In the end its unpredictability was strangely predictable –
after the farrago around his previous attempt to retire in 2002 Sir Alex
Ferguson was never going to announce his retirement in advance.
Yet the announcement in some ways still comes as a shock;
the end of an era, to use a phrase that will adorn social media networks and
lazy hagiographies.
Despite his unprecedented success in the game, with only the
combined total of Liverpool’s boot room boys competing as far as honours are
concerned, Ferguson still is a polarising figure and one whose achievements
have been difficult to love.
Some of this is jealousy, some indignation at unbecoming
behaviour, but really upon reflection it is anger and regret at perhaps what is his and
others at the club’s greatest achievement.
Ferguson’s era at the top of management occurred in an era
in which football changed beyond recognition, with a major part in that being
played by Ferguson’s Man United’s success.
The United career of Fergie came to be strewn with defining
moments; winning their first league title since the 1960s after a goal in
injury time that shouldn’t have existed against Sheffield Wednesday (the origin
of the “Fergie time” phrase), signing Eric Cantona on the phone instead of losing Dennis Irwin, that night in
Barcelona and of course many others.
However Ferguson was the first manager for whom perhaps as
many defining moments came from marketing men and business suits; United going
public in 1991 and raising the money to turn Old Trafford into an incredible
money making machine as well as a football temple, the aggressive marketing
which alongside Fergie’s success meant that growing up in Surrey, Bangkok or
Florida you were as likely to see a red polyester United top as you were
strolling down Sir Matt Busby Way.
The abortive BskyB takeover in 1998-99, a prelude to the
current era of financial exploitation, and of course, the various ways that United’s rivals have
had to change in order to compete; from Arsenal’s Ashburton Grove project to
Chelsea’s Rouble revolution (itself reportedly directly influenced by Utd’s game with Real Madrid in 2003)
and the “chasing the dream” at Leeds
United.
All these managed to lock in the success of Sir Alex’s two
great teams of the 90s into something far more substantial, and yes,
threatening. United the “big club” have become United the super club over his
tenure, turning the top echelons of the English game into a sport that’s closed
to you unless you come armed with a global brand or the backing of a
billionaire.
There are a number of other reasons for the rampant
commercialisation of the game; the Premier League and Champions League bonanza,
globalisation and the general wish for gentrification after the Taylor Report,
but Ferguson and United’s desire for domination on and off the pitch has
undoubtedly been a driving force as other clubs strove to match the methods of what
for the best part of the 2000s proudly declared itself “the richest club in the
world” and may well do so again.
The epitome of this desire was Ferguson’s eventual embrace of the
Glazers’ takeover, placing the United corporate machine’s interests ahead of
those of traditional football fans. Having once regarded the Floridian interlopers with
typical Govan disdain, Ferguson became one of Malcolm, Avi, Joel and co’s greatest
defenders and shield against criticism.
None of this takes away from his astonishing record in
itself, especially the two great 90s sides, one with Hughes, Cantona, Ince,
Bruce, Keane and Pallister, the other the “kids” who wouldn’t win anything but
ended up with a European Cup, but it does mean that unlike the great successes
of Clough, Paisley or Shankly it will be
difficult to romanticise the latter part of the Ferguson story.
That’s because that pure will to win, while on the field an
attractive and important part of any great team, becomes off it detrimental to
football’s equilibrium, unlike sporting success in that it is no longer
transient but permanent, stifling on field competition rather than an essential
component of it.
A great example of this will come in what United do to
replace Ferguson; either picking modern football’s closest thing to the
wandering Bilderberg attending CEO, Jose Mourinho, or poaching David Moyes from Everton, a one-time
rival and great old club, now shorn of the ability to compete among football’s
United inspired behemoths.
The pivotal moment game in deciding United's first title under Ferguson versus Sheff Wed
Simply put, United’s success will continue long after
Ferguson has gone but will have little to do with the skills that built the
team of Giggs, Scholes and Beckham, and more to do with their paymasters’
astonishing ability to blow the competition out of the water financially.
If Moyes succeeds his fellow Scot and fails, we won’t see a
changing of the guard but perhaps a season’s light relief, where Man United’s
oil rich imitators provide a brief respite while the Red Devils drop to second
or third.
Similarly with Mourinho, if the Portuguese falls out with
his new charges, we’ll see tens of millions spent on a replacement and team
that only Europe’s other cash rich giants can hope to compete with.
In fact with a new eye-watering sponsorship deal and revenue growth that not even their fellow members of the Premier League elite can even dream of - United's future financial dominance may well make this the perfect moment for their long standing manager to step down, as shown here on the football finance blog, The Swiss Ramble.
As such the truly great Ferguson and United achievement, the
creation of the all-encompassing Man United monster, the global brand that can pick up £40m just to sponsor their training kit, before buying it out as they believe they can get more elsewhere, while other former heavy-weight challengers scrabble around for peanuts, is one that only the most one-eyed United
fans can truly celebrate without a certain tinge of regret for the death of the
competitive balance that allowed Sir Alex to prove just how great a manager he
was.
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