Sir Alex Ferguson's book review: The memoirs that shook football

Much has been written and said about Sir Alex Ferguson’s autobiography in the past few weeks. What was his motivation for writing it? Was the criticism of players really necessary? Why didn’t he say more about key issues like the ownership of Manchester United? These are all legitimate concerns but very few people have actually analysed the book as a whole. The memoir, like most, is undoubtedly self-serving, and Ferguson is the most unreliable narrator since Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby. Still, this is an intriguing insight into the mind of Britain’s most successful football manager and, arguably, the game’s key figure of the last two decades.

While he might shy away from certain subjects, Ferguson has no qualms portraying himself as an obsessive. His wife, Cathy, brought the children up because he viewed management as a job that required his concentration 24 hours a day. The interest in horses, fine wine and American history came late in his career, and purely because friends advised him he needed an outlet that didn’t involve men kicking a ball around a pitch.

For a man with such a meticulous eye for detail, there are some surprising inaccuracies. Examples include Ferguson referring to Jaap Stam joining Roma (not Lazio) and John Fashanu apparently playing against United in a cup tie two years after he retired. These are undoubtedly minor quibbles (though one does wonder what exactly the fact checker was paid for) but it points to a broader issue with the book’s style. Rather than a simple chronological account of the last few years of his reign (the book picks up where the last volume left off, 2001), instead it reads like an old man telling anecdotes and veering off at tangents. Paul Hayward, the ghost writer, seems to have been content to transcribe the tales without concerning himself too much with structure. Perhaps he was right, given this is the fastest selling non-fiction book in British history but one can’t escape the feeling that this was an opportunity missed. Further still, devoting entire chapters to rows with the likes of Roy Keane and David Beckham, though undoubtedly conducive to sales, is hardly focusing on the most fascinating elements of the manager’s career.

For anyone with even a passing interest in Premier League football, though, there is much to enjoy. Ferguson hung a painting in his office by none other than Kieran Richardson. Patrice Evra used to mock his manager for fielding William Prunier years before his own arrival at the club. Hell, we’re even told that the infamous watch tapping was little more than a ploy to spook the opposition. These kind of nuggets are infinitely more intriguing than the fact that Keane could be moody and Beckham enjoyed celebrity, even if the newspapers might think otherwise.

Control is the word that recurs time and again and, in many ways, this autobiography is the last major work of a control freak. Ferguson wishes to give his side of the story, explain his decisions and hope to shape his own legacy. They say history is written by the winners so he needn’t have worried. Here was a man whose desire for success was insatiable and it seems only right that he should get the last word, with the book’s final passage:

“When I won the league for the first time in 1993, I didn’t want my team to slacken off. The thought appalled me. I was determined to keep advancing, to strengthen our hold on power. I told that 1993 side: ‘Some people, when they have a holiday, just want to go to Saltcoats, twenty-five miles along the coast from Glasgow. Some people don’t even want to do that. They’re happy to stay at home or watch the birds and the ducks float by in the park. And some want to go to the moon.

‘It’s all about people’s ambitions.’”