A message from Sir Alex Ferguson

Countless Fergie stories like this, latest one from Sunderland’s manager:

“As a young lad, when I was seven or eight years old I went up to Aberdeen and my dad was doing some work up there. Aberdeen at that time, in the early 80s, won the European Cup Winners Cup in 83 and Sir Alex Ferguson was manager. My dad took me up to the ground after training to get autographs.

We went outside the ground and no players came out. We were a wee bit late and the players were all away. Then Sir Alex Ferguson came out and signed an autograph for me and he started talking to my dad. Ferguson asked if I wanted to see in the stadium and inside the ground. He said he would do it himself, but he had a meeting. So, he took us in and got one of the young players to show us and apologised that he couldn’t take us round himself. That always stuck with me, I kind of thought it was brilliant in terms of his willingness to take time for a young lad who just loved football.

It stuck with me when I was a player as well and when I did fan events I never thought; ‘Ah Jesus got to do this again and speak to these daft supporters.’ Sir Alex phoned last season, just before we clinched the title at St Mirren. He phoned me on the Friday. I answered this unknown number and the voice is saying “Jack it’s Sir Alex Ferguson here.” I was thinking it’s a wind-up at first.

It was great for me because for any Scotsman as a manager he’s an icon and a hero for good reason. His success was unparalleled and probably never will be repeated”