Former Manchester United Manager Sir Alex Ferguson: Practice, Practice, Practice

The greatest coach in the history of professional sports, Sir Alex Ferguson. You're looking very dapper tonight. Thank you. Yeah. My mother looks after me well. Looks like we're the only two who got dressed this evening. So, what would you do, Sir Alex, if some of this scruffy mob here showed up and were players and wanted to get on the Manchester United bus? Well, when I first started as a coach, everyone had to have a short haircut. All shaven. I don't know how managers allow players on the bus with a beard. That's not for me. Now, whether I've not lost my strength, if I would allow that. But what I did like to see was my team coming to a ground with the United blazer on, white shirt and a tie. Because they're representing Manchester United. And what would you do if they didn't show up like that? Well, I think it's part of the education you have to give them. The responsibility they have as a Manchester United player. And it's just a disappointment. And I think that it was a strong disappointment for United. And it's still today, even Louis van Gaal, all smart. I notice the boys are not playing, sitting in the back of the director's box, blazing flanners on. I like that. That's for me. I'm sorry you guys with the beards. You'd recommend a shave, would you? So, did you see the game on Saturday, the Everton game? Yeah. What do you think? It went really well. I thought it was going to be a difficult game, actually. And I saw Everton did their strongest team out. And I thought, this is going to be a difficult game. Because I think we've lost the last three years there. But they won very comfortably. Complete control. And the way they changed their system a little bit. I thought Everton couldn't handle it. So I was pleased. Because the great test of any Manchester United team is how you recover after defeat. There was 3-0 to Arsenal. A bad defeat. They come out in the next game and win. And that's the best way to answer the critics. And also to show the resolve and the determination to get over a defeat. Because it's not easy at a club like United. Because when you lose, you're front page. When you win, you're back page. It's the difference. Better to be on the back page. There are, I think, if I counted correctly, there were eight of the 18 players who showed up, who played in the squad on Saturday, were players that you had signed. How long does it take to knit everybody else together into a really cohesive unit? Is that a matter of years? Or can you do it in a season? Well, if you're talking about the present core of players, Oli van Gaal brought in five new players last season, five new players this year. And that's difficult. Particularly the players he brought in were players from other countries. The Premier Division is very difficult. Really difficult. When we brought players in from abroad, we always gave them, you know, first season, forget it. Second season, okay. One or two excelled surprises by doing real well in the beginning. In my time, the thing that was different from me and Oli van Gaal, of course, is that I had longevity. I was there 27 years. So when I went to United at first, my job was to build the foundation of that football club because I think most managers, quite rightly, have to think about a football team, the first team, because it is a result industry. They have to make sure the first team does well. I never thought that way. I thought about rebuilding the youth in the club. So they gave me a foundation. They gave me a pipeline of young players coming through. And my conviction was never going to change. And I told the directors on day one, that's exactly what I was going to do. And of course, yeah, I was concerned about the first team. We were second bottom of the league. And I just took my time with that. I wasn't in a hurry. Most concentration was on scouting, trialing, and coaching the young people. Now, at the end of the Everton game, United are in third position in the English Premier League. It's the end of October, and obviously everybody here is connected to the business school in one way or another. And an important thing in business is setting expectations. Were you managing United today knowing that there's a long part of the season still to come? You've still got to play Christmas. You're in the other different cups and championships. How do you go about setting the expectation of where you would want the club to wind up at the end of the season, knowing that you're in third position today? Well, I think the difference... You take my job at Aberdeen. Aberdeen is the north of Scotland, cut off from the central belt, where the main stream of football is. I had to build an expectation. I had to create an expectation for the players. Whereas at United, you have to live with the expectation. So every player that comes to that club, even after Saturday's game, every player on that team has to live with the expectation. The expectation is to win. I have no doubt. Whether it's a European Cup or a League Cup, they all have to win. That's the mentality they have. The mindset is a winning mindset. There's no question of that. So I never said to the players, we've got to win the European Cup, we've got to win the League. I never said that. Every time I press conference, well, I hope we win something. I wouldn't want to get carried away and give them a headline. But deep down, win every game. That was the mentality. I never expected to lose a game, ever. Would you be talking to the players at this juncture about the possibility of winning the League this year? No. And when would you start privately calculating whether or not you thought... You won't believe this, I'm going to tell you. Every beginning of January, I used to get all my opponents' games and predict the point total they were going to get against us. And I was never far wrong. Never far wrong. Even to the point that I knew we'd maybe have to make three points up against one of our main opponents. I was pretty accurate in that. I did this every year. So I had my win as a challenge. Would you sit down with each of the top clubs or the whole League? Just the top clubs. Our main opponents. I would know by January 1st who our main challengers were going to be. And then I used to do that. I kept to myself. I didn't share it with anyone. I was never far wrong. That's good. Even the years we lost it, I knew the dangers we had in terms of our challengers. And you were pretty accurate about, say in January, about the number of points that United itself would have at the end of the season. So let me change the topic a little bit to two things that again are germane to every sort of business. One is assessing and judging talent and another is discipline. So let me take you back. It's 1957. There is a young man growing sideburns, Alec Ferguson, who's turning out in his first seasons for a club in Scotland in Glasgow called Queen's Park. How would you assess the talent of that player? Well, outstanding comes to mind. I'm probably one of the few players that played for Glasgow schools, Scotland schools, Scotland youth, Scottish amateur, and the full Scottish team. But I wasn't an outstanding player. I was a goal scorer. In fact, at United, we used to get into the video analysis room most mornings. And this morning, our goalkeeping coach, Eric Steele, says, I was just pulling up your goal scoring record. They said, it's pretty good at 179 goals in 300 games or something like that. And I said, but that's only league goals. I said, those were my cup goals. So I said, well, I'll try and get them out. We couldn't get them. We couldn't find the cup goals. I don't know why. But no, I was a goal scorer and had a great career without actually winning anything. I went to the Rangers at a bad time when Celtic were completely dominant. They just won the European Cup under Jock Stein. And they were a fantastic team. They were difficult to beat at that time. But I enjoyed that. I had a good career. The thing about playing is that it's the best time of your life, which it relates to. I would never ask anyone to retire to become a coach. I encouraged them to take their badges. When I went into full-time football, because I was an engineer. I was a toolmaker until I was 22. I was part-time at football. I made my mind up. I was not going back to engineering. So I took all my coaching badges. I prepared to stay in the game like everyone should do. If you're going to do something, prepare whether it's through study or like I did, take your coaching badges. I think it's a really important issue. And how well behaved on the field was that young player, Alec Ferguson? You're getting this from my son, Jason. I had a bad record. Pardon? I had a bad record. Ah. I was sent off eight times. Pardon? I don't know. But I was misunderstood. Do you remember some of the incidents about why you were sent off? Every one of them. Yeah. Retaliation was mostly. Or maybe a weight tackle or something. Or a nail bone in someone's jaw or something like that. I had a funny run style. I run with my elbows like this. I was always going to get in trouble. Martin's laughing here. I was always going to get in trouble because of my elbows, yeah. The elbows. Yeah. So let's talk about judging other talent several decades later. I'm going to pick on two players. David Beckham. Or pick two players. David Beckham and another one we'll come to in a moment. So how did you first come across Beckham and how old was he and what did he seem like as a player when you first saw him? Well David came to our notice through a scout in London. From the same area as David. He was a headmaster at school. Malcolm Fidgen. And he put David on the radar. But the real impact came from Bobby Charlton. Bobby had soccer schools at the time and David had won a placement for Bobby's soccer school in Barcelona. And Bobby comes back and says I've seen the kid. So I flagged it up with the chief scout and he says I've got his coming next month. Just by coincidence. And that was the start. He would be 11 years of age at that time. He was a little thin boy. He had no height. No physique whatsoever. But he had this wonderful talent in terms of control of the ball. Striking the ball. He was Israeli. He was 40. And his parents were United fans. So his grandfather was a Tottenham fan. But he and his parents were United fans. So he used to come to the game after we got the contact with him. We invited him to the games every time we were in London. In fact he was a ball boy in the West Ham game which is this area of London. It was a certainty to come to United. He trained at Tottenham for a while. I think he trained somewhere else. Maybe Fulham or something like that. But he was always destined to come to United because he wanted to come to United. And in that class of 92 were the team that won the youth cup. David never gained a team until