Unbending like Alex Ferguson

UMPIRE`S POST

Even after 22 years, the greatest manager in British football continues to make a difference.

Alex Ferguson, the manager of English football club Manchester United, says he “wouldn’t sell a virus” to rival Spanish club Real Madrid. He didn’t so much say it as spat it out in fuming acid. This was in response to Spanish newspaper reports that the Madrid club was buying Cristiano Ronaldo, whom Ferguson thinks can go on to become one of the game’s true greats, from United.

That deal, if there ever was such a deal in the offing, is definitely dead now. But that is not the point; transfers take place and get aborted fairly regularly in the turbulent world of football. The point is that Alexander Chapman Ferguson, born December 31, 1941, is still up for a scrap.

He has been in charge at United since 1986, the second longest-serving in the club’s history after Matt Busby, and has already put off retirement once. At Manchester City, a rival club, Mark Hughes is the 13th manager to pit his wits against Ferguson in the battle for Mancunian supremacy.

In the meanwhile, some of the most famous footballers have come to Man United — some of the recent ones being David Beckham, Roy Keane, Steve Bruce, Mark Hughes and Paul Ince — and not all of them are around. Not all of them have been Ferguson’s best buddies either.

Five years ago, Ferguson acknowledged kicking a soccer shoe in an angry tirade, which struck David Beckham and left a gash above his left eye that needed several stitches to close. The incident occurred after United’s 2-0 loss to Arsenal in the fifth round of the FA Cup. Ferguson stormed into the dressing room and kicked the cleated shoe, which struck Beckham, who was the England captain at that time. Yet, it was Beckham who had to later look for alternative employment, not Ferguson.

It has helped that Ferguson has delivered the goods. He has won more trophies than any other manager in the history of English football. He has been named Manager of the Year more times than anyone else. Through it all, the man has remained unshakeable across the tumbling decades.

He has also defied age to embrace modernity. He has moved seamlessly from 4-4-2 to 4-3-3, and several nuanced points in between, while rebuilding what a British writer called “a series of Uniteds”.

Ferguson’s career is a lesson to football club owners, many of whom have been impatient with their managers. As Paul Ince, who was recently sacked as manager of Blackburn Rovers, says, Ferguson was 20 minutes away from being sacked in 1990 until Mark Robins scored that famous winner against Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup.