In 2004, Manchester United announced that they had cut all ties with the Elite Sports agency, which had represented 13 players in the squad.
t followed an internal investigation of transfers that had been ordered by the club’s largest shareholders, John Magnier and JP McManus.
In a press statement, United said: “the board recognises the concerns over the connections between Elite and Sir Alex Ferguson. In future Manchester United will not employ Elite to act for the club.”
Ironically, the date of United’s announcement – May 26 – is a special one in the club’s history, coinciding as it does with the birthday of that other legendary Scottish boss, Sir Matt Busby, and the day Ole Gunnar Solskjaer famously scored an injury time goal to clinch ‘The Treble’ in Barcelona.
It would also have been the date marking Solskjaer’s first trophy as United manager, but David de Gea’s fluffed penalty in Gdansk last week put paid to that.
There is no suggestion that Ferguson or Elite Sports – which was co-owned by his son Jason – had done anything untoward and a subsequent documentary, ‘Fergie and Son’, resulted in the manager refusing to speak to the BBC for the next seven years.
Unfortunately for the Beeb, United won another Champions League, four Premier Leagues and a League Cup during the time they were frozen out by the furious Scot.
The Elite Sports episode is clearly a significant one in Ferguson’s remarkable 27-year spell in charge; a few months prior to United’s in-house investigation, he had commenced legal proceedings against Magnier over disputed ownership rights for the racehorse Rock of Gibraltar.
And, within a year of the transfers audit, Irish billionaires Magnier and McManus had sold their 28.7% stake in the club to American businessman Malcolm Glazer…
None of this gets a mention during an otherwise moving and absorbing documentary about the most successful manager in British football history.
Indeed, prior to a recent interview in The Guardian about ‘Sir Alex Ferguson: Never Give In’, it was made clear that the 79-year-old would not be answering any questions about United today, the Glazers – whom he once described as “brilliant owners” – or the recent European Super League fiasco.
That doesn’t leave much we don’t already know but the film – directed by one Jason Ferguson and released in cinemas and on Amazon Prime last week – still remains a powerful watch.
Spanning interviews between father and son over five years from 2016 – neither man having any inkling of the life-and-death drama that was about to unfold – it begins with the aftermath of the brain haemorrhage that left Ferguson Snr unable to speak for 10 days.
Viewers hear Jason testing his father’s legendary memory skills.
The name of the street where he was born, his wedding date? Wee buns. The first goalscorer of his United career? Easy-peasy; John Sivebaek’s winner against QPR on November 22, 1986.
His recall of Saturday, May 5, 2018, the day he was rushed to Salford Royal Hospital for life-saving surgery? “Nothing”.
As someone who suffered a similar ‘brain bleed’ stroke five weeks after Fergie, and who couldn’t remember his name, age or where he lived, this made for rather uncomfortable viewing.
Thankfully, Ferguson’s memory remains intact, a few months short of his 80th birthday. And, having enjoyed his company many times, I can vouch for him that it is absolutely staggering.
When we first met in person, at the Brandywell following a friendly between Derry City and United in August 1990, I attempted to ‘remind’ him that we’d spoken on the phone once before, two years earlier.
He put his finger up to stop me continuing.
“It was a Saturday morning,” he recalled correctly, adding: “It was during Euro ’88; I was looking for the number of Malcolm Brodie’s hotel in Stuttgart…”
You never saw Fergie writing anything down during a match, but he clearly wanted to get this down on video, and many will be glad he did.
“I never looked back because there was always tomorrow,” said the man who is now well aware that that clearly isn’t the case.
It was refreshing to discover, early on, that this wasn’t going to be one of those ghastly ‘celebrity talking heads’ hagiographies that proliferate the telly schedules.
In the sharply edited, 109-minute film, the great man recounts, among other things, his apprenticeship as a toolmaker in Govan, his difficult relationship with his father and his travails at Rangers, notably when a club director asked a pre-hairdryer-era Ferguson if he’d got married to Cathy in a Catholic church: “I should have told him to f*** off.”
He freely admitted that his subsequent success at Aberdeen was fuelled by his hatred of Rangers – son Jason is actually a Celtic fan – and younger United followers might not be aware of the trophyless early years at Old Trafford and the “go back to f****** Scotland” phone calls to the Ferguson family home.
That all changed in 1990 when they won the FA Cup after Fergie famously dropped Scotland goalkeeper Jim Leighton for the final replay against Palace.
It proved the manager could be a winner south of Hadrian’s Wall, but also cemented his reputation as someone who could make ruthless, career-ending calls when he needed to; decisions which ultimately turned United from 19th in the table – their position when he replaced Ron Atkinson – to 13-times Premier League champions.
There is no mention, however, of the more recent, highly-publicised spats with David Beckham and Wayne Rooney.
Those multi-millionaire superstars – the second of whom made nonsense of the film’s ‘Never Give In’ suffix, courtesy of his outrageous wage negotiations, didn’t have their careers impacted but others such as Leighton weren’t so lucky.
We heard from Eric Cantona, Ryan Giggs and Gordon Strachan, but the views of Roy Keane, Jaap Stam (whose 2001 sacking by Ferguson was a catastrophic error of judgment) and Ruud van Nistelrooy would surely have been a lot more compelling.
The film climaxes with the ultimate ‘Fergie Time’ moment that never-to-be-forgotten escape to victory at the Nou Camp in 1999.
Wisely, the footage focuses on a puce-faced Ferguson in the dugout during a Champions League final which his under-par United had no right to win against Bayern Munich, yet somehow did.
With over a dozen books already in print about this living legend’s life and career, there are few revelatory nuggets here.
As a portrayal, however, of the man and his family – and what they (and especially the stoic Cathy) had to put up with while he poured virtually everything into his high-pressure job – it’s a winner.
The story of how he dealt with his near-death experience – including the tortuous daily grind of mental exercises aimed and preserving his precious memory – is genuinely touching, and such intimate access could only have granted to close relatives.
That legendary ‘Ferguson full control’ has obviously not deserted him.
So this is one ‘Fergie and Son’ documentary that won’t leave the great man incandescent with rage, but anyone hoping for a warts-and-all, unexpurgated, definitive record of his staggering impact on the game will have to wait a little longer.
By the way, here’s a wee exclusive for you… Fergie DID break his BBC ban once – in Belfast, during a dinner in honour of the late Celtic and Northern Ireland stalwart Bertie Peacock in July 2008.
He agreed to a TV interview with Jackie Fullerton who, at that time, was still the local Beeb’s main sports presenter.
Afterwards, at a private function in the Europa Hotel, I tentatively mentioned this anomaly to ‘Alec’ who replied: “I did it for ma oul’ pal Jeekie, not for that shower of…” (feel free to fill in the blanks).
