Sir Alex Ferguson spent twenty-six years at Manchester United being certain about everything. The word he used on BBC Breakfast this week, describing the day he walked back into Old Trafford in September 2018, was terrified.
He had suffered a brain haemorrhage four months earlier, aged 76, and had emergency surgery. The return was a home game against Wolves. He did not know what the crowd would do. "I wish I could say I was comfortable. I wasn't," he said. He and his wife Cathy got a standing ovation as they took their seats in the directors' box. "My wife was with me, and she was nearly crying. When we sat down, she said: 'That's fantastic.'"
Losing the voice, and getting it back
The detail that stays with you is not the surgery. It is what came after. "I had lost my voice; I couldn't speak," he said. "That was a frightening moment. I remember my grandsons coming to see me and I had lost my voice."
A therapist got it back by asking him to write things down: names of birds, names of animals, names of rivers. For a man whose entire working life ran on what he said to people in a dressing room, that is a particular kind of loss. He is three months short of 85 now and says he feels quite good, small injuries aside.
The hat-trick that stopped him emigrating
His new book, Games of My Life, works through 21 matches, starting with a schools cup final he won for Govan High in 1955 at the age of 13. He still has the medal. The one that actually changed things came eight years later.
Stuck in the St Johnstone reserves and not enjoying any of it, he filled out emigration forms for Canada and rang an aunt there to sponsor him, without telling his parents. The next day a flu bug ripped through the squad, he was promoted to the starting XI at Ibrox against Rangers, and the 21-year-old scored a hat-trick. "I would say this to young people, don't miss the biggest opportunity in your life. It's recognising it."
Ince, Beckham and the letters he kept
On the table during the interview were old letters from United supporters in the summer of 1995, when he was about to sell Paul Ince to Inter Milan. One read: "Don't sell Incey to Inter — or you'll regret it." Another said every Red was disgusted with him. He sold anyway, at 7.5m pounds, having weighed Ince against the young Paul Scholes. "That's what your job is as a manager. You have to make hard decisions, and some decisions don't suit everyone."
He later called Ince a "big-time Charlie" and regrets it. They play snooker now.
As for the kids nobody could win anything with, Ferguson had already tried the same thing at St Mirren and Aberdeen and knew what he was buying: give young players a chance and they either become stars or stay loyal to you, and often both. Beckham, sent on loan to Preston in March 1995, thought he was being moved on. He was not. He was just the last of that group to fill out, small and thin until he wasn't.
Context: Sir Alex Ferguson managed Manchester United from 1986 to 2013, taking charge of 1,500 games and winning 38 trophies, including 13 Premier League titles, two Champions Leagues, five FA Cups and four League Cups. He suffered a brain haemorrhage in May 2018. His book Games of My Life covers 21 matches from 1955 to his retirement. Interview conducted with BBC Breakfast before Tuesday's Premier League announcement on Manchester City.
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