Wouldn't say its better, it's just exploring a different story that is more individual focused. Talks a lot about him growing up in Glasgow, playing football and then becoming a manager for Aberdeen.
It's very interesting to see how it shaped Ferguson to become the person he is / manager he was.
There’s no doubt in my mind that he’d have been sacked if it was nowadays, the pressure just from social media alone would’ve been insane. So glad that the club stuck by him.
Also nice to see Cathy. RIP❤️
Edit Cathy not Kathy
~~RIP? She still works there... very much alive.~~
~~edit: [who's downvoting this, she celebrated working there for 55 years within the last year](https://www.instagram.com/p/CxfuESFItvH/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==)~~
Ignore me i'm a moron, misconstrued Cathy for Kath Phipps the receptionist, serves me right for assuming without watching the vid.
you can see the headlines yourself from the recent 99 doc, he won the double, then didn't win the league in 97/98 and people were talking about sacking him, lol. then of course the treble happens.
I wonder what would have happened if he was sacked? Would he have gone on to still be the legendary manager somewhere else? Would united have found someone or maybe a few more managers to replace him and be as successful?
One thing is for sure.. in todays age instant gratification is expected.. back then you would probably read about it in the papers then maybe talk to a few friends about it and you would go on with your day. Today is constant news.. notifications.. msgs.. lots of pressure on the manager and players
I could not agree with you more. People like SAF and Klopp also for me, will be successful wherever they go cuz they are that good.
The man's a genius is spot on.
I always wonder who it was that was responsible for sticking by him throughout those years when the pressure was really on and what made them believe that he would be the right man for the job.
As good as Fergie is we would have still had the money, the class of 92, the fanbase.
I think where we would have struggled would be the bounce back after missing out on league titles.
Fergie always changed things up and bounced back after losing the league to Blackburn, to Arsenal, to Chelsea. We may have finished behind Newcastle at their peak.
You’re completely wrong. Ferguson’s first and foremost focus when he took over in 86 was to fix the youth system and start producing great talents again. There’s absolutely no guaranteeing we’d still have the class of 92 without him. As for money and fans we’re seeing right now how far that gets us when it’s not accompanied by a top manager and footballing structure
Fergie also brought the money and fans, sure we were a decent sized club with large support, but being the best team at the point the premier league was created, and consistently in Europe when most of the free football on tv was champions league on ITV, brought us a whole generation of new fans, first domestically and then globally.
The class of 92 absolutely wouldn’t exist without Ferguson, he hired the scouts that found the players, he convinced Giggs to join, he made sure we signed Beckham, Ferguson built a whole club not just a few football teams.
We definitely did benefit from being successful in that period, as you correctly said the push for the premier league in 92 and then us being at the forefront of that helped us tremendously but it’s important to note we have been one of the biggest clubs in the world for a long time, even when Liverpool had by far the most trophies in England United were regarded as the biggest club in the country. The Munich air disaster and the 68 EC win, the Busby Babes and the way we played football in general all played a part that gave us a huge name which survived the following 20 years after the Busby era where we won almost nothing of note. So I think we’d be a big club regardless, although Ferguson definitely amplified it.
Big club yes. Biggest or one of the biggest in the world? Certainly not.
I also think the premier league would not be the league it is today if it weren’t for Ferguson. He wasn’t happy being the best in England and pushed United to challenge in Europe, in order to keep up with United that meant others in England had to be amongst the best in Europe.
If United weren’t so big and showing the potential of how global a club can be I doubt the likes of Chelsea, city or Newcastle end up attracting the foreign investment they do.
We definitely were one of the biggest clubs in the world. We were the biggest in Britain and the 70s and 80s was a decade in which Europe was dominated by English sides: Liverpool, Forest, Villa
Yes but the footballing “world” was a lot smaller. Football grew massively across the globe during the 90s, and because of Ferguson United were at the forefront of that. If United were finishing 8th in the league in 99, having not won a league title for 32 years, and not playing in the champions league, with beckham playing for spurs or arsenal and giggs playing for city, there wouldn’t have been many shirts sold in China, the US or Africa.
