinson he had lost his job, and the press, who were then called to Old Trafford for the announcement of Ferguson’s appointment.
Strictly speaking, United should have sacked Atkinson, approached Donald for permission to speak to Ferguson and only then made him an offer. But a football club, as United had discovered while trying to fill Dave Sexton’s shoes, cannot function that way with dignity. ‘So we broke the rules,’ Edwards said, ‘by a day.’
Drinking to the Past
T
he speed of the operation to recruit Ferguson left the players acutely inquisitive about the character of their new manager. ‘They went to wee Gordon first,’ said Arthur Albiston, ‘and he kept shtum.’ This was almost certainly mischievous; other players remember Strachan’s expressions clearly hinting at imminent fireworks. ‘So they asked me,’ continued Albiston, ‘because they knew I’d been with Scotland too. I was quite pleased by the appointment and told them so. I said he was very organised and very fair. If you crossed him, you were in trouble. If you tried your best, you’d have no problem.’
Strachan harboured a mixture of emotions: ‘One, he was a top manager and just what the club needed at the time. There was so much potential – it just needed discipline and organisation. But I’d heard it all before. I’d worked with him for seven years. I was delighted for him, delighted for Manchester United – but not sure it was for me.’
Ferguson spent one last night in Aberdeen. As he turned his mind to his new players – he was to meet them the next day, the Friday – most of them partied. Even though their first match under his management, away to Oxford United in an elite division of which their membership was threatened, was to take place in less than forty-eight hours. They were in two groups. Some were invited to Atkinson’s house. Others made their own arrangements.
The morning saw them gather in the gym at United’s training ground, The Cliff, to be addressed by Ferguson. He was probably the most apprehensive man in the room. This was not St Mirren, or even Aberdeen. There were some big names facing him – and they included the biggest drinkers. It was his job to tell them they were selling themselves and the club short. Nice guys like Albiston wished him well.
Ferguson recalled: ‘They must have thought I had little to say for myself and, if they supposed it was all a bit nerve-wracking for me, they were right.’ They did notice. As Albiston said: ‘He was more nervous than I’d seen him with Scotland. He just said he was disappointed – and surprised – that we were in such a lowly position.’
They were fourth from bottom. And they dropped one place after losing at Oxford. Albiston remembered travelling to the cramped Manor Ground and seeing more cameras than usual. United lost 2-0. ‘Never got started,’ said Albiston. ‘And I think the manager was surprised that, in English football at that time, your Oxfords, Lutons and Wimbledons could give the likes of United a good game. In fact, I think it shocked him. It was harder for the bigger clubs than it might have looked from Scotland.’
He was dismayed by proof of his players’ poor fitness and, fortified by righteous indignation, assembled them in the gym again for a more resonant message: they would have to change their ways, especially on the drinking front – ‘because I wasn’t going to change mine’.
The lesson in English football’s egalitarianism was underlined at Norwich, where a goalless draw left United a further place lower, one off the bottom, and before long a 1-0 loss at Wimbledon, whose direct, muscular and nakedly belligerent football was to win the FA Cup eighteen months later, removed from Ferguson’s mind all doubt that his team lacked the height and power to meet such challenges.
At least they had picked up their first win under Ferguson, beating Queens Park Rangers in his first match at Old Trafford through a goal from John Sivebæk.
Ferguson had only three days to savour this before hearing news he had been dreading. When he made his daily telephone call to his mother in Glasgow, she did not answer and it transpired that she had been taken to hospital. A few months earlier, Lizzie Ferguson, a smoker since her early teens, had been diagnosed with lung cancer. Ferguson, after ringing Cathy in Aberdeen, flew to Glasgow, to be told by the specialist that his mother had days to live.

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