Ferguson, Alex - Alex Ferguson My Autobiography

Then I have my despots section. What interested me here were the extremes to which humanity will go. Young Stalin , Simon Sebag Montefiore; the dictators – Stalin and Hitler, and Lenin; World War II: Behind Closed Doors by Laurence Rees; Stalingrad and Berlin: The Downfall 1945 by Antony Beevor.

On a lighter note I can pull out Edmund Hillary and David Niven. Then it’s back to the dark side with crime: the Krays and the American Mafia.

I was so immersed in sport in my working life that I tended not to read many books about sport. But there are a few touchstones on the shelves. Reading When Pride Still Mattered , the David Maraniss biography of Vince Lombardi, the great Green Bay Packers coach, I was thinking: ‘That’s me he’s writing about, I’m just like Lombardi.’ The obsession. I could identify closely with one of Lombardi’s greatest sayings: ‘We didn’t lose the game, we just ran out of time.’

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I WAS at home on a snowy January night in 2010 when my phone beeped with a text message. ‘I don’t know whether you remember me,’ it started, ‘but I need to call you.’ Ruud van Nistelrooy. Christ, what was this? I said to Cathy, ‘He left four years ago.’ Cathy’s reply: ‘What’s he wanting? Maybe he’d like to come back to United.’

‘No, don’t be silly,’ I told her.

I had no idea what it might be. But I texted him back: OK. So he rang. First, the small talk. Had some injuries, fit now, not getting a game, blah blah. Then he came out with it. ‘I want to apologise for my behaviour in my last year at United.’

I like people who can apologise. I’ve always admired that. In the modern culture of self-absorption, people forget there is such a word as sorry. Footballers are cocooned by the manager and the club, the media, agents, or pals who just tell then how flipping good they are. It’s refreshing to find one who can pick up a phone much later and say, ‘I was wrong, and I’m sorry.’

Ruud offered no explanation. Perhaps I should have taken that chance to say, ‘Why did it go that way?’

Mulling over Ruud’s call to me, that winter night, I knew that two or three Premier League clubs were looking at him, but couldn’t see that being a reason for him wanting to speak to me. There would have been no need for him to repair his relationship with Manchester United in order for him to play for another club in England. Perhaps it was a guilt complex. It might have been playing on his mind for ages. Ruud was doubtless a more mature person by that stage.

The first sign of trouble in our relationship had been that Ruud had started to mouth off all the time to Carlos Queiroz about Ronaldo. There were a few stand-up confrontations, but nothing unmanageable. Then Ruud switched his fire to Gary Neville. Gary was ready for that and won the battle. David Bellion was another who seemed to arouse anger in Ruud. There were quite a few altercations all the way through his final season with us, but it was mainly Van Nistelrooy on Ronaldo.

At the end of the previous season, 2004–05, we had reached the final of the FA Cup, against Arsenal. Van Nistelrooy had a horrible game. The previous Wednesday his agent, Rodger Linse, had sought out David Gill and asked for a move. ‘Ruud wants to leave.’

David pointed out that we had a Cup final on the Saturday, and that perhaps this wasn’t the best moment for our main centre-forward to ask to leave. David asked why he wanted to go. Rodger Linse’s reply was that Van Nistelrooy thought the team had stagnated and didn’t believe we could win the Champions League. His view was that we couldn’t win the European Cup with young players – the likes of Rooney and Ronaldo.

After the Cup final, David called Rodger and asked him to get Ruud in for a meeting with me. Our position was strong because Real Madrid were not going to pay £35 million for him. That was obvious. And it was the reason, I believe, why Ruud was asking to leave. Had Real Madrid been willing to come up with £35 million, there would have been no need for him to push for a move. He was hoping to bargain with the club to find a fee United would find acceptable. Silly idea.

So we had our meeting. His stance was that he wasn’t prepared to wait for Ronaldo and Rooney to mature. ‘But they’re great players,’ I told him. ‘You should be leading these young players. Helping them.’ Ruud still said he didn’t want to wait.

‘Look, we’re going to sign players in the summer to bring us back to our usual level,’ I said. ‘We don’t like losing finals, we don’t like losing the League. When you build teams you have to be patient. Not just me, but the players, too. This is going to be a good team.’ He accepted my argument and we shook hands.

In that season we had signed Vidić and Evra in the January transfer window. Indirectly, those two acquisitions were to ignite the biggest flashpoint in all the time Ruud was with us. In the Carling Cup I had been playing Louis Saha all the way through. When we reached the final I said to Ruud, ‘Look, it’s not fair if I don’t play Saha. I know you like to play in finals. Hopefully I can get you a bit of the game.’ I did say that, no doubt about it.

We were on cruise control against Wigan and I saw an ideal opportunity to give Evra and Vidić a taste of the game. They were my final substitutions. I turned to Ruud and said: ‘I’m going to give these two lads a part of the game.’ They were going to get a touch, a smell of winning something with Manchester United. ‘You —,’ said Van Nistelrooy. I’ll always remember that. Could not believe it. Carlos Queiroz turned on him. It became fractious in the dug-out. The other players were telling him: ‘Behave yourself.’

But that was the end of him. I knew we would never get him back. He’d burned his boats. After that incident, his behaviour became worse and worse.

In the final week of that campaign we needed to win the last game of the season, against Charlton. With Saha’s injuries we were walking on eggshells with him. However, I didn’t feel I could select Ruud.

Carlos went to Ruud’s room and said, ‘We’re not taking you, go home. The way you’ve behaved all week – we’re not having it.’

Ronaldo had recently lost his father. During that week, Ruud had taken a kick at Ronaldo on the training ground and said: ‘What are you going to do? Complain to your daddy?’ He meant Carlos, not Cristiano’s dad. He probably wasn’t thinking. So then Ronaldo was upset, and wanting to have a go at Van Nistelrooy, and Carlos was upset by the insult. Carlos had looked after Ronaldo, as you would expect. He’s a coach with Portuguese origins, from the same country. Here was a young man with a dying father. If he couldn’t ask for help from Carlos, who could he seek it from?

The whole episode was very sad. Why Ruud changed, I don’t know. I can’t say for sure whether it was his way of getting himself out of Old Trafford. It didn’t do him any favours or bring him any credit in the sense of respect from the other players.

It was a pity because his numbers were sensational. He was one of our club’s greatest goal-scorers. Problems first surfaced after his second season, when he was up for a new contract, in accordance with his original deal. He asked for a clause that would allow him to leave for Real Madrid, specifically, in the event of Real offering a specified sum. A buy-out clause. I pondered this one for a long time. My feeling was that, without that concession, Van Nistelrooy would not have signed his name. Conversely, to concede that ground would give him a controlling hand. We ran the risk of losing him the following season.