Sir Alex Ferguson: My Autobiography

PublisherHodder
Pages416

What can be a reason behind somebody’s decision to write his second autobiography? Well, the first one is obvious – if the first one isn’t that good. And the second one is that you just couldn’t get everything in one book, because so many things have happened throughout the years.

First one surely isn’t the reason behind Sir Alex Ferguson’s decision to write “My Autobiography“. His first autobiography titled “Managing My Life“ was a complete success. Fans loved it, everybody was reading it, and it had all the ingredients to be a bestseller.

Wins, and losses arising from the relative obscurity of his mediocre football playing career, through the ranks of English football towards the status of a god in Manchester, England, and the whole world. It had Queen and one Knighthood in it, but “Managing My Life“ was also the book that gave us a perspective of Sir Alex’s upbringing and childhood. It gave us the manager, the legend, but also the man behind all of these things that he has achieved.

So, we must agree that in October 2013 we got his second autobiography because quite simply Ferguson couldn’t fit in all the good and interesting stuff in just one book. And for the record, I am sure he could write at least two more books that could intrigue us just in a way these two managed to do that.

“Managing My Life“ covered his life from the start-up to 2000, and “My Autobiography“ is a story about XXI century Alex Ferguson. In this book, he writes about the period from 2000. up until the end of his football career, until that famous 20th league title for Manchester United.

Style and The Brilliant Work of Paul Hayward

Well, you reckon that somebody must have helped Ferguson to write this book. Of course, all the material is his, but the book is so good in terms of style that you must notice that some ghostwriting is behind all of this.

This is the work of Telegraph’s Paul Hayward, and he has done it brilliantly. Every sentence is really clear and simple, yet packed with detail and amazing insight. You get your share of observations, but you’ll never get distracted or confused with this book. Hayward has done an amazing job and put Alex Ferguson’s words in the right order for all of the fans and readers.

One Word to Describe this book?

It’s the same word which most of us would use to describe him personally and his career. It’s the word he uses a lot. Control.

“A committee of 100 people can’t produce sensible management“, is a sentence he uses to criticize Greg Dyke and the FA, but it can be a sentence that describes his running of Manchester United. Cross democracy out of this one.

When he talks about his career he mainly talks about control (which is a good thing, but not if you are Rafa Benitez, but we’ll get to that later). He absolutely controls his feelings in this book. Yes, you’ll find a lot of anger, but be sure that Sir Alex wanted you to feel that anger. You will read about his clashes, good and the bad times, and he’ll even throw in a bunch of his mistakes in the book, but you will not find out anything that he doesn’t want you to know.

You will read only about his perspective, and you will find out only about the things that he finds comfortable writing about. If you are looking for the things we all know he doesn’t like talking about, skip this book. His writing is inevitably selective, and that’s it’s the biggest downfall.

Not that I am suggesting that this is a bad book, quite the opposite, just highlighting self-censorship as the biggest flaw of Ferguson’s writing.

Make a list

Make a list of Alex Ferguson’s feuds, make a list of his most hated enemies before you start reading “My Autobiography“ and you will cross them over one by one while you are reading this. The stubborn Scotsmen didn’t care about anybody’s feelings, not for a second.

He didn’t care what people like David Beckham, who have done their best to reconcile with him, would say, let alone what the likes of Rafa Benitez or Arsene Wenger would think. So, let’s start from the only guy that had a chance against Fergie all these years – Arsene Wenger.

Pizzagate explained

This rivalry lasted nearly two decades, and you get a bunch of stories about 17 years of Ferguson – Wenger relationship. In “My Autobiography” you get some perspective of Wenger-Ferguson discussions about life, wine, England, some chit-chat and mutual understanding. But things get very harsh very fast.

On the 24th of October 2004. Manchester United and Arsenal meet at Old Trafford, and Manchester United won a match 2:0. That doesn’t seem so tragic, but circumstances about this match were unique.

Arsenal was on top of the table and had a streak of 49 matches without a defeat. After the match in the tunnel, somebody threw a pizza at Sir Alex. Arsenal dictated the tempo, but a van Nistelrooy penalty and Rooney’s goal in 90th minute gave Manchester United the victory.

It is believed that Arsenal players even had printed out T-shirts that said “50 not out” but that was never proven. After the match, Arsene Wenger was furious and was calling United players all sorts of names, and publicly put Mike Riley to shame for his bad refereeing.

Ferguson claims he doesn’t know who threw pizza at him in a brawl between two sides after the match, but he goes to extreme heights with this match. He wrote that this match “scrambled Arsène’s brain“!