the semi-finals because he was just a little boy. Then within months he was six foot. Still thin. No confirmation in his body whatsoever. No, he was just a skinny boy. And that group had the same desires. The same array of them. They talk about the ones that are well known. Giggs, Scholes, but the two Devils and David. But the two other players would have been great players but their careers were cut by injury. Chris Casper and Ben Thornley. They were outstanding. But they all practiced. Give a sense of how hard these guys worked. Well the training would start 10 o'clock to 12 o'clock. They had their lunch. They would be out in the afternoon practicing all the time. Or with the youth coach in terms of their general training. And for David who lived in accommodation with Mrs Gosling with several other boys. He would go into the School of Excellence at night time and help the coaches with the young kids. So his desires were strong. And also he was a practicer. He practiced, practiced, practiced. And I think that the advice I give to any young kid is anyone can play a game of football. Anyone. But practice makes you a real footballer. You see games on a Sunday. Pub games. Oh, love a game of football. The real players have a practice ethic about them. I remember being at lunch in Glasgow many, many years ago and Gary Player was the guest. The golfer. And they asked him that question. Why do you keep practicing from the bunker? Because he was famous for going to the bunker. He says, well I know I'm going to be in the bunker one time in the game. Maybe twice in the game. And I've got to put in a hole. That's why I practice and practice and practice. That's a great example of what you have to do to be a top player. And David and all these young lads at that time and all the young kids at United practice well. Different. Well-known name. Cristiano Ronaldo. How old was he when you first came across him? 17 he was. And how did he first hit your radar screen? It's a great story because I had Carlos Queiroz as my assistant. And Carlos, of course, is a Portuguese. And he thought it would be a good idea for us to have an association and a relationship with Sporting Lisbon. Because he'd been there as a kid and he was from Lisbon. And he set it up. And what we were doing then was sharing coaching. So we would send coaches over there and they would send coaches to us. And Jim Ryan, who was head of the youth department at the time, youth scouting rather, he came back and says, well, I've seen a player. And he was playing centre forward on the youth team at the time. Cristiano Ronaldo. So I said to Carlos, I said, you know, would it be a good idea if maybe we had a bigger relationship here? And he spoke to the president. And the deal was that we couldn't get him the next year, but we could get him two years from then. Then Carlos left me the next year. We had promised through the association with him, the relationship, we'd opened a new stadium. This is at Sporting Lisbon. At Sporting, that's correct. And we flew from the States, from here, to Lisbon and played a game. And Cristiano's playing outside left against John O'Shea. And the poor soul is getting tortured by blood. Tell me honestly. He's absolutely annihilated. And I'm up there, I'm going, John, get up against him. He says, I can't. So I get my kit manager and says, get up there to the director's box and get Peter Kenyon down right away at halftime. So Peter Kenyon came down and I said, we're not leaving here. Peter Kenyon was the then chief executive of United. And I said, we're not going to leave in here without that boy on the plane. So then, we got a little room after the game with the president of Lisbon, his agent, his lawyer, and the boy. I said, I want you to come back with us to Manchester. Now that's a test. If he doesn't want to come, you know he doesn't want to join you. He says, yeah, I'd love to come but I want my mother here. So it was great. Next morning, his mother, his sister, his brother, the old troop come out and I said to him, I promise you one thing, you'll get the best education you can possibly get here but you won't play every week. And I looked at him like that and he was impressed. He said, he didn't expect that. I says, the Premier League is a very difficult league and you may play substitute, sometimes you may play an odd game, you may play in the League Cup which we do have a lot of young players and he said, but when did I get in the first team? Well if you get to a level that's Manchester United, that can't stop you. You pick yourself. And he played his first game, he was subbing the first game of the season against Bolton, he came on at half time, the crowd went absolutely mad on him. It was fantastic. The courage to take the ball, the first, the right back of Bolton whacked him right in the first minute he came on in the second half, he got up and says, give me the ball. You know, the great players have got this courage, nothing will daunt them, they're not afraid of anything and Cristiano had that. And how, when he first came to Manchester, I think he came with his mother and his mother and sister came up, how disciplined was he in his sort of daily ritual at that point? It was the best practice that I've ever known. But he had these, what do you call, Latin American faults. You can get arrested for saying that in the state of California. And it's a simple fault which can be eradicated if the boys get the right desire and