Football – Bloody Hell! (34 page)
Read Football – Bloody Hell! Online
Authors: Patrick Barclay
Ferguson, in his autobiography, which was published towards the end of that year, at times referred gracelessly to Kidd. He acknowledged the high value of Kidd’s work for him at United, where the former European champion had graduated from youth development to first-team training with distinction. He made no secret of how he had urged Martin Edwards to improve Kidd’s contract the previous summer, when Kidd had told the chairman he was wanted by Everton as manager. But he was acid in his references to the personality of a man who, it was true, had little in common with Ferguson’s straight-shooting soulmate Archie Knox. For example: ‘When I put to him [Kidd] what Martin Edwards had said, he chuntered on for ages in a manner that had become familiar to me . . .’
Would Ferguson have liked to be the victim of such indiscretion? Almost certainly not. Nor would he have appreciated the interference Glenn Hoddle, as England manager, had to to put up with in the World Cup summer of 1998. Then, Ferguson broke with convention in criticising Hoddle for asking David Beckham to appear at a media conference after he had been dropped for a match against Tunisia. This seemed none of Ferguson’s business, at least in public – if he had deemed it in Manchester United’s interest to console the player, Beckham’s number was in his phone – yet he chose to air his views in a newspaper column. Hoddle described it as unprofessional.
Ferguson’s critique of Kidd was more wounding. He doubted that his long-time assistant was made of management material. However gratuitous, this was not an unreasonable opinion and almost as Ferguson’s book hit the streets, Blackburn’s owner, Jack Walker, came to a similar conclusion. Kidd was sacked.
Ferguson’s own stock could have been no higher after the glory of Barcelona. Picking the team to face Bayern there had been complicated by the suspension of Keane and Scholes, although Keane would probably have missed the match anyway due to an injury sustained when Gary Speed tackled him aggressively in the opening minutes of the FA Cup final. The captain was replaced by Teddy Sheringham, who soon scored the opening goal of a drearily one-sided match against Newcastle; Paul Scholes made it 2-0 in the second half and United became the first club to complete a hat-trick of Doubles.
Even in such an important match, Ferguson managed his resources, starting with Ole Gunnar Solskjær up front instead of Dwight Yorke, who came on for Andy Cole. But Yorke and Cole were always going to take the field for the European climax. Sheringham and Solskjær sat on the bench. Peter Schmeichel, of course, kept goal and, because Ronny Johnsen was fit, the back four picked itself; the others were Gary Neville, Jaap Stam and Denis Irwin.
The problem was how to arrange the midfield without Keane and Scholes; clearly Nicky Butt would take one of the central positions and Ferguson, though he claimed always to have regarded David Beckham as a wide player, gave him the other. He later explained: ‘I wanted him on the ball. I needed a passer in the central midfield and I wasn’t worried about people rushing by Beckham because Jens Jeremies was doing a holding job with Lothar Matthaus and Stefan Effenberg was very much a playmaker, not the type to go bursting past anyone.’
The wide-right role went to Ryan Giggs, with Jesper Blomqvist on the left. ‘The idea was to get some penetration through Giggs beating men, Beckham passing and Blomqvist using his left-foot ability.’ Asked why, of the two left-footers, Giggs, the superior player, was asked to switch, he replied: ‘I didn’t think Blomqvist would have the confidence to play on the right.’ Besides, Giggs could do some damage. ‘Their slowest player was the left-back. Tall lad. Went to Manchester City.’ Michael Tarnat was indeed troubled by Giggs’s pace and trickery. But little else went to Ferguson’s plan.
After only six minutes, Johnsen fouled Carsten Jancker and, after Markus Babbel had craftily manoeuvred Butt out of United’s defensive wall, Mario Basler shot through the gap. And 1–0 was how it looked likely to end when the first substitute appeared in the sixty-seventh minute, Sheringham replacing Blomqvist.
Sheringham was told to play on the left and occupy Babbel as part of the aerial battle; the central defenders, Sammy Kuffour and Thomas Linke, were not especially tall, so there might be some potential there. Giggs changed sides to play behind Sheringham with Beckham on the right and Butt in the middle of a three-man midfield that was almost immediately swamped.
It seemed that Hitzfeld had utterly won the tactical contest because his first substitute, the elegant midfielder Mehmet Scholl, who had come on four minutes after Sheringham, linked with Effenberg to take control. Schmeichel saved from Effenberg but could do nothing when first Scholl cleverly chipped against a post and then Jancker, with an overhead kick, struck the crossbar.
United looked soundly beaten when the clock showed ninety minutes and up went the illuminated board. On it was ‘3’. In the first of those minutes, Schmeichel ran the length of the pitch to meet a corner – without Ferguson’s permission – and caused confusion amid which the ball was miskicked to the edge of the penalty area, where Giggs scuffed what could only have been an attempt at a shot back into the goalmouth for Sheringham, with yet another miscue, to equalise.
