TO the Concert Hall to see Sir Alex Ferguson. To rub shoulders with a legend. But that is enough about Rodger Baillie, indefatigable chronicler of Scottish football, best man to the stars and my carer for the evening.
There was only me, Rodger, his personal staff, and a couple of thousand others to hear Sir Alex’s words. The former Manchester United manager would receive a standing ovation from a Glesca audience for clearing his throat but there was more than enough in his chat to entertain and inform. Mostly both.
Nattering with other audience members afterwards (as was awaiting the chair lift to an upper floor) I was struck by what others had garnered from the evening. There were those who revelled in the anecdotes about the great players, others who took specific coaching advice on board and others like me who continue to be fascinated about what makes Fergie tick and what makes him perennially successful.
For me, the best and most revealing story was almost an aside from Fergie. It told of him returning to Carrington, United’s training ground, sometime after he had retired. He was informed at reception that one of the laundry women wanted to see him. He took up the story by revealing: “I went in and Denise, one of the workers, told me: ‘You owe me f***ing lottery money. They are hard those Salford girls.”
Sir Alex now lectures at Harvard and the previous sentence may be unintelligible to the brahmins of Boston but one could write a business thesis on it. In one sentence it reveals that Sir Alex interacted with staff far beyond the playing pitch. This Fergie trait of being friendly with the workers is hardly a secret. But it had an extra resonance on a night when Sir Alex was in a Glesca arena that could only be described as a seething cauldron of love.
Most strikingly to me, it was obvious that to be successful as a manager you, well, have to manage people. There is a lot of chat now about scientific progress in sport, about rotation, about the mechanics and economics of recruitment and about the strategy employed on the pitch. But it all means as much as a Saturday column if people are not managed properly. There persists a belief that Fergie ruled through fear. There will be these who attest that Fergie in full flow caused such a storm to be unleashed that warnings were issued about levees breaking.
But the modern football world cannot be controlled or even influenced by volume of speech. Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes – wanted by every big club in the world – did not stay at Man Utd for 20 years because they were afraid of Fergie. Cristiano Ronaldo did not postpone his departure to Real Madrid because he was being held hostage by a demented Govan man wielding the dessicated corpse of a dissenting sportswriter.
They lingered at Old Trafford with Fergie and with Denise at Carrington because – in the words of Lou Reed, that peerless observer if the EPL – they wanted to play football for the coach. That is, they held Ferguson in the kind of respect that not only produces loyalty but committed, unstinting performances.
In the business world of old – and this culture extended beyond football – it was thought that bullying or other forms of intimidation, some of them economic, could keep a workforce in line. It did not really work then and it certainly does not now.
Fergie has had no shortage of critics despite his success. He has alienated some writers, infuriated and distanced some former players. But the greatest leadership lesson he offers is surely that the manager had to be held in respect by those he guides. There has to be something that is harder than affection, more enduring than likeability. There has to be a belief that the manager not only has a valid strategy but he believes in the cause and he cares for the participants, whether they labour in the laundry room or excel on the pitch.
All industry is about people. That has been forgotten in the urge to meet budgets, make profit and cut costs. Fergie knew his fate rested with 11 young men trotting across a white line on match day. He accepted he had to be influential on them but his lesson in the Concert Hall for this observer was that he grasped instinctively that all at United were part of the process, part of the success and were people to be treated with a respect that included paying the lottery dues.
It was also instructive to watch Fergie post-interview. The record will show that he is hardly a pressing case for beatification but there is something more than engaging about a celebrity who meets an 11-year-old briefly for the first time yet 20 minutes later remembers his name and demands a selfie.
There was another realisation. There was a Govan accent to proceedings and it did not just come from that stage. Fergie’s boyhood pals were in the stalls. The Greatest Manager Ever has won titles in Scotland and England, taken Europe’s biggest prizes, and lectures at Harvard. These are baubles compared to the genuine currency of friendships that have prospered for more than half a century. Fergie knows this. He knows people matter. This is his greatest lesson to any manager, any business.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel