PUSSYCATS AND POLAR BEARS

Last updated : 23 November 2004 By editor
By Neil Harman,

ONCE bitten, never forgotten. Survive Sir Alex Ferguson and you can contend with anything. Tim Henman says that the British have the worst tennis press in the world and some of my colleagues cannot rid their minds of a perceived slur. But when a person of Ferguson’s renown refuses to step into a room because you are in it, it is the time to feel affronted.

My full-time football writing stopped in 1997 when the newspaper I worked for so blurred fantasy and fact that Ferguson placed it in purdah where it remained for years. He loathes it still. In our last meaningful conversation, he rang my home (my wife didn’t believe it was him) to offer any help he could should it ever become necessary. It was an amply generous gesture from a man who, a couple of years earlier, would have needed no one’ s help to tear my head off.
The examples go to the heart of why Ferguson remains a character of such fascination, whose mood swings — from pussycat to polar bear in the time it took to suggest that he might not have handled a situation right — could be irrational, bordering on the deranged. It took time to appreciate how much managing United meant to him and how if you were not with him every step of the way, you were against him, even if you knew you weren’t. The more enemies, perceived or otherwise, the better.

In darker moments, he was ordering an aircraft to leave Manchester without me — “leave that c*** behind,” was how it was reported back — a mad rush to the departure gate was required and there he was, in the front row, sneering with rage. Every pair of eyes in the aisle — the likes of Eric Cantona, Bryan Robson and Peter Schmeichel — was staring you down. Not a fun occasion. Any time he was asked about the competence of the referee, he would refer it to me. “Ask Mr f****** referee Harman over there, he’s the expert,” he would say, relishing the spot he had placed you on.

Still, despite all, he has blessed English and European football with teams of wonder, replete with beguiling talents, fantastic professionals, great victories, stirred together with a provocative mix of Ferguson’s salt and pepper style of management.

What he has done in his time at Old Trafford deserves nothing less than respect and admiration. For all the times I have been on the outside, demeaned and ostracised, there were sufficient memorable glimpses on the inside, too, for one to feel you almost knew the man.

In 1993, the year United broke their championship duck on his watch, the football correspondents of the nationals staged an impromptu lunch in the manager’s honour. He discovered the attendance list included my name and refused to come. He was talked out of his stubbornness and we duly sat opposite each other for three tense hours. At lunch’s end, with everyone else departed, Ferguson ordered a fourth or fifth decanter of red wine and, in the company of myself and Brian Kidd, then his No 2, drank it dry and we walked off down the street, arms around each other’s shoulders. That spirit lasted about a week.