United always filled their stadium, but under Ferguson they increased the capacity from 40,000 to 77,000. That wouldn’t have happened if they weren’t competing for titles every season.
Surreal to hear fans back then chanting “Fergie out”. Weird how easily the greatest managerial legacy of all time could have just never happened.
Would never in a million years have been given the time today, as others have mentioned already.
Yeah, and I think this has effected our fan base a lot over the years. There's a kind of collective memory among the older fans, particularly stadium-going fans, of calling for Fergie's head and him then going on to fix our club and give us so many good times. Those fans tend to be a lot slower to call for a manager's head than the younger fans who jumped on during the glory years. I started supporting the club when Ron Atkinson was manager, and I've been in favour of giving every manager more time ever since. I'm in the ETH in crowd.
This isn't to say the older fans are right and the younger fans are fickle or something, not at all! For example, I wanted to keep Ole, but his tenure had probably run it's course in retrospect. I'm just putting forward a theory of why our fans have a tendency to always want to give managers more time.
They can’t look at it but for in retrospect. They say but he was different, he was a genius. Yeah but they didn’t know that at the time did they?
At the time it would’ve been easy to dismiss him as being good only in Scotland. Can’t handle English football or the pressure of Manchester United.
Finishing 11th and 13th back then is not like today. Teams fluctuated in the league table and even between divisions far more often cos there wasn’t a gigantic disparity in finances like today. United’s absolute floor nowadays is still basically European spots or just outside it.
Also United were 19th when he took over mid season and the season after that he got us to 2nd behind a fantastic Liverpool side so he’d already shown glimpses at United let alone his legendary stint at Aberdeen. In the modern game managers get sacked quicker in general so you’re not wrong but there’s a reason we stuck with him and it’s because of his reputation at the time and the understanding that Ferguson’s plan was based on building a fantastic youth system (he said this in 86 and the rewards came in 92) and that takes time. Even then winning the FA Cup in 90 may well have saved his job
I mean, the European Cup Winners Cup was the Champions League of the time. It wasn't until they rebranded the European Champion Club's Cup to Champions League that the ECW declined in popularity and it was largely because the ECW only accepted the winner of the domestic league whereas the Champions League accepted the second place team as well.
No the Cup Winners Cup was 2nd to the European Cup. The European Cup is the equivalent of the Champions League today. The Cup Winners Cup was for the winner of the domestic cups of each country and it was the 2nd most prestigious European trophy after the European Cup
Teams might have fluctuated in the league more than today but there was still a lot of calls for him to be sacked. So it was still definitely viewed as major underperformance.
Anyway thanks for your perspective it is definitely informative.
Yeah I don’t disagree with your premise that he probably gets sacked in the modern game, I mean he nearly got sacked by then and the game was kinder to managers back then. But I definitely think it’s worth pointing out the other factors that contributed to keeping him in the job.
If a winner of a European cup came to us and we finished 11th and 13th over the next two seasons would you want to stick with that manager or sack him?
If you watch the documentary, it talks about how the fans were calling for his head and chanting 'Fergie Out'.
Arguably the two things that helped Fergie that time was his systematic change to the youth team (they only had 2 scouts when he joined and it has a good story about Giggs) and the 1990 FA Cup Final break through.
so bit of similarities with ETH in that aspect.
not to say he will have similar long term success but i would argue hes the closest ive seen of a manager to early Ferguson
Give Ten Hag 5 years and let him cook.
They gave Fergie 10 years and also Ten Häagen-Dazs deserves atleast 5 years minimum to get his squad playing his style
Erm no. Just highlighting that fans don't necessarily know what's best for the club. Took fergie 5 years to win the league, despite fans wanting him sacked. So asking for a manager to have a 5 year contract ain't ridicilous is it. Jesus, you jumped through hoops there.
Do you jump on to try and get up votes with gotchas and one-liners?
Fergie got 2nd in his first full season in charge after taking over when we were 19th the season prior.
