Dubai: His noisy neighbours finally have something to really cheer about — Sir Alex is retiring. After 26 years heading Manchester United, the most successful coach in British football is hanging up his boots, untucking his trouser pants from his football socks and finally sleeping in. No longer will he be the first at the Carrington training grounds at 8 am, waiting for his 24 first squad players to turn up for practice and physio, tactics and tough talk.
And he’s leaving a winner — 13 Premier League titles, five FA Cups, and two Champions League Cups plus a plethora of other major honours to stick on his mantelpiece alongside the other cups and plates won by his racehorses.
For a footballer, he wasn’t half bad — more like three-quarters — mediocre enough to make it as a poorly paid semi-professional up and down the cow parks and muddy pitches of the lower tiers of Scottish football.
For a manager, he wasn’t good — he was the best. Hard as nails; a disciplinarian; a mentor; a tormentor; astute — the best coach to ever kick a ball or backsides of those who donned the red shirts of his club.
And Manchester United is his club. Yeah, sure he was successful with Aberdeen and sure there have been other United coaches — Sir Matt Busby pales in comparison — but this Premier League side is his.
When he marked 25 years with the club, it took a full-blown conspiracy of staff and management to prevent him from finding out that the main stand at Old Trafford was being renamed after him. He didn’t suffer fools gladly — just not at all. For journalists who asked too many questions, his customary roughness was legendary — cold icy blue eyes delivering a steely stare that would rip their throat out at ten paces. For players, there was a legendary temper within the dressing room — football boots hurled as the air turned blue with his well chosen and choice words. And for players who got too big for those boots, there was the door.
No player was bigger than the team; no player was the team — and no one dared question his selection, authority or tactics. And the players won. Not just one team built around Eric Cantona, nor another around David Beckham, not another around Cristiano Ronaldo; and not around Wayne Rooney.
Sir Alex didn’t just build a team of winners — he built a way of winning where teams came and went, where young proteges were hand-picked, bled red and cried red. And when they weren’t good enough, he added proven winners on the way up, cutting losers on the way down. He had no loyalty to players — his loyalty was to the team.
For referees who dared disagree with his version of truth, he was willing to publicly castigate them and pay the Football Association fines. For managers who dared usurp his rule of his roost, his acerbic analysis bit deep — and his pounds of winning silverware outweighed their penny thoughts.
Can he be replaced? Sure — a warm body can sit in the dugout. But his football boots can never be filled.
He always said he would go at a time and place of his choosing. Sadly, it is now.
The clock has run out on ‘Fergie time’ at Old Trafford.
