Ferguson, Alex - Alex Ferguson My Autobiography

‘Dad, you’re deaf. You’re imagining it,’ I called back, and dried myself off, thinking nothing of it. Half an hour later the news flashed up. He had been taken to Parklands Hospital.

I always remember, at the dancing, at the Flamingo, near Govan, hearing the song that went to No. 1: ‘Would You Like to Swing on A Star?’ The atmosphere was muted. Instead of dancing we sat upstairs and talked about the murder.

For a young lad like me, Kennedy captured the imagination. He was a good-looking boy and there was a certain spark about him. It resonated that someone as fresh and dynamic as him could become president. Though he stayed in my consciousness, as a defining figure, my interest in the assassination developed along an unexpected route when I was invited to speak at a dinner in Stoke by Brian Cartmel.

Stanley Matthews and Stan Mortensen were both present, along with Jimmy Armfield, and I remember thinking: ‘What am I doing here, with all these great players? Surely they’d prefer to listen to Stanley Matthews rather than me?’

But during the dinner, Brian asked me, ‘What are your hobbies?’

‘I don’t have time for hobbies,’ I said. I was obsessed with United. ‘I have a snooker table in the house, I like a round of golf and I like watching movies at home.’

He pulled out a card. ‘My son has a firm in London, he gets all the early releases. Any time you want a film, give him a call.’

The previous night I had been to the pictures in Wilmslow to see JFK . ‘Are you interested in that?’ asked Brian. By then I had assembled several books on the shooting. ‘I was in the fifteenth car in the motorcade,’ Brian said. There we were in The Potteries and this guy was telling me he had been in the JFK motorcade.

‘How?’

‘I was a Daily Express journalist. I emigrated to San Francisco and worked for Time magazine,’ he said. ‘I applied to the Kennedy administration in 1958 to work on the election.’ Brian had been on the plane when Johnson was sworn in as president.

That personal connection drew me deeper in. I started going to auctions. A lad from America who had read about my interest in the subject sent me the autopsy report. I kept a couple of photographs at the training ground – one I bought in an auction, and another that was given to me. I also bought the Warren Commission report signed by Gerald Ford at auction. That cost me $3,000.

When Cathy and I went back to the States in 1991 for our wedding anniversary we travelled to Chicago, San Francisco, Hawaii, Las Vegas and on to friends in Texas, with New York at the finish. We went most years after that. My book collecting gathered pace. The definitive biography of John Kennedy is probably Robert Dallek’s An Unfinished Life, John F. Kennedy 1917–1963 . That’s an exceptional book. Dallek had access to Kennedy’s medical files and showed that he was a walking miracle, with Addison’s disease and liver problems.

In the three years of his presidency, plenty of battles came his way, with the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, for which he took the blame, as well as segregation, the Cold War, Vietnam and the Cuban missile crisis. Medicare was another rumbling issue, as it is today. It was some workload. Here’s an aside that casts light on the importance of the world’s favourite game. Later, in 1969, do you know how the CIA realised the Soviets were at work in Cuba? Football pitches. Aerial shots of football pitches laid out by Soviet workers. The Cubans didn’t play football. Henry Kissinger was European in temperament and understood that.

My reading on the Kennedys brought me into contact with some wonderful literature: David Halberstam’s The Best and the Brightest stands out. It concentrates on the reasons for going into Vietnam, and the lies the Kennedy brothers were told. Even Robert McNamara, US Secretary of Defense and a friend of the family, was misleading them. He apologised, in retirement, to the Kennedy family

On our summer tour of America in 2010, I visited Gettysburg and went to lunch at Princeton University with James M. McPherson, the great Civil War historian who wrote Battle Cry of Freedom . I was also shown round the White House. My fascination with the Civil War started when somebody gave me a book about the generals in that conflict. Both sides had dozens. Teachers were made generals. Gordon Brown asked me one day what I was reading about. ‘The Civil War,’ I said. Gordon said he would send me some tapes. Soon I was taking delivery of 35 recordings of lectures by Gary Gallagher, who went on to work with James McPherson on the role of the navy in the war, a largely untold story.

Then along came horse racing, another great passion, another outlet. Martin Edwards, the former chairman, had called me one day to say, ‘You should take a day off.’

‘I’m all right,’ I replied.

But I was at the stage where Cathy was saying, ‘You’re going to kill yourself.’ At home, after work, I would be on the phone until 9 o’clock at night and thinking about football every minute.

I bought my first horse in 1996. On our 30th anniversary we went to Cheltenham, where I first met that fantastic man, John Mulhern, the Irish trainer, for lunch. That night I joined them in London for dinner. Inevitably I found myself saying to Cathy in the aftermath, ‘Do you fancy buying a horse? I think it’ll be a release for me.’

‘Where did you get that one from?’ she said. ‘Alex – the problem with you is that you’ll want to buy every bloody horse.’

But it did open this release valve for me. Instead of stagnating in my office or burning time in endless telephone conversations, I could switch my thoughts to the Turf. It was a welcome distraction from the gruelling business of football – and that’s why I threw myself into it, to enable me to escape the obsession with my job. Winning two Grade 1 races with What A Friend has been a highlight. The Lexus Chase and the Aintree Bowl. The day before the Aintree race, we had been beaten by Bayern Munich in the Champions League. One minute my head was on the floor. The next day I was winning a Grade 1 race at Liverpool.

My first horse, Queensland Star, was named after a ship my dad worked on and helped to build. Trainers have told me of owners who’ve never had a winner. I’ve had 60 or 70 and I now have shares in around 30 horses. I’m very keen on the Highclere Syndicate: Harry Herbert, who runs it, is a great personality and a fine salesman. You know exactly what’s happening with the horses, with information every day.

Rock of Gibraltar was a wonderful horse; he became the first in the northern hemisphere to win seven consecutive Group 1 races, beating Mill Reef’s record. He ran in my colours under an agreement I had with the Coolmore racing operation in Ireland. My understanding was that I had a half share in the ownership of the horse; theirs was that I would be entitled to half the prize money. But it was resolved. The matter was closed when we reached a settlement agreeing that there had been a misunderstanding on both sides.

Obviously there was a potential clash between my racing interests and the ownership of the club, and when a man stood up at the AGM and insisted I resign there was awkwardness for me. I have to say that at no point was I sidetracked from my duties as manager of Manchester United. I have an excellent family lawyer in Les Dalgarno and he managed the process on my behalf. It didn’t affect my love of racing and I am on good terms now with John Magnier, the leading figure at Coolmore.

Racing taught me to switch off, along with reading books and buying wine. That side of my life developed really from 1997, when I hit that wall and realised I needed to do something else to divert my thoughts from football. Learning about wine also helped in that respect. I started buying with Frank Cohen, a big collector of contemporary art and a neighbour of mine. When Frank went abroad for a while, I started buying on my own.