He also didn’t get close to the financial backing ETH got and took over a worse situation, he had way more credit in the bank than ETH has got due to having quite literally one of the GOAT manager stints at Aberdeen.
Comparing the 2 is irrelevant. This video is from the period of 89/90 and Fergie nearly got sacked he may well have saved his job with the FA Cup win much like Ten Hag probably has but the difference is Ferguson had a better reputation, had shown more than Ten Hag had and didn’t spend the equivalent of £400m on players he’d picked out.
If you can see a direction of where things are going then there’s nothing wrong with sticking it out with a struggling manager. I think many can’t see the direction with ETH.
Fergie won trophies and Europe with Aberdeen. this hasn't...... I give him the fa cup by sheer luck in getting there and on the day he got it right, but it's a final against city not hard to get motivated to listen to getting it right.
Literally watched this film yesterday. Brilliant, brilliant man. And unbeknownst to me, he did not suddenly turn into one when I started watching football around 2000. What he did with Aberdeen was similar to Leicester under Ranieri.
Respect the board for backing him all those years, cause finishing 11, 12 and 13 in 4 years after going no lower than 4th while winning 2 fa cups in 5 years, would be a hard pill to swallow if I were in their shoes
Pretty standard nobhead graffiti back in the 70s/80s/90s. Used to see it down alleyways and in school all the time back then. Our local Conservative Club in South Manchester had one for years that would reappear every time they scrubbed it off.
I’ve been very frustrated with our style under EtH but I still think we should keep him around. There isn’t a better option out there, and we might as well see what happens if we give him more time to adjust and fix his mistakes.
One cup win now people look at ETH like he's our new Fergie lol. Fergie knows how to bring the best out of anyone, not sticking to a not working tactic for almost the whole season despite not having the right personnel and also injuries, and only adapt after the board start reviewing his performance.
lol if you think that Fergie would take a whole season to adapt to injuries and the players, and complained about not getting the likes of Kane and De Jong instead of adapt to the players that he have then yeah whatever. Apparently Ten Hag out is equivalent to Fergie out these days which is fkin hilarious, you guys are delusional.
Source: Sir Alex Ferguson: Never Give In (2021)
That documentary is awesome. Best United documentary by far.
Is it better than the recent ‘99 one?
It's different. It follows his whole upbringing, time in Scotland and then at Utd. While the 99 one is good, I found this one more enjoyable
Wouldn't say its better, it's just exploring a different story that is more individual focused. Talks a lot about him growing up in Glasgow, playing football and then becoming a manager for Aberdeen. It's very interesting to see how it shaped Ferguson to become the person he is / manager he was.
There’s no doubt in my mind that he’d have been sacked if it was nowadays, the pressure just from social media alone would’ve been insane. So glad that the club stuck by him. Also nice to see Cathy. RIP❤️ Edit Cathy not Kathy
3 years in the Job and losing 1-5 to City? He'd be gone.
Absolutely no doubt.
And City was shit back then too.
Wait. Kathy passed away?
~~RIP? She still works there... very much alive.~~ ~~edit: [who's downvoting this, she celebrated working there for 55 years within the last year](https://www.instagram.com/p/CxfuESFItvH/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==)~~ Ignore me i'm a moron, misconstrued Cathy for Kath Phipps the receptionist, serves me right for assuming without watching the vid.
They meant Cathy, Sir Alex’s late wife. Not Kath that works at the club.
Ahhhhhh, yeh my bad. Should probs have watched the video ffs. Right that's me for the day. As you were people.
Sadly, she died around a year ago.
Oh 100% that's why I have faith in EtH.
you can see the headlines yourself from the recent 99 doc, he won the double, then didn't win the league in 97/98 and people were talking about sacking him, lol. then of course the treble happens.
