Football – Bloody Hell! (46 page)

Read Football – Bloody Hell! Online

Authors: Patrick Barclay

BOOK: Football – Bloody Hell!
7.94Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
The truth was that the FA’s so-called ‘Respect’ campaign, to which Benítez alluded, was having a coach and horses repeatedly driven through it by a leading light of the League Managers’ Association, which had pledged full support to this worthy attempt to improve behaviour towards referees and linesmen at every level of the game.
Was Ferguson always setting a good example to the young and impressionable? Amid all the scorn he expressed for aspects of the young society around him – tattoos, earrings, self-adulation – there was seldom a glimmer of self-recognition or acceptance of any personal contribution to change or decay. While maintaining admirable discipline at Manchester United, did his behaviour towards authority undermine that very quality in the world outside the stockade that was always fundamental to his professional
modus operandi
? And, finally, did the more extreme elements of his workplace behaviour ever infinge the principles supplied to him in that Govan youth? The answer to each question would have to be a guarded ‘Yes’.
It was Mark McGhee, Ferguson’s first signing for Aberdeen and as perspicacious a man as any to whom I have spoken in connection with this book, who confirmed the impression that Ferguson’s life has been, in essence, a quest to please his father. ‘I think he would feel he is proving himself to his father more than anything else,’ said McGhee. ‘I think he would want to prove to his father that he could maintain his standards. Everyone who gets close to him feels that, if you are performing badly, you are letting
him
down and I think he doesn’t want to let his family down. It’s a very working-class ethic.’
If a thing’s worth doing, said Alexander Ferguson Senior, it’s worth doing well. Sir Alex Ferguson has done football management so extraordinarily well for so long that his life in the game is not only unprecedented but, in near-certainty, unrepeatable.
Discipline and good manners were also in the family tradition. Along with something else. And, before we come to that, let it be said with utter confidence that, if Alexander Ferguson Senior were here to be asked what he felt of his elder son’s life, he would – after manifesting a reluctance to be boastful or effusive – express nothing but pride.
But, then, the Fergusons always did believe in loyalty.
Bibliography
Auclair, Philippe,
Cantona: The Rebel Who Would Be King
(Macmillan, 2009)
Bose, Mihir,
Manchester DisUnited: And the Business of Soccer
(Aurum Press, 2007)
Campbell, Alastair,
The Blair Years: Extracts from the Alastair Campbell Diaries
(Hutchinson, 2007)
Charlton, Sir Bobby,
My Manchester United Years
(Headline, 2007)
Cole, Ashley,
My Defence: Winning, Losing, Scandals and the Drama of Germany
2006 (Headline, 2006)
Crick, Michael,
The Boss: The Many Sides of Alex Ferguson
(Simon & Schuster, 2002)
Crick, Michael, and David Smith,
Manchester United: The Betrayal of a Legend
(Pelham Books, 1989)
Ferguson, Alex,
A Light in the North: Seven Years with Aberdeen
(Mainstream Publishing, 1985)
Ferguson, Alex,
Alex Ferguson: Managing My Life
(Hodder & Stoughton, 1999)
Holt, Oliver,
If You’re Second You Are Nothing: Ferguson and Shankly
(Macmillan, 2006)
Kelly, Ned,
Manchester United: The Untold Story
(Michael O’Mara Books, 2003)
Macintyre, Donald,
Mandelson: The Biography
(HarperCollins, 2000)
Marr, Andrew,
A History of Modern Britain
(Macmillan, 2007)
McIlvanney, Hugh,
McIlvanney on Football
(Mainstream Publishing, 1996)
Mitten, Andy,
Glory! Glory!
(Vision Sports Publishing, 2009)
Strachan, Gordon,
Strachan: My life in Football
(Little, Brown, 2006)
Strachan, Gordon, with Jack Webster,
Gordon Strachan: An Autobiography
(Stanley Paul, 1984)
Taylor, Daniel,
This Is the One. Sir Alex Ferguson: The Uncut Story of a Football Genius
(Aurum Press, 2007)

Other books

She Has Your Eyes by Lorello, Elisa
Wolf Line by Vivian Arend
Warrior's Cross by Madeleine Urban, Abigail Roux
The Overlooker by Fay Sampson
Tigger by Susanne Haywood
Sweet Ginger Poison by Robert Burton Robinson
Hold Tight by Harlan Coben
Mr and Mischief by Kate Hewitt