Talk:Alex Ferguson

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Alex Ferguson article.
Article policies
To-do list for Alex Ferguson: edit · history · watch · refresh
  • Rock of Gibraltar incident, McManus, Magnier
  • McM+M's 99 issues - accusations of nepotism etc.
  • St Mirren
  • Contract disputes with Martin Edwards
  • Childhood
  • Socialism - union leader
  • Banning BBC from doing post-match interviews
  • Falling out with Brian Kidd
  • Glazer takeover - support for SU before takeover, staying on after
  • Speeding offences
  • Failing to condem own fans for abuse of Wenger over many years while complaining of abuse he once received at Arsenal
  • Corruption allegations - storing illegal payment in safe etc
  • add Picture of him
Priority 3  

Contents

[edit] St. Mirren

I added some info about Ferguson's sacking by St. Mirren. Basically the stuff about swearing at a woman seems to be wrong according to myself and other St Mirren supporters on the club website. I have cited a newspaper article supporting this view. Here is a discussion

http://www.saintmirren.net/yabbse/index.php?topic=8926.0

I suspect the next manager Jim Clunie was sacked for shouting at a woman but can't be sure.

--Eric144 12:54, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Content

I'm thinking that the content here looks suspiciously like a copyvio - will try to check that out in the near future. Further, I would expect that this information is better placed in the Man Utd article rather than here. violet/riga (t) 08:31, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

He did tell Alan Hansen that knocking Liverpool off their fucking perch was his greatest success!

I've repeatedly read about the "hair dryer" treatment. I've seen Sir Alex asked about it during an interview. Yet I come to the Wikipedia article to find out what it is and it isn't here. There's a passing comment to it on this talk page where it has been labelled "trivia". For those not knowing much about Sir Alex it's a key attribute that needs explaining on the main page. -- Ralph Corderoy 09:13, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

This article is far too biased towards Alex Ferguson and reads like a eulogy. Salopian (talk) 10:33, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Is that not contradictory? – PeeJay 10:35, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
No, definitely not. If anything, it's tautological. Salopian (talk) 11:56, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Well either way, my only problem with the content of this page is that it focuses too much on the history of Manchester United under Alex Ferguson, rather than focusing on the man himself. It really needs a massive copyedit. – PeeJay 11:58, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
You're right about that, although there's already a big section about that below. However, the article still also fawns over him horrifically. Salopian (talk) 16:04, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
To be fair, the man is probably the most successful manager in the last 25 years of English football. – PeeJay 21:37, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
So what? That means it's right to describe his successes, not that it's fine to be sychophantic towards him and ignore his failings. Salopian (talk) 09:29, 6 February 2008 (UTC)


agree 100% with Salopian and with the fact it is about Man U rather than Fergie. Quite a poor article really becasue of these two major failings. --Shakehandsman (talk) 02:41, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] This article is about Alex Ferguson not ManU

This article needs a heavy edit. To dismiss Alexs Fergusons life pre 1986 (the year he joined Man U) is unforgivable. Arguably his greatest achievement was winning the European Cup Winners Cup with Aberdeen in the pre-Champions League era. He also enjoyed considerable success in the lower Scottish leagues at a time when they were producing truely world class footballers (and managers!). Surely his colorful Govan upringing, and early non football careers of shipyard apprentice, and later, glasgow publican merit analysis.

Post 1986, Fergusons successes are well documented elsewhere and should be here as well. However, Alex Fergusons achievements are not synonymous with those of Manchester Uniteds. Additionally, the above point that the information on this area could be a copyvio seems justified.

Agree - most of the text of this article is concerned with Manchester United, rather on Alex Ferguson. An edit needs to be made to move it to a Manchester United article. - Master Of Ninja 07:02, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Agree - Fergusons period as Scotland manager not covered or his declining the England manager job in 1995 and 1999. Also issues over business relationships with Man U stockholders and his son's work as an Agent and reasons for uturn over retirement in 2001. Most importantly needs some character profile for bust ups with other managers and key players.
Agree - this is an excellent recent history of United but most of this should be merged into Manchester United F.C. and History of Manchester United. It could be awkward though as those articles already duplicate each other and there'll probably be a lot of disagreement about what should go where. Some more stuff on his personal life would be more relevant here (things like falling out with Coolmore over Rock of Gibraltar, growing up in Govan etc.). If I get time I'll dig out one of his biographies and expand it a bit.
Does anyone want to volunteer to help merge the three articles? I'd like to do it but I'm new to Wikipedia and would like to hear what people think before deleting/moving large amounts of stuff. Cantthinkofagoodname 11:29, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Agree - There's bugger all about SAF in here. It's all Man U. Needs to be sorted out. --El Pollo Diablo | Talk 10:47, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

