Fergie Rises: How Britain's Greatest Football Manager Was Made At Aberdeen by Michael Grant (Aurum Press 2014)

 

Aberdeen made it back to the League Cup final, which was brought forward to December. The feeling in Scottish football was that they had done the hard part simply by reaching Hampden. They had won all four cup ties against Rangers and Celtic with an aggregate score of 9–3. Indeed, the quarter-final against Celtic at Pittodrie saw a demonstration of virtuoso finishing by Steve Archibald and evidence of how unpredictable and pragmatic Ferguson could be when wayward characters were useful to him. Archibald scored a hat-trick and defied Ferguson’s instructions by taking the match ball home as a souvenir. He was a strong character and a law unto himself, but he rubbed along with Ferguson even though the potential for conflict was never far from the surface. When Ferguson found out about the ball he called Archibald into his office and ordered him to return it. The following day he was sitting in the coaches’ room with Pat Stanton and Teddy Scott, drinking tea and chatting, when the door burst open. Archibald shouted: ‘There’s your fucking ball’ and booted it hard into the small room. The three of them ducked and spilled tea over the floor as it ricocheted around. Others would have been crucified, but no action was taken against Archibald. ‘That was Steve,’ said Ferguson.

Intelligent, strong-willed, capricious, and ambitious: the blond, tousle-haired Archibald shared many of the manager’s own characteristics. He turned up to moan about one thing or another so often that Ferguson said there was ‘an Archibald chair’ in his office. ‘Stevie liked to have his say and Fergie liked that about him,’ said Stanton. ‘He’d probably have done it himself when he was a player because he was volatile too. He recognised something of himself in Stevie. He didn’t want his players to be wee choirboys. Even when he was angry with Stevie he appreciated where he was coming from. They had respect for each other.’ Archibald also happened to be a dashing, reliable goalscorer with great instincts and reactions. He gave Aberdeen real menace.

Sir Alex Ferguson: Never Give In (2021)

 

Class of '92 (2013)

The Second Half by Roy Keane (with Roddy Doyle) (Wiedenfeld & Nicolson 2014)

We brought in some players in January. Carlos Edwards, from Luton; Anthony Stokes, from Arsenal; and Jonny Evans – we got Jonny on loan from Manchester United. They were all good signings, brilliant, and just what we needed. One of the reasons they worked, I think, is because I knew a bit about them, beyond the stats – something about their personalities.

Carlos had played against us when we beat Luton earlier in the season, and I’d seen what a good player he was. He gave us a right-sided midfielder. He had pace, and he could get us up the pitch; we could counter-attack away from home.

Jonny was a centre-half. He had the qualities of a Manchester United player, and he was bringing them to Sunderland. For such a young man – he was nineteen – he was very mature, and a born leader. Jonny was unbelievable for us. He lived with his mam and dad in Sale, near my home, so I picked him up there and brought him up to see the set-up at Sunderland. I knew I was on a winner; I knew him, and I knew what he was about. I remembered an incident when I was still at United; there’d been a fight in the canteen and Jonny had looked after himself well – I think he knocked the other lad out. I knew Jonny was tough.

Stokesy got us vital goals towards the end of the season. He was a good signing for us, because there’d been a lot of competition for him. Celtic and Charlton, who were still in the Premiership then, were after him. So signing Stokesy sent out another message: we could compete with other clubs. I spoke to Stokesy’s dad and, for some reason, he thought I’d be able to keep his son on the straight and narrow – because Stokesy was a bit of a boy.

Football – Bloody Hell! The Biography of Alex Ferguson by Patrick Barclay (Yellow Jersey Press 2010)

And there was politics.
Michael Crick, the distinguished broadcaster, journalist, United fan and chronicler of Ferguson's life, once described his politics thus: 'Like Alastair Campbell's, Ferguson's socialism is pragmatic: like a committed football fan, his prime concern is to see the team win.' To that I should add that he is tribal. His responses are less those of an intellectual than a partisan. In an interview with Campbell for the New Statesman in 2009, he declared: 'I grew up believing Labour was the party of the working man, and I still believe that.' The first reader to respond emailed from Glasgow: 'Ferguson is remembering a dream.'

The Case of Comrade Ferguson

I was momentarily taken with the idea of Fergie's alleged Trotskyist-Anarchism but, all in all, Louise Taylor's article in yesterday's Guardian - where she attempts to draw parallels between Alex Ferguson's ever changing line up and tactical formations at Man Utd these past nine years (since they last won the European Cup) and Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution - is a bit of a stretch.

*Man Utd, through to the Champions League final, will be playing Chelski in Moscow. Geddit? Not really. I always associated Trotsky more with St Petersburg/Petrograd.*

The article does however beg one question: which Trot group was Louise once a member of? (Who else would reach into their bag of journalistic tricks and comes up clutching Lev Bronstein and his Perm Rev?)

The conspiracy theorists over at the comments section of the Guardian footie blogs maintain that Louise is a partisan Sunderland fan. That doesn't help me when trying to second guess her former political affiliations. Sunderland has never fertile soil for the generals without armies down the years.

I'll hazard a guess that Louise is ex-SWP, but only if she is graduate of Durham University.

Hat tip to Normblog.