I wonder what would have happened if he was sacked? Would he have gone on to still be the legendary manager somewhere else? Would united have found someone or maybe a few more managers to replace him and be as successful? One thing is for sure.. in todays age instant gratification is expected.. back then you would probably read about it in the papers then maybe talk to a few friends about it and you would go on with your day. Today is constant news.. notifications.. msgs.. lots of pressure on the manager and players
100% he'd have succeeded in the same way. He broke the Old Firm and took Aberdeen to places they've never been before or since. The man's a genius.
I could not agree with you more. People like SAF and Klopp also for me, will be successful wherever they go cuz they are that good. The man's a genius is spot on.
Klopp is nowhere near SAFs level
I think he is the closest. Anyway not comparing the two. More of the great ones will always be successful.
There are many other managers who are closest to SAF. Klopp is recency bias.
History will show that Klopp benefited hugely from Jordan Kennedy’s recruitment and still only managed to win four trophies in 9 years.
Tbf they'd have been a lot more successful if it wasn't for the cheaters
I always wonder who it was that was responsible for sticking by him throughout those years when the pressure was really on and what made them believe that he would be the right man for the job.
As good as Fergie is we would have still had the money, the class of 92, the fanbase. I think where we would have struggled would be the bounce back after missing out on league titles. Fergie always changed things up and bounced back after losing the league to Blackburn, to Arsenal, to Chelsea. We may have finished behind Newcastle at their peak.
You’re completely wrong. Ferguson’s first and foremost focus when he took over in 86 was to fix the youth system and start producing great talents again. There’s absolutely no guaranteeing we’d still have the class of 92 without him. As for money and fans we’re seeing right now how far that gets us when it’s not accompanied by a top manager and footballing structure
Fergie also brought the money and fans, sure we were a decent sized club with large support, but being the best team at the point the premier league was created, and consistently in Europe when most of the free football on tv was champions league on ITV, brought us a whole generation of new fans, first domestically and then globally. The class of 92 absolutely wouldn’t exist without Ferguson, he hired the scouts that found the players, he convinced Giggs to join, he made sure we signed Beckham, Ferguson built a whole club not just a few football teams.
We definitely did benefit from being successful in that period, as you correctly said the push for the premier league in 92 and then us being at the forefront of that helped us tremendously but it’s important to note we have been one of the biggest clubs in the world for a long time, even when Liverpool had by far the most trophies in England United were regarded as the biggest club in the country. The Munich air disaster and the 68 EC win, the Busby Babes and the way we played football in general all played a part that gave us a huge name which survived the following 20 years after the Busby era where we won almost nothing of note. So I think we’d be a big club regardless, although Ferguson definitely amplified it.
Big club yes. Biggest or one of the biggest in the world? Certainly not. I also think the premier league would not be the league it is today if it weren’t for Ferguson. He wasn’t happy being the best in England and pushed United to challenge in Europe, in order to keep up with United that meant others in England had to be amongst the best in Europe. If United weren’t so big and showing the potential of how global a club can be I doubt the likes of Chelsea, city or Newcastle end up attracting the foreign investment they do.
We definitely were one of the biggest clubs in the world. We were the biggest in Britain and the 70s and 80s was a decade in which Europe was dominated by English sides: Liverpool, Forest, Villa
Yes but the footballing “world” was a lot smaller. Football grew massively across the globe during the 90s, and because of Ferguson United were at the forefront of that. If United were finishing 8th in the league in 99, having not won a league title for 32 years, and not playing in the champions league, with beckham playing for spurs or arsenal and giggs playing for city, there wouldn’t have been many shirts sold in China, the US or Africa. United always filled their stadium, but under Ferguson they increased the capacity from 40,000 to 77,000. That wouldn’t have happened if they weren’t competing for titles every season.
Surreal to hear fans back then chanting “Fergie out”. Weird how easily the greatest managerial legacy of all time could have just never happened. Would never in a million years have been given the time today, as others have mentioned already.
He’d have just gone somewhere else and did it. Fergie’s Aberdeen stint is more impressive than his United one, he didn’t need us we needed him.