I've merged the section on the History of Manchester United after 1986 with that page, and removed it from this. I also think the section on managing Aberdeen is of the same nature - focused more on the achievements of the team than the manager, and maybe this needs to be edited too. --El Pollo Diablo | Talk 22:46, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree that this needs improving, but deleting it all and leaving the article with barely anything on his time at United was too much. It's better to have something on it, even if it's not great, than to just ignore the last 20 years of his career. I think it would be best to go through the article replacing/improving a part of it at a time, and leaving what's here alone until it can be improved. I've been offline for a couple of weeks (moving house) but have written a load of notes on his time at Aberdeen and earlier years at United (up to about '93) so I'll get it into the article as soon as I can.
I wrote the stuff that's in the article on his time at Aberdeen. I'll see if there's any more personal stuff I can add.
CTOAGN 23:22, 20 September 2005 (UTC)


I've trimmed the Man United stuff down quite a bit. I'll add some content that's more relevant to the article when I find the notes I wrote (just moved house so it could take a while to find them.) CTOAGN 16:46, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
Good job - the deletion was a step too far in hindsight. After a lot of time spent editing the notes for the other article, I suppose I lost some rationale lol. Definitely need something on his time an Man U here - I'll see if I can add anything myself.--El Pollo Diablo | Talk 23:03, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

I'd like to do a rewrite of the Manchester United section at some point soon, make it so it's less sectioned (periods of seasons rather than season by season), rejig more of the paragraphs so that any non-SAF bits are removed, and so on. Hopefully I can do this in the next week...--El Pollo Diablo | Talk 12:56, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Nice one. I've completely lost the notes I made so it's all yours. If you want a hand with anything, though, let me know. CTOAGN 18:01, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Urm should this page be moved to Sir alex ferguson, it is his official title Mutated to the limit

I see no reason to. Official titles aren't used for the links. Queen Elizabeth II is simply at "Elizabeth_II_of_the_United_Kingdom" not "Queen_Elizabeth_II_of_the_United_Kingdom" after all.

The whole article reads like a Manchester United press release. Is the author a Manchester united fan perchance? The author has glossed over the allegations of Corruption and Nepotism. There were also some allegations of downright bullying in his early managerial days that dont appear here. On the whole this article seems very POV, 194.152.93.186 13:01, 7 September 2007 (UTC)


[edit] problem with Aberdeen

It says "He fined one of his players, John Hewitt, for overtaking him on a public road,[12]" The link with John Hewitt is to a poet in the 1930s, clearly the wrong link. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Outside Center (talk • contribs) .

Fixed, and interestingly, he was the one who scored the winning goal in the Cup Winners Cup final against Real. Jastein 05:22, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Too much Manchester United?

There are slabs of text with details on ManU's season that don't mention Ferguson. A summary of what the team has achieved each season is fine but this article is on Ferguson not the club )we have others articles for that!). I should like to thin it out.

For example:

The season was characterized by highly dramatic matches. In the Champions League semi-final, United conceded two early goals away to Juventus in the second leg (after a 1-1 draw at Old Trafford in which United scored a last-minute equaliser). Inspired by Roy Keane, who would later miss the final through suspension, United came back to beat Juventus 3-2 and reach their first European Cup final since 1968. In the FA Cup semi-final, United faced close rivals Arsenal and appeared to be heading for defeat when Keane was sent off and, with the score at 1-1, Arsenal were awarded a last-minute penalty. Goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel saved the penalty, and in extra time Ryan Giggs ran the length of the pitch to score a memorable winning goal. They then defeated Newcastle United 2-0 in the FA Cup Final at Wembley thanks to goals from Teddy Sheringham and Paul Scholes. The European triumph was the most incredible of all. With 90 minutes on the clock they were 1-0 down to Bayern Munich at the Nou Camp in Barcelona thanks to a Mario Basler free kick, but in 3 minutes of injury time allowed by referee Pierluigi Collina, Teddy Sheringham, a substitute, equalised and extra time looked certain. But with just seconds left on the clock, Ole Gunnar Solskjær, also a late substitution scored the winning goal and history was made.

can become:

The season was characterized by highly dramatic matches. In the Champions League semi-final United came back to beat Juventus 3-2 and reach their first European Cup final since 1968. In the FA Cup semi-final, United faced close rivals Arsenal when Keane was sent off and, with the score at 1-1, Arsenal were awarded a last-minute penalty. Goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel saved the penalty, and in extra time Ryan Giggs scored a memorable winning goal. They then defeated Newcastle United 2-0 in the FA Cup Final at Wembley. In the European Cup Final, with 90 minutes on the clock, they were 1-0 down to Bayern Munich at the Nou Camp, but in 3 minutes of injury time Teddy Sheringham equalised and with just seconds left on the clock, Ole Gunnar Solskjær, scored the winning goal and history was made.

