It’s Ferguson who overstepped mark
I was travelling back to Dublin to cover the Arsenal versus Borussia Dortmund match on TV on Tuesday evening, when I started hearing the first news reports about certain extracts from Alex Ferguson’s book. But until I had actually landed and read some of them in black and white, I couldn’t bring myself to believe it. I was genuinely shocked — why on earth was a living legend in the world of football even bothering to express such critical opinions on everyone from Roy Keane to Jordan Henderson?
The more I’ve read and heard about this astonishing book, the more disappointed I’ve become with a man I had always held in the highest regard for what he has achieved in the game. And I really would love to know the reasoning behind why he felt it necessary to publicise his very critical views of certain people and, even more alarming, reveal in public things that went on, or were said, in what should be the privacy of the dressing room.
In the world we live in now, with social media rampant, it is proving increasingly difficult to keep what happens in a dressing room inside those four walls, as we saw again in the aftermath of England’s recent game against Poland, with Roy Hodgson’s joke rebounding on him in the media. So to find someone of Alex Ferguson’s stature and, you would imagine, old school values, revealing a lot of what went on in the dressing room is very hard to digest.
Let’s examine his comments on Roy Keane, for example. For around 10 years, this was a player every single team in the world would have loved to have had in their side. He was United’s driving force, a man with a defining will to win.
With players like this, it almost comes with the territory that they can occasionally overstep the mark, which sometimes results in disciplinary problems. But this is something that Fergie was obviously happy to put up with for a long time, as he knew that what Keane brought to the table, on and off the pitch, far outweighed the negatives.
I think we all knew from reading between the lines why Roy Keane left United, and I suppose the relationship between himself, Ferguson and the club hasn’t been great since, especially with Roy being more vocal now in the world of punditry.
But, in my opinion, that still doesn’t warrant Ferguson coming out and revealing exactly why and how things ended for Keane at Old Trafford. And so I’m not surprised that Roy has in turn questioned Fergie’s loyalty to players without whom he wouldn’t have won all those trophies which helped make him one of the greatest managers of all time.
It’s important to stress that so-called training ground and dressing room bust-ups are by no means uncommon in football. Such is the will to win of some players that emotions already running high can sometimes spill over into petty arguments and even fights.
On one particular occasion when I was a young unused substitute, the team I was with at the time drew a match that really we should have won, and were certainly expected to win. One of the other substitutes who hadn’t been selected to play a lot in recent matches had come on to create the equaliser and ensure that, at least, we didn’t lose the game.
After the match I congratulated the player as I’d seen how hard he had worked to try and get his opportunity, and I was glad for him that he was able to take it with both hands. Just then, a senior player in our team came roaring into the dressing room, saying it wasn’t good enough and we should be besting teams like the one we’d just faced.
He then started having a go at me for congratulating the sub who had rescued the game for us. I, naturally, took exception to this — I was a lot more hot-headed then than I am now — and an argument ensued which actually ended up with us throwing a few digs at each other.
The story never got out and, the next day, I received a phone call from the other player to say that he had been out of order. And that was the end of it — we both moved on, and we are actually very good mates to this day. The point is that there has to be enough respect within a team to know not to air dirty laundry in public.
You are expected to go into battle with these players every single week and had I ever found out that one of my team mates was telling people about incidents that happened in our dressing room, I’d have been quick to let him know how I unhappy I was about it. And the same, I believe, goes for most footballers.
As this week has gone on, a lot of people in the world of football have been asked about Fergie’s book and I think the fairly unanimous feeling is one of genuine disbelief and disappointment. Brendan Rodgers has even gone as far as saying that Ferguson has damaged his legacy — and I’m inclined to agree with him.
I’m not saying for one second that he isn’t entitled to his opinion as, let’s be honest, if he isn’t, then who is? It’s just that I simply don’t understand what there is to gain by doing a book like this.
It’s the Z-list celebrities in the world who have to be controversial in order to sell books but Alex Ferguson doesn’t, so surely the motive isn’t financial? Having said all this — and debated the matter all week with friends and colleagues in the game — the one thing that everybody seems to agree on is that they can’t wait to read the book in full.
So no prizes for guessing who gets the last word.