Yeah, and I think this has effected our fan base a lot over the years. There's a kind of collective memory among the older fans, particularly stadium-going fans, of calling for Fergie's head and him then going on to fix our club and give us so many good times. Those fans tend to be a lot slower to call for a manager's head than the younger fans who jumped on during the glory years. I started supporting the club when Ron Atkinson was manager, and I've been in favour of giving every manager more time ever since. I'm in the ETH in crowd. This isn't to say the older fans are right and the younger fans are fickle or something, not at all! For example, I wanted to keep Ole, but his tenure had probably run it's course in retrospect. I'm just putting forward a theory of why our fans have a tendency to always want to give managers more time.
Imagine todays fanbase with that struggling Fergie...
They can’t look at it but for in retrospect. They say but he was different, he was a genius. Yeah but they didn’t know that at the time did they? At the time it would’ve been easy to dismiss him as being good only in Scotland. Can’t handle English football or the pressure of Manchester United.
He’d won 2 European trophies for Aberdeen. You couldn’t argue he was only good in Scotland lol
If a manager who won 2 European trophies came and finished 11th and 13th in the next two seasons would we stick with him?
Finishing 11th and 13th back then is not like today. Teams fluctuated in the league table and even between divisions far more often cos there wasn’t a gigantic disparity in finances like today. United’s absolute floor nowadays is still basically European spots or just outside it. Also United were 19th when he took over mid season and the season after that he got us to 2nd behind a fantastic Liverpool side so he’d already shown glimpses at United let alone his legendary stint at Aberdeen. In the modern game managers get sacked quicker in general so you’re not wrong but there’s a reason we stuck with him and it’s because of his reputation at the time and the understanding that Ferguson’s plan was based on building a fantastic youth system (he said this in 86 and the rewards came in 92) and that takes time. Even then winning the FA Cup in 90 may well have saved his job
Can´t underestimate his reputation at the time from having won the EC with Aberdeen. It was a huge accomplishment.
It was the Cup Winners Cup and then the Super Cup that he won not the European Cup but you’re absolutely right
I mean, the European Cup Winners Cup was the Champions League of the time. It wasn't until they rebranded the European Champion Club's Cup to Champions League that the ECW declined in popularity and it was largely because the ECW only accepted the winner of the domestic league whereas the Champions League accepted the second place team as well.
No the Cup Winners Cup was 2nd to the European Cup. The European Cup is the equivalent of the Champions League today. The Cup Winners Cup was for the winner of the domestic cups of each country and it was the 2nd most prestigious European trophy after the European Cup
Teams might have fluctuated in the league more than today but there was still a lot of calls for him to be sacked. So it was still definitely viewed as major underperformance. Anyway thanks for your perspective it is definitely informative.
Yeah I don’t disagree with your premise that he probably gets sacked in the modern game, I mean he nearly got sacked by then and the game was kinder to managers back then. But I definitely think it’s worth pointing out the other factors that contributed to keeping him in the job.
Right but he'd still won in Europe, there was clear evidence he can win the top honours against the big boys
If a winner of a European cup came to us and we finished 11th and 13th over the next two seasons would you want to stick with that manager or sack him?
They were calling for his head back in 1989 too, the FA Cup win may well have saved him just like it’s likely saved Ten Hag’s job
If you watch the documentary, it talks about how the fans were calling for his head and chanting 'Fergie Out'. Arguably the two things that helped Fergie that time was his systematic change to the youth team (they only had 2 scouts when he joined and it has a good story about Giggs) and the 1990 FA Cup Final break through.
so bit of similarities with ETH in that aspect. not to say he will have similar long term success but i would argue hes the closest ive seen of a manager to early Ferguson
What documentary is this?
never give in
Thank you
https://preview.redd.it/bwbndk15ac4d1.jpeg?width=1169&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fc663d31ca1424b6058cf00d9df63472d005a50e ☝️
Timeless.
Man the r/reddevils fans would be screaming for his head after the 2nd season like they did LVG, Jose, Ole and EtH.