Thoughts, please. BlueValour 22:22, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely. Trimming out the superflous stuff is fine. Catchpole 06:53, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm a massive United fan, but I have to say that there is still too much of it in here. Good work so far, but there's more to do. I don't think that this is the place for a detailed record of transfers. I think that the season-by-season analysis should be moved to a separate article ("The Managerial Career of Alex Ferguson" with similar details for East Stirlingshire, St Mirren and Aberdeen too?), with maybe three or four abridged sections here to cut it down to a decent size. It needs to be replaced by all the stuff that is missing - racing, his personality and so on. I'll try to get to writing some of it when I have a bit of time. Arthur Markham 15:35, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Just came here to say the same. IMHO the whole paragraphs about ManU's detailed seasons should be moved to the ManU article. There's not even a reason to keep the shortened versions like the one mentioned above. It's about AF and his achievements. And although it's extremely connected ot ManU, keep the season summaries where they belong! --perelly 11:44, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Does he have a personal life?

I have just read the article, and it seems that all he does is football. There's only one mention of his wife, one of his son, one horse mention, etc - and yet if we went out on the High Street, and asked people to name a racing horse owner, I think he'd easily be in the top three. If I read this article and the one on Manchester United, the only differences at present are a cursory glance at his playing careeer and Aberdeen - and the rest is pretty much the same (I do think the Aberdeen section is in proportion - its the Man Utd bit that is over blown in detail). I see someone above mentions a CopyVio - I wonder if much of the base is taken from a Biography? As a Liverpool suporter, much as though he is part-devil to me, this is not an article to reflect the greatest manager so far of the FA Premiership era. I only came here because I added details of a campiagn Sir Alex is running on behalf of restoring paintings by Stanley Spencer - this article as a Bio is a disapointment! Rgds, - Trident13 11:03, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Third Para - very negative

I think the Third paragraph of this article is rather negative, to suggest that the most important information about SAF is his fallings out with a list of players who didn't like his management style is a bit awry, I'd say. Certainly this information there could/should be moved down into the main article, if it's kept at all. --Gavinio 20:23, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd second that! It maybe warrants a sentence somewhere, but as it stands you could just as well list dozens of players who were happy to be managed by him for as long as circumstances allowed. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.70.155.252 (talk • contribs).

[edit] sir?

"Only the two highest ranks entail admission into knighthood allowing the recipient to use the title 'Sir' (male) or 'Dame' (female) before his or her name."

That's from the OBE article and this article states that Fergie is a CBE so he should therefore not be referred to as sir or is there something I'm missing? Yonatanh 21:08, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

I am confused too. There are Google results saying that he can be called Sir because he has a CBE and OBE, and that he is actually a KBE... But he was knighted in 1999, which gives the title Sir. Perhaps it is OBE that needs some correcting. x42bn6 Talk 22:19, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
Sir Alex is a Knight Bachelor. I refer you to the final paragraph of the Knight Bachelor page for reasoning as to why he can be referred to as "Sir" despite being only a CBE. PeeJay 20:57, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
For clarification purposes, I have piped the said link into the article. DJR (T) 10:28, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Taggart?

Is Taggart really his nickname? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Gavinio (talk • contribs) 14:04, 18 January 2007 (UTC).

