He had been doing a brilliant job at Aberdeen, one that I had followed more closely than most in the English game because of my interest in Scottish football, something that started when I was a boy growing up so close to the border. I had seen him in action, driving Aberdeen to performances that smashed the stranglehold of the Old Firm, and I had heard the stories of how he had tackled his first managerial stints at East Stirling and St Mirren. He had gone into the streets with a microphone to whip up the fans. He was part-evangelist, part-fighter and there was never any doubt about either his ambition or his ability to inspire his players.
An encouraging sign for us at Old Trafford was that he had made it clear that if he was ever to leave his Aberdeen fortress it would not be along the road to Glasgow for one of the two big jobs in Scottish football, Rangers or Celtic. He didn’t think he would be improving himself at either Ibrox or Parkhead. But what about Old Trafford? Well, he had more than hinted in one newspaper I read that this would be quite a different matter.
In the boardroom there was a strong feeling for Venables. I said that I understood it well enough. Terry was a marvellous coach who as a player had represented his country at every level. He was another football man of high profile and character who commanded attention and respect in his players. Some of our directors emphasised Terry’s confidence, his easy manner in front of the television cameras. He would be more than a football manager. He would be a personality who refused to be dominated by all that had happened in the past.
I conceded all of that, but then I made the case for Alex Ferguson. I pointed out the unique scale of his achievement in Scotland; no domestic club could think seriously of taking on the Glasgow powers and beat them, but that was the mission that Alex had declared on his first day at Aberdeen.
Aberdeen were not supposed to beat Real Madrid in the final of the Cup-Winners’ Cup either. I asked my fellow directors if they had seen Ferguson on the touchline when Aberdeen scored their great victory in Gothenburg. I said he had lived passionately every moment of the game, charging on to the pitch, filling his players with his self-belief. ‘Never mind, Real Madrid,’ he seemed to be saying. ‘This is my team, this is Aberdeen.’
I do not want to make too many claims for myself as I look back on this phase which would be so vital to the shaping of a new United. Ferguson was operating so brilliantly and passionately in north-east Scotland, not on another planet, and I wouldn’t begin to say that I had discovered a talent that was not visible to anyone who cared to look. Certainly I didn’t feel I was fighting an uphill battle on behalf of Ferguson. I just felt it was necessary to make an old player’s point as strongly as I could; an old player, that was, who had long experienced the special demands and forces of Old Trafford.
I believe, however, as all the talk – and the headlines – swirled around the question of who would succeed Ron Atkinson, that my role on the board as an ex-player, as someone who knew the importance of a manager who could truly lead a squad of players, was a significant factor in the argument.
Soon enough – and despite the fact that some of his early signings were not greeted as great successes, and that we had to wait until his fifth season to land a major trophy – I was convinced there would be no regrets. Alex Ferguson showed something you can’t teach and can’t learn. It is something you are born with, some determination that is established not in a football stadium but in the womb. He assumed a right to victory in every match – and if it didn’t happen, you knew his resolve would not fade but redouble.
For me, and more of my colleagues in the boardroom than a lot of reports suggested, there was never any question of firing the manager before the great logjam of frustration was swept away. However, there was a strong belief within football that the Ferguson regime was in danger of going down at the turn into 1990; indeed, the day of his fall was nominated with great certainty in many news papers. It was supposed to be the inevitable consequence if we were defeated in the third round of the FA Cup at Nottingham Forest. I would have fought any move to dismiss the manager with all the resources of argument I had, but my sense, anyway, was that Alex Ferguson’s D-Day beside the River Trent was largely a creation of the media. It all became increasingly academic, however, when Mark Robins scored the goal that sent us into the fourth round – and a series of away ties – before the final replay victory over Crystal Palace.
The rest, stretching all the way to the spring of 2007 when Alex Ferguson delivered his ninth Premiership title, has been an infrequently interrupted passage of glory – a series of triumphs for both the will and the energy of the most passionately committed football man I have known.
Now, looking back, the impression may be of a seamless process, a series of decisions which, like building blocks, created an edifice of success which became inevitable. But of course each change of