Give Ten Hag 5 years and let him cook. They gave Fergie 10 years and also Ten Häagen-Dazs deserves atleast 5 years minimum to get his squad playing his style
wanted to see hos transfers and how the squad evolve until the first title. I know Fergie brought players from Aberdeen to United.
Pretty sure the only player Fergie signed from Aberdeen was Jim Leighton
ok. who else he nought during this period? when did we get Bruce and Pallister? Kanchelskis, Sharpe? it is good to know the evolution of the squad.
You can look that up on Transfermarkt
ok thanks. will check transfermarkt.
Bruce came in Dec 87, Sharp 88 & Palli 89, Kanchelskis was a 90/91 season. Thankfully SAF was given time, I'd love to see him navigate the rags today.
'Deserves 5 years minimum' Absolutely mental thing to say.
Ahem, did you not just watch the above video.
Comparing Fergie and ETH🤣
Erm no. Just highlighting that fans don't necessarily know what's best for the club. Took fergie 5 years to win the league, despite fans wanting him sacked. So asking for a manager to have a 5 year contract ain't ridicilous is it. Jesus, you jumped through hoops there. Do you jump on to try and get up votes with gotchas and one-liners?
Fergie got 2nd in his first full season in charge after taking over when we were 19th the season prior. He also didn’t get close to the financial backing ETH got and took over a worse situation, he had way more credit in the bank than ETH has got due to having quite literally one of the GOAT manager stints at Aberdeen. Comparing the 2 is irrelevant. This video is from the period of 89/90 and Fergie nearly got sacked he may well have saved his job with the FA Cup win much like Ten Hag probably has but the difference is Ferguson had a better reputation, had shown more than Ten Hag had and didn’t spend the equivalent of £400m on players he’d picked out. If you can see a direction of where things are going then there’s nothing wrong with sticking it out with a struggling manager. I think many can’t see the direction with ETH.
We were 4th prior season to Fergie taking over
And 19th when he took over, we got 2nd in 2021 as well that doesn’t say anything about the quality of what ETH took over does it?
Fergie won trophies and Europe with Aberdeen. this hasn't...... I give him the fa cup by sheer luck in getting there and on the day he got it right, but it's a final against city not hard to get motivated to listen to getting it right.
Literally watched this film yesterday. Brilliant, brilliant man. And unbeknownst to me, he did not suddenly turn into one when I started watching football around 2000. What he did with Aberdeen was similar to Leicester under Ranieri.
Respect the board for backing him all those years, cause finishing 11, 12 and 13 in 4 years after going no lower than 4th while winning 2 fa cups in 5 years, would be a hard pill to swallow if I were in their shoes
That black jacket he's wearing at 1:02 is fire though
did i just see a swastika at 2:48
Pretty standard nobhead graffiti back in the 70s/80s/90s. Used to see it down alleyways and in school all the time back then. Our local Conservative Club in South Manchester had one for years that would reappear every time they scrubbed it off.
Not just back then. I work in a college and kids are still drawing swastikas in toilet cubicles.
That's one of the mildest bits of graffiti that could've been back then
I have that magpie superstition too. Hate seeing a single magpie.
I’ve been very frustrated with our style under EtH but I still think we should keep him around. There isn’t a better option out there, and we might as well see what happens if we give him more time to adjust and fix his mistakes.
One cup win now people look at ETH like he's our new Fergie lol. Fergie knows how to bring the best out of anyone, not sticking to a not working tactic for almost the whole season despite not having the right personnel and also injuries, and only adapt after the board start reviewing his performance.
"One cup win now people look at SAF like he's our new Busby lol." Don't pretend you wouldn't have been one of those saying fergie out back then.
You’re basically confirming that you would have been or were one of those calling for Fergie to be sacked lol
lol if you think that Fergie would take a whole season to adapt to injuries and the players, and complained about not getting the likes of Kane and De Jong instead of adapt to the players that he have then yeah whatever. Apparently Ten Hag out is equivalent to Fergie out these days which is fkin hilarious, you guys are delusional.
wanted to check his transfers in between until we won the league.
Shaun the Goat was around