I've heard of it before, but there are no sources that I can find that give it definitively. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/horse_racing/3519567.stm

BBC SPORT | Other Sport | Horse Racing | Ferguson ends horse feudspan style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 8pt;">x42bn6 Talk 21:21, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

== Article ==

This is a really good article--Slogankid 14:29, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rock of Gibraltar

It is stated in the article that the Rock of Gibraltar dispute disrupted season preparations for 2005-2006, but it actually took place during the 2003-2004 season [1], and ended in March 2004 [2]. I have thus changed this information in the article, but if there are any disputes, please comment here. Thaurisiltc 10:34, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Just changed the tense of a Trivia line since July 1st, 2007 has passed. -John Jacques

[edit] Trivia (moved from article, credit to the contributors there)

  • In 2005, the Collins English Dictionary included the phrase "squeaky-bum time", a phrase coined by Ferguson to describe the tense Premiership run-in in 2002/03.[1]
  • Sir Alex Ferguson has a notorious history for playing mind games with managers during close Premiership title races - notably with the likes of Kevin Keegan in 1995/96, and indisputably with Arsène Wenger all the way back since 1997/98 up until today and sometimes Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho during the closing stages of the 2005/06 and 2006/07 season.[citation needed]
  • There are several stories mentioned in relation to Ferguson's hot temper which have nearly passed into folklore. The most notable of these stories involve Sir Alex's kicking a football boot at David Beckham, his throwing of teacups during motivational halftime speeches, and his famed "hair-dryer treatment" in which he vents his ire (and often abuse) directly into a recalcitrant player's face. That these anecdotes have seemingly served to enhance Ferguson's popular appeal is evidence of the clear niche that the manager has carved out for himself within his profession.[citation needed]
  • Ferguson is an outspoken supporter of the Labour Party.[2], and is particularly supportive of former Prime Minister Tony Blair.[3]
People are welcome to merge this into the article if it has a place anywhere. Yonatan talk 05:04, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Scotland national team record

I know Scotland lost two games and drew one in the '86 World Cup, but does anyone know if Ferguson managed Scotland an any of the qualifiers? Jock Stein died in September of '85 and the World Cup happened nine months later. Surely there were some qualifiers during that nine month span. Well I can't find the results of them anywhere. The Managerial Stats section at the bottom of the page needs to be updated with Ferguson's Scotland record. I don't want to update it yet until I know for sure if he managed during any qualifiers. If someone could find that and then updated the table that would be great. --Tocino 7 August 2007, 05:00 (UTC)

Those statistics can be found here but I wouldn't add it until I know what dates he was in charge for.--Mas 18 dl 20:23, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Managerial stats table

The values in the table should not include a thousands separator. If we were to make the table sortable, it would not work if the separator was included. - PeeJay 19:05, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Alex Ferguson to retire

According to recent reports in the Daily Mail dated 11 Nov 2007, Alex Ferguson is to retire after the 2007/08 season. If this is true, why has it not been updated yet on this page?

Because nothing the Daily Mail says can be trusted :-P Seriously, though, if anyone here had felt the source was reliable enough, they would have added it to the article. Evidently, no one deemed it reliable enough. - PeeJay 11:43, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Height

Does anyone know his height? After all he was a player too. Both Rafael Benítez and Arsène Wenger have their height listed in their info boxes. - Culnacréann-(talk) 21:20, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] more games in charge?

according to Sir Alex's box, he's been in charge of 1188 games (as of today) yet Sir Matt is on 1138 (obv won't change)... therefore is it not true that Sir Alex is now the longest serving manager? if so, can someone double check and then change this article to reflect this (and sir matt's, too) 194.221.133.226 (talk) 11:22, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Sir Alex has only been in charge of United for 21 years, while Sir Matt was in charge for 25 years. No changes will be made. – PeeJay 11:59, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] table of results as manager

it says he was in charge of st mirren for four years, but only 12 games? cant be right surely. Added last april, not changed since then?? 213.106.225.195 (talk) 17:21, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

It also says he was in charge for 8 years at Aberdeen but only managed 144 games. Considering that there are about 30 league games a year in Scotland, 144 seems quite low for 8 years, especially when you consider how many times Aberdeen were playing in European competitions during the 1980's. --Tocino 18:57, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Personality

I have added a Personality section, (which will probably last about 7 minutes before someone rips it out again! That's what usually happens to my edits! God, I'm so lonely!) as requested several times on the discussion page.DAAdshead (talk) 14:40, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Can any of the stuff you added be referenced? If not, it's gonna get "ripped out again", as you put it. – PeeJay 14:55, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
*Ahem* Woody (talk) 14:59, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

it also says that matt busby has managed more games than he, though Matts stats table says otherwise —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.129.112.205 (talk) 05:57, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] No player is bigger...

I don't know if there is one already, but I couldn't see one, so I've found a reference for his thinking that "no player is bigger than the club". It's here if anyone wants to add it. Michael Clarke, Esq. (talk) 14:27, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Why don't you do it? – PeeJay 14:37, 1 May 2008 (UTC)