Then Fergie goes on about the softening of Wenger in his later years, and you can imagine what he thinks about that. Oh, and no, he didn’t forget that hammering in late august 2011. The game ended 8:2, with Wayne Rooney scoring a hat-trick and Ashley Young having a brace, and Ferguson wrote in this book that he “felt sorry for Arsene“ in that occasion. Yeah, right.

Wenger’s biggest managerial virtues are also mocked by his bitter rival, and the man well known for his player development is accused of developing only one truly homegrown player. And that player is now playing at West Ham – so it’s Jack Wilshere.

What about Liverpool?

He doesn’t write an awful lot about Liverpool, Liverpool players or managers, but when he does, you’ll clearly see that he does not like them.

While Arsene gets whole 12 pages, Rafael Benitez, the only man that came close to winning a title with “the Scoucers“ during Ferguson years, (from 2000. onwards, because this book covers that span of time) gets only a couple of very harsh sentences.

“The advance publicity was that Benitez was a control freak, which turned out to be correct. If you saw Jose and Rafa standing together on the touchline, you knew you could pick the winner.”

That’s not all because Sir Alex calls the Spaniard’s teams “dull and boring“, so we can clearly see that he isn’t a Rafa fan. It’s fair to think he didn’t watch an awful lot of Newcastle in recent years.

The most catching thing about Liverpool in this book is Ferguson’s bad memory about some things. All of us know that famous rant of his about “knocking Liverpool off their f****** perch“, and the fans celebrated like crazy when he had done so.

Manchester City Gave Him Stomach Pains

Don’t mess with Cathy Ferguson. Sir Alex’s life companion described the day that City won “THAT” title as the worst day in her life to him, and he didn’t take that victory parade of the blue part of Manchester very well.

He describes how he dedicated the last days of his career to a unique goal – to knock Manchester City down. He has done so, and he kept a promise given to himself.

He writes a couple of things about Roberto Mancini too, and the most interesting one is about Carlos Tevez. Having previously had a misunderstanding with hugely talented, but also an unprofessional Argentinian, he criticizes Mancini for being too soft and allowing Tevez to do all sorts of things.

Roy Keane Rant

The most hostile chapter of this book is simply named “Keane“.

Roy Keane was a symbol of Sir Alex’s Manchester United. He was a leader, captain and a key figure in many successes the club had. He was quite literally thrown out from the club in 2005, after serving at Old Trafford for 12 years.

Sir Alex explains that Irishmen was a terrifying figure in the dressing room and that even The Boss himself was afraid of him. Many football fans associate him with a ruthless style of play, hard tackles, and endless stamina, but Ferguson says explicitly says “that tongue was the hardest part of his body“.

Ferguson slated Keane’s performances in later years of his career and explained that his abuse of team-mates led to their dispute and the following transfer to Celtic. Sir Alex writes that the thing that got him over the edge is one particular interview that Keane gave to MUFC TV, where he criticized almost half of the team, including star players as Edwin van der Sar and Rio Ferdinand. To be honest, the interview was shocking, Keane said that Rio got his 120k a week contract for playing well for 20 minutes against Spurs.

Ferguson and the whole team then went on to have an argument with their captain, which was, to describe it in Fergie’s words, “frightening to watch“. He mentions that Roy tried to reconcile with him, but it was too late.

And speaking about that Rock of Gibraltar thing in front of the whole squad didn’t help Roy’s case at all…

The Biggest Regret of his Career…

… is his boy, a player that he brought up to the first team, a person he helped to grow to the status of another Beattle, or a Red Oasis member if we speak in terms of Manchester. Yes, it’s David Beckham.

You know all about that boot incident – Beckam neglected defensive work in a game against bitter rivals Arsenal, and that made his manager furious. Furious enough to kick a pair of boots in a dressing room. Boots hit Beckham across the head, and things just fell apart.

The biggest English football star was sold to Real Madrid, and throughout this chapter, it’s easy to feel the bitterness. Ferguson writes about how Beckams PR stunts made him mad – especially the thing when he was unveiling his new haircut.

It happened to be a shaven head, and Fergie believed that all the journalist, photographs and media people drove Beckham away from football.

He pointed some of the stuff about Becks out, but overall feeling about this is regret. Regret about not being able to get things in control, and regret about Becks not being out there with Scholes and Giggs as a man who spent all his life under his management. (Read our review of Gary Neville – Red)

You can just feel the love when he writes about Beckam’s stamina, about his rise to fame in spite of negative media coverage of Class of ’92 at the start of that story (you can’t win anything with kids narrative).

But in the end, Ferguson again puts himself in a position of the man who was right. He writes that David Beckham had forgotten that the club and the manager are bigger than him.

“David thought he was bigger than Alex Ferguson. There is no doubt in my mind“, writes Ferguson, and you can clearly see that moving Manchester United’s famous number 7 to Madrid was inevitable.

