First things first: Sir Alex Ferguson is not a great man, just a great football manager.
By Fazeer Mohammed (Express).
Suitable tyrant
Great men (or women) change the world. Great football managers, like any other outstanding achievers in any sport—be it coach, player or administrator—achieve phenomenal success to the extent of establishing a standard that the immediate successor, in this case David Moyes, will find very difficult to emulate, far less exceed. They may even change the culture of the organisation in which they perform, developing a template, give or take a few minor alterations in keeping with the trends of the time, that virtually guarantees more triumphs and more trophies in the years to come.
But that’s all. To those unfortunate souls for whom football or any other sporting triviality is the be and end all of their existence, it may appear that the Fergusons of this world are the type of people who should be running a country like ours, who would whip our lazy, don’t-care-damn backsides into shape, who would transform us into a lean, mean, efficient money-making machine with a GDP soaring even higher than Patrick’s towers of self-delusion and vanity in downtown Port of Spain or Kamla’s helicopter-turned-taxi whirring its way to another costly exercise in self-promotion.
Yet that would only be the case if you are prepared to surrender individual and institutional rights and freedoms which are some of the very few things we value in this twin-island madhouse.
Fundamental to his astonishing success with English champions Manchester United (38 major trophies in 27 years, including a record 13 Premier League titles) was his tyrannical control over the football side of the celebrated club.
Step out of his fiercely regimented line more than once and you were gone. Fail to buy into his philosophy that demanded unyielding loyalty to Manchester United at the expense of all else and you would be transfer-listed faster than you could say “Dwight Yorke”. Criticise him, his family or his club or raise questions about certain issues that are perfectly legitimate and you and your media house would be banned from any media conference involving him for years, as was the case with the revered BBC for seven—yes, seven—years.
Sport has never been and never will be about democracy. It is the equivalent of a totalitarian state, a North Korea-type environment where homage is paid to the club, its players and its leader, where brainwashed subjects prioritise scarce resources for that precious season ticket and a treasured reserved spot in the hallowed Stretford End, the equivalent of the front pews at the “Theatre of Dreams”.
Ferguson exploited brilliantly the religious fervour attached to football in the United Kingdom, from success in his native Scotland with Aberdeen in breaking the stranglehold of Glasgow rivals Rangers and Celtic in the early 1980s to eventually shaping Manchester United into the club and the team that he wanted and which he knew, once his subjects in the dressing room vowed their unstinting loyalty to him, would bring the sort of success, and more, that the great footballing institution had been craving since the glory days of George Best and Bobby Charlton in the late 1960s.
And it is important to note the “eventually” in that last paragraph for, as most would know, it was three-and-a-half years from the day he took over at United before he was able to lift a major trophy following victory over Crystal Palace in the 1990 FA Cup Final replay. That’s another thing to note: a tyrant is only as powerful as the intimidating, threatening muscle behind the iron fist.
Just as the successive Kims of North Korea have relied on military might to prevent long-suffering millions from toppling their leader and stringing him up in Pyongyang’s main square, so too did Ferguson have the unyielding support of the Manchester United hierarchy at the time when the plebians in the stands were hoisting banners calling for him to go after United were thrashed 5-1 at fierce rivals Manchester City and reached the end of December, 1989 just out of the relegation zone, a period that the Scot is reported to have referred to as “the darkest period ever suffered in the game”.
However he turned it around, not only because he was a great football manager and an excellent man-manager of the many different egos and personalities who have worn the famous Manchester United uniform over more than a quarter-of-a-century under his control, but because he had the backing of the club’s executive management, was given the resources to build a squad in his own image, and was vested with complete authority in football matters as those at the helm believed he was the man to bring the glory days and the attendant commercial success back to Old Trafford.
Compare Ferguson’s three-and-a-half years without success at Manchester United with Roberto Mancini’s similar tenure at Manchester City, which has already resulted in one FA Cup title and a first league title for 34 years. Yet, on the heels of their upset loss to Wigan Athletic in the 2013 FA Cup Final on Saturday, the word on the ground is that the former Italian international is on the verge of being shown the door because of the constant pressure for immediate and continuous success based on the millions being pumped into the club by its Abu Dhabi owners.
Money may buy trophies, but it takes time, money and a suitable tyrant to cultivate a culture of success.