An estimated 50,000 United supporters went berserk and somehow everyone suspected that, for the shell-shocked Bayern troops, the worst was not yet over. Injury time would, of course, be extended to allow for the age it had taken the Germans to drag themselves to the centre circle and three minutes and thirty-six seconds had passed when again Beckham whipped the ball in from the left and Sheringham headed on and Solskjær, with whom Ferguson had replaced Cole in the eighty-first minute, instinctively stabbed it high into the net. Cue delirium.
Both Ferguson and Gary Neville found the
mots justes
afterwards. ‘Supernatural,’ said Neville. ‘Football,’ said Ferguson, ‘bloody hell!’ It was indeed one of the most extraordinary manifestations of a game with a mind of its own and, as the celebrations spread through Barcelona, some of us spared a thought for the vanquished. Hitzfeld especially. Had he not been cruelly denied? Ferguson was to consider the point at a distance of some seven years and insist: ‘The people who said we were lucky got it wrong. Bayern, because they hit a post and so on, looked more effective than us, but in those last twenty minutes we had five chances. Five great chances!’
mots justes
afterwards. ‘Supernatural,’ said Neville. ‘Football,’ said Ferguson, ‘bloody hell!’ It was indeed one of the most extraordinary manifestations of a game with a mind of its own and, as the celebrations spread through Barcelona, some of us spared a thought for the vanquished. Hitzfeld especially. Had he not been cruelly denied? Ferguson was to consider the point at a distance of some seven years and insist: ‘The people who said we were lucky got it wrong. Bayern, because they hit a post and so on, looked more effective than us, but in those last twenty minutes we had five chances. Five great chances!’
Not all of them, however, were chronicled by the next issue of the extremely reliable magazine
World Soccer
. Mysteriously, its respected reporter Keir Radnedge mentions only saves by Oliver Kahn from Sheringham and Solskjaer while at the other end woodwork nervously shuddered. Even if you include the goals, you don’t get a total of five chances.
World Soccer
. Mysteriously, its respected reporter Keir Radnedge mentions only saves by Oliver Kahn from Sheringham and Solskjaer while at the other end woodwork nervously shuddered. Even if you include the goals, you don’t get a total of five chances.
As for Hitzfeld’s apparently timely introduction of Scholl: ‘We knew that beforehand. They did it every game in the last twenty minutes, taking Basler and [Alexander] Zickler off and putting on Scholl and [Hasan] Salihamid
ž
i
ć
.’ More convincing was Ferguson’s assertion that Bayern suffered for Hitzfeld’s withdrawal of Matthaus, the vastly experienced team leader, in favour of the centre-back Thorsten Fink in the eightieth minute. ‘Matthaus organised their offside. Scholl replaced him on the post [at corners] and, when the first goal went in, Scholl was late coming out, playing Sheringham onside.’
ž
i
ć
.’ More convincing was Ferguson’s assertion that Bayern suffered for Hitzfeld’s withdrawal of Matthaus, the vastly experienced team leader, in favour of the centre-back Thorsten Fink in the eightieth minute. ‘Matthaus organised their offside. Scholl replaced him on the post [at corners] and, when the first goal went in, Scholl was late coming out, playing Sheringham onside.’
That was the detail with the devil in it. The whole stadium suspected offside. We had all switched our attention to the relevant linesman. ‘So had I,’ said Ferguson. ‘So had Sheringham. But Scholl had played him on.’ Next to Ferguson, Steve McClaren kept his composure and advised a reversion to 4-4-2 for extra time. There was no extra time.
What a Knight
F
erguson had followed in the footsteps of Mr Jock Stein, Sir Matt Busby, Mr Bob Paisley, Mr Brian Clough (and Mr Tony Barton, who had won the European Cup with an Aston Villa team built by Ron Saunders) and, even though, unlike Busby, he had not broken new ground even for his club, his connections made the offer of a knighthood a formality. Indeed, Alastair Campbell had thought ahead and taken advice from the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Richard Wilson. Almost as soon as the final whistle blew, he remembered what to do, and vaulted from his seat into the VIP area at Camp Nou to ask Cathy Ferguson if she thought he would be ‘up for it’.
erguson had followed in the footsteps of Mr Jock Stein, Sir Matt Busby, Mr Bob Paisley, Mr Brian Clough (and Mr Tony Barton, who had won the European Cup with an Aston Villa team built by Ron Saunders) and, even though, unlike Busby, he had not broken new ground even for his club, his connections made the offer of a knighthood a formality. Indeed, Alastair Campbell had thought ahead and taken advice from the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Richard Wilson. Almost as soon as the final whistle blew, he remembered what to do, and vaulted from his seat into the VIP area at Camp Nou to ask Cathy Ferguson if she thought he would be ‘up for it’.