The Best Player He Ever Worked With…

… is clearly Cristiano Ronaldo.

’John O’Shea’s ended up with a migraine!’, I said. ‘Get him signed.’

Those are the words used by great Scotsmen to describe that famous match between Manchester United and Sporting Lisabon that brought CR7 to “Theater of Dreams“. You get clear admiration of Cristiano in this book.

“Cristiano Ronaldo was the most gifted player I managed. He surpassed all the other great ones I coached at United”, Sir Alex writes, and we agree.

But if you are buying the book for and insight in their relationship, you won’t get that much info. The only big story about Portuguese goal machine was about that time Portugal and England met at the 2006 World Cup.

It was quarter-final match, Rooney got sent off in the second half. Cristiano looked on to English bench, and winked at them! Three Lions went on to lose on penalties after Ronaldo’s goal, and the public in England was outraged.

Ferguson explains how Rooney put himself on the line and how his beloved striker saved the day, but this is it when it comes to CR7 and “My Autobiography“.

Control Is Important, But Change Is The Key

The most fascinating thing about this book is a clear perspective of an aging Alex Ferguson who manages to get on with the times, who manages to adapt.

Maybe the best scene in the whole book is the confrontation with Roy Keane. Keane says “you’ve changed“ and you know what Fergie replies?

“Of course I have“.

You don’t really expect that answer from a 64-year-old with a reputation of stubbornness and wish to control everything. We all knew that Fergie had to adapt to stay at the top level for nearly 3 decades, but the insights given in this book are really mind-blowing.

You’ll find out that Alex Ferguson knows who P. Diddy is. You’ll find out how he quickly embraced all the latest sports science things, and how he overcame his ego and listened to the people around him like Carlos Queiroz, or Mike Phelan.

He is explaining how he learned about new training methods, but he is aware that he wasn’t right all the time. He admits that he disliked modern media, especially young reporters, with whom he never managed to get along (remember that 7-year war with BBC?), but explains that with the time passing by he understood the change within players.

In „My Autobiography“ you get the whole picture of Fergie embracing filthy rich players with their entourages and all that comes with it, and you couldn’t help yourself from thinking how would he deal with Pogba nowadays.

Ferguson insists that embracing change was a thing that was key to being on the top for nearly three decades. If you could extract one message from this book that would be it – you must embrace changes, and make them work in your interest.

The Things Missing

You’ll find out nearly nothing about Rock of Gibraltar scandal. Fergie writes that that was an awkward situation and that he got it resolved. Period. You get a couple of paragraphs about all of this mess, which involved him, owners of Manchester United, FA, players, media and the whole English public. You have some people thinking Rock of Gibraltar thing helped Glazer’s rise to power at Manchester United, but Sir Alex doesn’t think so.

He writes that he does really like Jose Mourinho. But why didn’t he make him his successor, rather than David Moyes? Nobody knows yet, and he didn’t address that question in his second autobiography.

Glazers and the takeover? Millions of debt that has held United down for years, the reason behind forming of a whole new protest club?

He just says that the takeover was none of his business, and moves on. We said at the beginning that he controls his feelings, but he also controls his themes with this book. You’ll get a peek only in things Fergie wants you to look into.

Trivia is Strong With This One

If you like trivia – you’ll get plenty of that in this book. From Nemanja Vidić asking Ferguson to go to war (yes, an actual war, this is not a metaphor), to the logic behind transfers of Kieran Richardson or Eric Djemba-Djemba.

You’ll find out why is Wigan so crucial for the departure of Ruud van Nistelrooy from Manchester United, and even get an insight in Patrice Evra mocking Sir Alex for one of his biggest transfer mistakes.

How many times England came knocking and asked him to manage the national team packed with his own players? Twice. He refused them, but why? You will have to read a book to find out, we won’t tell you everything here.

Wayne Rooney once proposed a transfer to the boss, and the answer he entertains you. Not only that, you’ll surely get entertained by the player Wayne wanted in his team.

And there is an episode that includes Jose Mourinho, Roman Abramovich, Stamford Bridge, and wine. Doesn’t get any better than that.

Final Take on Sir Alex Ferguson: My Autobiography

Factual side of this book isn’t that great. In fact, one fan found more than 45 factual mistakes and asked for a refund of his money, which he actually got.

“We did, in fact, go through several stages of fact-checking with this book, with a reading from within Manchester United as well as from a specialist football fact-checker. Although a very large number of corrections were made we plainly did not pick up everything“, was an answer from the publisher following this mini-scandal.

Sir Alex once said that he has never ever in his life played for a draw. So, that is what you get.

If you want the hard, dirty and jaw-breaking truth (of course from that old stubborn Scotsman perspective) buy this book.

You’ll love it.