It was the kind of performance which can only come from a team when everything is right about their approach, when the dressing room is free of any disharmony, and when each player knows precisely what is expected of him. Down the years this has been the Ferguson bedrock. When the manager decided that for one reason or another players who had previously performed great service – stars like Ruud van Nistelrooy and, most wrenchingly of all, I’m sure, Roy Keane – were no longer able to help in the shaping of team spirit and motivation, the hard decision was invariably made.
Alex Ferguson could have walked away from Old Trafford at any point after delivering the treble of league, FA Cup and Champions League on that astonishing night in Barcelona and been given all the acclaim and the honour that went to the Old Man when he decided that he had done enough in the game. However, when he announced that he was doing so four years ago, I was shocked. It seemed such a waste of a unique competitive intensity which was still not staunched in any way. But then what could I say? If ever a football manager had earned the right to go in what he considered his own good time, it was surely this one. He announced that he had talked it over with his wife Kath and his sons and had decided it was time to sip his vintage wine, pursue his racing interests, and step back from the football life in which he had immersed himself so passionately for so long.
Was it really time to begin the search for the right man to pick up the baton? No, I didn’t really think so. Certainly there was no shortage of impressive candidates, stretching from Martin O’Neill in Glasgow to such Italian coaching giants as Ferguson’s friend Marcello Lippi – but who knew more about the needs of the club, and who was more capable of meeting them, than the man who had already done so quite brilliantly and, it seemed to me, was still at the peak of his powers?
It was a conviction I nursed and was determined to express at some time when I felt he might be most receptive to my arguments; perhaps when it had truly dawned on him that the great adventure of his life could be coming to a close.
Finally, when his departure as manager was accepted as a formality, with the speculation on his successor raging up to ever new levels, I felt it was getting close to the time when the case against his abdication had to be made with some force.
It was thus something of a relief when we met in the Old Trafford lift one morning and he said, ‘I’ve had a chat with Kath and I’ve decided I’m staying on …’
I smiled, contentedly, and said, ‘Surprise, surprise …’
26
THE VERY BEST OF MANCHESTER UNITED
IN ANY GREAT tide of football achievement there is always going to be something that most warms the heart of an old player, something that stands on its own in his affection and respect, and of course it is invariably another player. He may not have one overwhelming skill, he may not be without flaw, but there is something in him that relights the fire that once burned so strongly inside yourself. He is a player who reminds you what it was about football that first filled you with so much passion. He is a player whose love of the game, and his commitment to it, glows in every stride he makes out on the field. He has a purity about his game, an understanding of it and a talent for it, which you wish everyone could share. He makes you feel young again – and aching to play as you once were able to do, with the freedom that comes with trust in your body and the belief that if you put enough into it you can achieve anything.
As I approach my seventieth birthday, I have no hesitation in putting a name to such an embodiment of all that I believe is best about football: Paul Scholes.
In these pages I have had the chance to discuss so many great players who have worn the shirt of Manchester United: players I worshipped, then lost with my youth at Munich; players like Denis Law and George Best who I enjoyed so much as team-mates in my maturity; and now, finally, players that I have watched closely in every surge of the Ferguson era. Assessing and grading them all precisely is a difficult, maybe impossible job, but if I am honest I have to admit that in so many ways Scholes is my favourite.
I know that Jimmy Murphy would have loved him. No doubt, he would have tried to improve his tackling – which is enthusiastic enough, but technically is not much better than was my own excuse for the art – but he would have embraced him for all his heart, and for his innate knowledge of how to shape a game from midfield.
I love both his nous and his conviction that he will find a way to win, to make the killer pass or produce the decisive volley with such instant authority and nerve. When a game reaches a vital phase, these qualities seem to come out of his every pore. Long ago he became part of United history, but in the season of 2006–07, when United won their first title in four years, when he came back from career-threatening eye problems, it was as though he became the very heart of Old Trafford.
The
