WHEN the Arena programme salute to that triumvirate of great Scottish football managers - Sir Matt Busby, Bill Shankly, and Jock Stein - begins tonight, it will be as a hymn of praise for what already seems to be some far-off time.

Yet the sportswriter Hugh McIlvanney, who has lovingly paid tribute to the men from mining backgrounds who bestrode the world of football for so many years, admits that the working-class links he holds so dear, and stresses in the three programmes, are alive and well and flourishing in the manager's office at Old Trafford.

There, Alex Ferguson, Govan-born and proud of it, is one of the last links between the days of McIlvanney's managerial heroes and the present. Ferguson worked, albeit briefly, with Stein when he was assistant manager of Scotland, and Sir Matt was still a visible and all-pervading presence as Ferguson sought to establish himself with Manchester United.

He learned from both men. Essentially, however, Ferguson is a product of his background, just as they were of their own. Instead of the miners' rows which his predecessors in the pantheon of greats knew, Ferguson was a product of the city and of the heavy industry which dominated the Glasgow of his youth. He still talks of the ''sea of bunnets'' which swept out of the Govan yards and down the tenement streets as he waited for his father to come home from work.

''Like the others,'' observes McIlvanney, ''Alex has never forgotten where he came from. The background may have been slightly different but the values were the same and he is the type of man who would never ever betray them.

''Any time you are at Old Trafford for a game, particularly a big European night, you would think you were in Glasgow. Or, rather, Govan.

''The manager's office and then his home are always packed with friends who have come down, lads who played football with him when they were kids, people he grew up with but has never grown away from.

''There is something there which is obviously important to him and which will never leave him.''

Essentially, McIlvanney sees in Ferguson one of the last remaining major management figures who has been produced, at least in part, from outside the game.

More and more he feels that the men who move into management will do so as products of the game itself, without the seasoning influence of a background elsewhere.

He points out: ''Alex served an apprenticeship at Rolls Royce, and you have Walter Smith at Ibrox, who also served his time as an electrician, and Kenny Dalglish had a short spell at the tools. But you are looking at a dying breed.

''Just as Busby and Shankly and Stein came from a mining background which really no longer exists, so Ferguson is one of the few who go back to industrial rather than just football beginnings.

''Now the game produces the managers and those coming into management have known little outside football itself. You have to remember that youngsters are joining clubs as players earlier and earlier. They just don't know a great deal about the outside world.''

That is an accusation which can never be levelled at Ferguson. McIlvanney laughs as he recalls a recent visit to Old Trafford when the United manager was busying himself on the phone talking to Labour Party leaders about help he can provide in the General Election campaign.

''There he was,'' grins McIlvanney, ''talking away to Gordon Brown and going on about the different areas in which he can provide help in the campaign. He just never stops. He doesn't limit himself to the game, he is all over the place, although football dominates his thinking.

''My brother, Willie, made a point during the Arena programme that the three men we focused on had not been the best of players and big Jock, himself, was quite disparaging about his own ability, and that made them think more about the actual mechanics of the game.

''Alex is like that. He was not, from all accounts, a great natural footballer, but he studied the game and he thought about the game, and we are seeing the fruits of all of that application now.''

There is not any doubt in McIlvanney's mind that Ferguson, by way of his achieve ments at Pittodrie and Old Trafford, deserves to be up there with the men immortalised on film. He also recognises, however, that the United manager is unlikely to accept a place among the greats until he has won the European Cup.

''You know how Alex is,'' he says. ''He has earned the right to be up there alongside the others already but he would not accept that until he has lifted that European Cup. That's his dream. If he fails, he would not want to be in any kind of Hall of Fame on the nod, so to speak. He would have to feel that he had earned it.

''This is the year he could do that, though I believe that Borussia Dortmund may be more difficult opponents than some of the people in England seem to believe. You only have to look at the quality of the players they have, fellows like Sammer and Riedle and Moller, and then you have to remember how the Germans play.

''You know as well as I do that they have a level of consistency about their play at club and international level that other countries cannot match. They always seem to hit a level and they don't drop below that too often.

''It will be hard for united but if they get through then, strangely, in a one off game I wouldn't worry as much about Juventus. I think the final would bring out the very best in United.''

If that happens then Ferguson would have emulated Busby, the founding father of the club, who won the trophy at Wembley in l968, a year after Stein's Celtic. He would have done it, too, with the same mixture of explosive home-grown talent and ex-pensively purchased stars as Busby had employed.

He would have achieved the victory also by sticking closely to Busby's principles. Says McIlvanney: ''There are times when Alex remains more fiery than Matt ever was, but he knows that the job at Manchester United requires dignity and he can provide that. He handled the Cantona incident as well as anyone could have done. That was a difficult test for him because invariably Alex's first reaction was to defend his player, to pull up the drawbridge, and protect the club in that way.

''Then he realised that the incident was serious and he adopted a totally different attitude. It was impressive the way he dealt with that.

''And the way he has nursed Ryan Giggs and his fragile talent has been superb. He has guided that young man through his career, always conscious, I think, that he could go the George Best route. He made certain that could not happen and the result is he has a potential match-winner each time Giggs goes on to the field.

''Then there are the youngsters, David Beckham and the rest, and they are the finest crop of young players since the Busby Babes. That tells you it all about Alex and what he has done. To win the European Cup would be the fruition of all his dreams.''

Perhaps, too, it would mean another filmed odyssey by McIlvanney when Harmony Row could join the Glenbuck Cherrypickers as part of Scottish football's unique lexicon.

q Arena BBC 2, 9.30pm.