Football was a natural relaxation for Campbell. It dovetailed with his job. He made sure of that, but the FA Cup final between United and Newcastle had been an easy fit because he travelled to Wembley with his sons Rory, who had switched allegiance from Burnley to United after getting to know Ferguson, and Calum in the escorted car of Tony Blair. On the way, the Prime Minister worked on Northern Ireland, having ‘a couple of difficult calls’ with David Trimble and Gerry Adams. At Wembley, after he had socialised with, among others, David Beckham’s wife Victoria, Newcastle’s performance was a disappointment to him.
The crisis in Kosovo, the main issue at the Cabinet meetings of the time because of the deaths of civilians, provided the background as Campbell, with Rory, flew to Barcelona four days later. He put no spin on United’s performance. ‘Bayern should have buried them in the second half,’ he said. When he mentioned the knighthood to Cathy, she was against it, adding: ‘Don’t you think he’s won enough already?’
Campbell left for the airport and made a call to Ferguson himself, who rang back to say that, for him, the question was whether his parents would have approved or not and that, although he would leave the decision until the morning, his inclination was that they would have favoured acceptance.
Later that year, he wrote in his autobiography: ‘When I learned during the summer that I was to receive a knighthood, I had to smile at the thought of how far football had brought me.’ He mused on Govan and hand-me-down football boots – and swore gratitude to Manchester United. A couple of years later, he was inviting offers of alternative employment and refusing to rule out rival English clubs.
Managing to Hurt
B
rian Kidd was not the only victim of Ferguson’s autobiography, but due to events in the time between its composition and publication, he did receive his kicking when he was down. While Steve McClaren had revelled in a pinch-yourself introduction to his old job alongside Ferguson, Blackburn under Kidd had hardly won a match in being relegated and unemployment beckoned.
rian Kidd was not the only victim of Ferguson’s autobiography, but due to events in the time between its composition and publication, he did receive his kicking when he was down. While Steve McClaren had revelled in a pinch-yourself introduction to his old job alongside Ferguson, Blackburn under Kidd had hardly won a match in being relegated and unemployment beckoned.
At least Gordon Strachan was still in the Premier League. Indeed he was celebrating three years in charge of Coventry City with a sequence of four home wins that left them just below mid-table when he read an account of his negotiations with Cologne when at Aberdeen, coupled with an accusation that he had later been less than candid about a conversation with Martin Edwards at United, and Ferguson’s conclusion: ‘I decided that this man could not be trusted an inch.’
Strachan had been prepared for something critical – when he had visited Old Trafford with Coventry the previous season, not even a handshake had been on offer – but this shook him. When I met him at Coventry’s training ground a few weeks later, he said he had tried to avoid the subject with a standard reply (‘It’s sad that Alex cannot use his book solely to celebrate his achievements’) but it rankled because the accusation simply did not stick. ‘He, of all people, should know I can be trusted.’
He and Strachan, of course, went back longer than most. Strachan recalled the days when Ferguson had that tape of the awful Glaswegian singer played on the team bus and even confessed to being the player who hurled it off. ‘So maybe I can’t be trusted after all,’ Strachan sneered. That may have been his anger surfacing, for he later admitted it was someone else. He also spoke of the agent Bernd Killat, who did work for them both. He referred to the friendship between his wife, Lesley, and Cathy Ferguson, who, by Ferguson’s own account, had been left to bring up three boys virtually alone.
At times, inevitably, Cathy had been near the end of her tether, requiring sympathy and understanding, and, when her husband was not there, Lesley Strachan had not been slow to rally round. So Lesley was hurt, too.
But Strachan spoke less in anger than sorrow. ‘It’s a shame,’ he said of his relationship with Ferguson. ‘Ever since I left Old Trafford we’ve had arguments, niggles, bits and bobs, and I’d love it if we could just start again. With his confrontational style, I suppose this sort of thing is always liable to happen. But it’s a real pity. To be able to greet each other and talk about the old times would be wonderful.’
Strachan had to wait several years for that. His fifth season at Coventry ended with the club’s relegation after thirty-four years in the top division. He then revived Southampton, guiding them to eighth place and the FA Cup final, before quitting and taking a sabbatical, from which he emerged to take charge of Celtic in June 2005. Under him, they won three championships in a row and it was when United came to Parkhead for a friendly that Strachan seized an opportunity for rapprochement. ‘Can I have a word with you?’ he asked, and before Ferguson had left his room there was an understanding.
‘Now, when we meet, we can talk fitba’,’ said Strachan (this was in the summer of 2009, before he came out of another period of rest to join Middlesbrough). ‘We don’t hug – it’s not his style – but we can have a laugh and a chat.’ Strachan smiled. ‘It’s fine.’
Only then did I discover that, a few years after Ferguson had labelled him untrustworthy, Strachan had been approached by Michael Crick in connection with the book Crick was preparing about Ferguson. He declined the interview in case Crick was ‘looking for dirt’ (although Ferguson was to speak nothing but ill of
The Boss
, it turned out to be a fair and not unduly aggressive book). Never had Strachan been interested in opportunities to retaliate in kind.
The Boss
, it turned out to be a fair and not unduly aggressive book). Never had Strachan been interested in opportunities to retaliate in kind.
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