Ferguson, Alex - Alex Ferguson My Autobiography

‘Open that door,’ shouts Jock.

‘No, you’ll hurt me,’ replies Jimmy.

‘Open that door!’ repeats Jock. ‘I warn you.’

Jimmy opens the door and jumps straight into the bath, which is red hot.

Jock shouts: ‘Come out of there.’

‘No, I’m not coming out,’ says Jimmy. Outside, on the pitch, the game is still going on.

Football management is a never-ending sequence of challenges. So much of it is a study in the frailty of human beings. There was an occasion when a number of Scotland players, after a night of liquid entertainment, decided to jump in rowing boats. This ended with Jimmy Johnstone, wee Jinky, having the oars taken off him and the tide taking him out, while he was singing away. When the information got back to Celtic Park, Jock Stein was informed that Jinky had been rescued by the coastguard from a rowing boat in the Firth of Clyde. Jock joked: ‘Could he not have drowned? We’d have given him a testimonial, we’d have looked after Agnes, and I would still have my hair.’

Jock was hilarious. In our time together with Scotland, I recall us beating England 1–0 at Wembley in May 1985 and then flying out to Reykjavik to face Iceland, where we were feeling pretty pleased with ourselves. On the night of our arrival, the staff sat down to a banquet of prawns, salmon and caviar. Big Jock never drank, but I leaned on him to take one glass of white in celebration of our victory over the English.

In the game against Iceland, we scraped a 1–0 win. The performance was a disaster. And afterwards Big Jock turned to me and said: ‘See that? That’s you and your white wine.’

Despite having all this experience to draw on, I felt my way in the early years at Manchester United. Having a quick temper helped, because if I lost my rag my personality came through. Ryan Giggs has a temper, but a slow one. Mine was a useful tool. I just weighed right in. It helped me to assert my authority. It told the players and staff I was not to be messed about.

There are always people who want to take you on, defy you. When I started, even in my first days at East Stirling, I had a defining confrontation with the centre-forward, who was the son-in-law of one of the directors, Bob Shaw.

I was informed by one of my players, Jim Meakin, that his whole family went away for a weekend in September. It was a tradition.

‘What do you mean?’ I said.

‘You know, I’ll not be playing on Saturday,’ Jim says.

‘Well, I’ll tell you what,’ I said, ‘don’t play on Saturday – and then don’t bother coming back.’

So he played, and straight after drove down to join his family in Blackpool.

On the Monday I receive a phone call: ‘Boss, I’ve broken down.’ In Carlisle, I think it was. He must have thought I was stupid. Quick as a flash I said, ‘I can’t hear you very well, give me your number, I’ll call you back.’

Silence.

‘Don’t come back,’ I said.

Bob Shaw, the director, was deeply unhappy with me. This went on for weeks and weeks. The chairman was saying. ‘Alex, please, get Bob Shaw off my back, get Jim back playing.’

I said: ‘No, Willie, he’s finished. Are you telling me I can do my job with guys deciding when they’re going to go on holiday?’

‘I understand the problem, but is three weeks not enough?’ he said.

The next week he followed me into the toilets at Forfar, stood beside me, and groaned: ‘Please, Alex, if there’s any Christian understanding in your body.’

After a pause I said: ‘All right.’

And he kissed me. ‘What are you doing, you silly old sod,’ I said. ‘You’re kissing me in a public toilet.’

In October 1974, in the next stage of my apprenticeship, I went to work for St Mirren. First day, a photograph in the Paisley Express . In the print I noticed the captain making a gesture behind my back. The following Monday I called him in and said: ‘You’ve got a free transfer if you want it. There’s no place for you here. You’ll not be playing.

‘Why?’ he says.

‘For a start, doing a V-sign behind a manager doesn’t tell me you’re an experienced player, or that you’re a mature person. If I’m looking for a captain I’m looking for maturity. That was a childish schoolboy trick. You have to go.’

You have to make your mark. As Big Jock said to me about players: Never fall in love with them, because they’ll two-time you.

At Aberdeen I had to deal with all sorts of transgressions. I caught plenty out. Afterwards you kill yourself laughing at their reactions.

‘Me?’ they would say, with the most brilliantly wounded expression.

‘Aye, you.’

‘Oh, I went to see a mate.’

‘Oh did you? For three hours? And ended up pissed?’ Mark McGhee and Joe Harper would test me plenty. Then there was Frank McGarvey, at St Mirren. One Sunday in 1977 we took 15,000 fans to a cup game at Fir Park but lost 2–1. Motherwell kicked us off the park and I was reported to the SFA for saying the referee had not been strong enough.

That Sunday night my home phone rang. My mate John Donachie said down the line: ‘I didn’t want to tell you before the game because I knew you would go off your head, but I saw McGarvey in the pub, pissed, on Friday night.’ I phoned his house. His mother answered. ‘Is Frank in?’

‘No,’ she said, ‘he’s in town. Is there anything I can help you with?’

‘Can you ask him to phone me when he comes in. I’ll stay up. I’m not going to bed until I’ve spoken to him.’ At 11.45 p.m. the phone went. Pips sounded, so I knew it was a pay phone. ‘In the house,’ Frank said. ‘But that’s pips,’ I said. ‘Yeah, we’ve got a pay phone in our house,’ says Frank. That much was true, but I didn’t believe he was ringing from there.

‘Where were you on Friday night?’

‘I can’t remember,’ he says.

‘Well, I’ll tell you. You were in the Waterloo bar. That’s where you were. You’re suspended for life. Don’t come back. You’re out of the Scotland Under-21s. I’m withdrawing you. You’ll never kick another ball in your life.’ And I put the phone down.

The next morning, his mother rang me. ‘My Frank doesn’t drink. You’ve got the wrong man.’ I told her: ‘I don’t think so. I know every mother thinks the sun shines out of their son’s backside, but you go back and ask him again.’

For three weeks I had him suspended for life and the players were all muttering about it.

A League decider against Clydebank was approaching and I told my assistant, big Davie Provan: ‘I need him back for this one.’ The club do was at the town hall in Paisley the week before the Clydebank game. I walked in there with Cathy, and suddenly Frank jumped out from behind one of the pillars, begging: ‘Just give me one more chance.’ This was a gift from heaven. There was me wondering how I could bring him back into the fold without losing face and he jumps out from behind a pillar. I told Cathy to walk in while I maintained my sternest tone with Frank: ‘I told you, you’re finished for life.’ Tony Fitzpatrick, who had been watching, steps forward: ‘Boss, give him another chance, I’ll make sure he behaves.’

‘Talk to me tomorrow morning,’ I barked. ‘This is not the right time.’ I enter the hall to join Cathy, triumphant. We won the Clydebank game 3–1, and Frank scored two.

With young people you have to try to impart a sense of responsibility. If they can add greater awareness to their energy and their talents they can be rewarded with great careers.

One asset I possessed when I started as a manager was that I could make a decision. I was never afraid of that, even as a schoolboy picking a team. I was instructing players even then: ‘You play here, you play there,’ I used to tell them then. Willie Cunningham, one of my early managers, would say: ‘You know, you’re a bloody nuisance.’ I would talk tactics at him and ask: ‘Are you sure you know what you’re doing?’