This boy's life sustains an old man's dream

SIDELINE CUT:Alex Ferguson knows the danger of staying on too long but as he nears his 70th year, it seems as he if he is as full of vitality, stubbornness and mischief as ever, writes KEITH DUGGAN

A COUPLE of weeks ago there was a photograph in one of the newspapers of Alex Ferguson on the training pitch. The image was only a couple of years old so Fergie’s days as a hardchaw centre forward were long behind him but nonetheless, he had laced up his boots and he looked as if he had been running some. His hands were on his knees and he seemed to be watching the play.

He looked in remarkable condition: ridiculously shapely gams, face glowing with health and eyes, that if read, would surely say: “I’ll facken do you, son”. Here was a man who already had passed the age of retirement yet even on dull newssheet, his energy and urgency seemed alive on the page. The photograph provoked one immediate thought: what a magnificently crazy old bastard.

Ferguson turns 70 this year. It is not so old, of course: Ronald Reagan was the same age when he assumed power in the White House. (That inspired Billy Connolly’s shocked line: “My father-in-law’s younger than that and we won’t even give him the remote control.”)

But try as he might, Ferguson can’t ignore the fact that the candles on the birthday cake are starting to look a little bit crowded and that he cannot forever continue to preside over what must be one of the toughest and most demanding jobs in world sport. The next few weeks present him with a chance for the perfect exit.

Tomorrow, Chelsea visit Old Trafford for what is the definitive match in the Premier League season: win that and Ferguson will almost certainly guide Manchester United to their 19th title, the 12th on his watch and, crucially, the one which would eclipse Liverpool’s historic haul. Then, a few weeks later is the Champions League final; the shimmering stylists from Barcelona and the meeting of European football royalty at Wembley. Ferguson has been on enough coaches driven through late nights on the motorways of Britain, after the countless 1-0s he has masterminded over Wigan or Sheffield, to know it can’t get any better than this.

Inevitably, the speculation is beginning to mount that if he guides United to both titles, he might decide there will be no better time to step down. And above all people, Ferguson has seen first hand the dangers of staying too long. He was in the dug-out as Scotland’s assistant manager when Jock Stein keeled over minutes before the end of their crucial World Cup qualifying game against Wales.

In his biography, Ferguson is candid about his admiration for the senior man and admits to bombarding him with questions about his life and his achievements during that World Cup qualifying campaign. Few of the episodes in his football life seem to have given Ferguson as much pleasure as he found in sitting up late with Stein in hotel foyers – the older man ordering pots of teas – and listening to his stories.

Ferguson was a young manager then but clearly had a sharp eye on the hierarchical structure within football clubs and on the casual, disposable way boardrooms had of treating the very people that were sung about on the terraces. In Stein’s last days with Celtic, he was basically asked to fund-raise, a job Ferguson felt was beneath his peer and he wondered why Stein did it.

“His reaction was astonishingly low-key and devoid of bitterness. He said: ‘When you are successful it is fine for a time and then they maybe think you are too successful and that the success wasn’t really due to you at all.’ End of story. In all my experience of him, I never once heard Jock criticise Celtic. It made me realise how much he loved that club and I found a deep sadness in the contrast between his devotion and the treatment he received.

“They say something similar happened to Billy Shankly and Don Revie and there have been mutterings about Manchester United’s appreciation of Sir Matt Busby being a lot less than it should have been. I think if I were as badly used as Jock was at the end by Celtic, I would find it hard to be as philosophical or as generous as he was.”

The game has changed since then and Ferguson could long ago have left Manchester United and the game on his own terms. His involvement with sport has seen the evolution of footballers from poorly paid working men to posing beside Ford Capris in Shoot! magazine to today’s scenario which has the best players literally lost in the money that they earn.

He has watched Manchester United go from city club to the franchise floated on the Stock Exchange. He has seen off so many terrace gods, from Paul McGrath to Eric Cantona to David Beckham to Roy Keane and Cristiano Ronaldo. And he has made it seem as if his general opinion on these changes is that they are frivolous; that nothing matters more than the next game or the next season.

As early as his tenth season with Manchester United, in 1996, he had begun to consider when he would retire. The fabulous Treble was still three years down the road. In his biography, he admits to fleeting thoughts that maybe he should walk away then. “The very idea of waking up one morning and knowing I wouldn’t be going to the training ground filled me with fear. The notion of retirement is anathema to me. There should be a law against it. The calendar can’t decide how alert or vigorous a person is.”

That was 15 years ago and, if anything, Ferguson seems even more indomitable and irreplaceable, the grand old man of English football. How does he do it? He can be as curmudgeonly as the best of them, chewing gum like a lad on a street corner through Saturday afternoons, cribbing about referees, making it seem as if United – the ultimate establishment club – are warring against the system and still not talking to the BBC because he got in a huff about the Panorama show he believed was unfair to his son. If there is something childish about that, then there is something delightful too and it is part of who he is: the ability to hold a grievance, to want to get his own back, to have an edge.

You wonder about all the players he has welcomed and said goodbye to, many stumbling slowly into middle age now. Remember Lee Sharpe? Sharpie! Sharpe turns 40 this year and his football days with United are a distant memory. What must Ferguson’s ex-favourites think when they flick on the box now and see him, the Boss, the face a bit mottled now and maybe looking a bit blue in the perishing days of January but nonetheless lit with the old energy and the passion for the game. They must be as mystified as everyone else as to how or why he perseveres.

So a crucial few weeks loom in the burning football life of Alex Ferguson. If he does get the dream end to the season – the league, beating Barca on the most fabled ground in England and United champions of Europe once again – that will surely be enough even for Ferguson’s insatiable spirit.

He has proven himself ten times over and he knows that he belongs in the same company as the men whose latter years he fretted about.

If he wins the whole pile again, can he really tog out for another year of humdrum bus trips to Sunderland or Blackburn, to interminable phone calls with press agents, to publicity dinners and to not talking to the BBC? Can Ferguson really still want the boy’s life when he celebrates his 71st year?

You wouldn’t bet against it.