discipline and listen to us. And he was diving as a young kid. Diving to try and get a penalty. Yeah, correct. And the players were great with him. Every time he'd go down, he'd scream and the players would go on screaming and bring him back and, yeah, get up here, and all that. And I used to get him all the time. The unfortunate thing for Ronaldo because he was such a great player, the press never left him alone in that situation because after about a year, year and a half, it never happened. But any time he was fouled, somewhere along the line, the coaches would say, oh yeah, he dives. But no, it's not true. Because the speed he was going at against defenders, all you need to do is nudge them a little bit and the balance goes and they go down. But he wasn't purposely diving. Did the criticism get to him at all? No, not at all. Not at all. No. I remember he came off that period that season when Rooney was sent off and he says he wasn't going to come back. And I flew him to Portugal and I said to him, he wanted to come and go to Real Madrid. It was always his lifetime ambition to do that. And I said, look, you give me a year and you're going with my blessing to Real Madrid. He was fantastic. But the first game was at Charlton and I sat in the director's box and there's this guy down in front of me and he's up and he is giving him so much cursing and language and then about five minutes from the half time he got the ball and beat three men cutting, hit the underside of the bar and the guy never got up again. That was unfinished. He had the courage to do all that. And Cristiano today, considerable many years later now, does he still have the same sort of drive and work ethic? I've never known anyone like him. Honestly. I was at his house for dinner a few months ago and his house is made for the best player in the world. How's that? The gymnasium's probably about half the size of this. Well, this size here he's got everything in it. He's got two pools. He's got a hot pool and a cold pool. He's got an ice room at minus 160 degrees. He goes in there for ten minutes after every game. He's just unbelievable. And I says to him he says to me I'm going to retire at 35. I said you're not retiring at 35. You can play to your 40 easily. Brian Giggs has played to his 40 when he's normal. I'm doing that and I'm working on making sure I'm three kilograms doing my best weight the last five years. Brilliant. Amazing. Now, with all these people or players of incredible calibre Beckham, Ronaldo the others that you had how do what were the tools that you used to maintain discipline? Well, I think the most important thing is to be consistent with who you are and don't change. And I never changed. I didn't use discipline as a weapon against players. They would be disciplined if they stepped out of line for certain reasons maybe a silly sending off or a misbehaving outside the ground. But I never used it as a continual weapon against them. You've got discipline it's over. We move on. And they all accept that eventually. They understand who you are that's the most important thing because that's the essence of being a leader. They know who you are you're consistent they trust that you're right and discipline is an important aspect of managing there's no question. Particularly you're dealing with very well paid players if your discipline is different with different people you're going the wrong way. So my discipline is always the same for everyone. I never treated anyone any different. And what was the sort of discipline that the players dreaded? Was it the fine or the threat of being transferred or being put in the stands to watch a game? I think every player wants to play in a Saturday. I've only had one occasion I would discipline a player by being in a stand. But the other aspect of putting players in a stand is because you have a squad of 24 and you have to pick only 11. So that's difficult. But what I used to do was because my winning experience as a player I was told 50 minutes from the kick-off in the Scottish Cup final I wasn't playing. I was the top goal scorer and there was no substitute at the time. So that was always in my mind about how to treat players if they're not playing. So I used to call them individually all of them and explain to them why they weren't playing. It was very easy towards as time went on because they knew with a squad of 24 it's not the 11 that win the league it's the 24 that win the league or the Cup. No question about that. And they all the important part to do that is to trust them from whatever team you play and make them feel that they have contributed like the best players in winning. And Sir Alex how did you ensure that even for the biggest stars they all understood that they were part of not the but part of a team? Well I think the best players are the ones that like to win most. The best players have that ego that winning is important to them. So I enjoyed that. I enjoyed players with that confidence. But how did you make sure that none of them began to think that they were bigger than United themselves? Well the message is to prove they're the best they have to work as hard as everyone else and even more than the other ones. And that was the message I always gave to them. The evidence is always in the football field. The best player can let himself down by not living up to the expectation. His own expectation in fact. So I oops that's gone. So I had no great worries about that really. The fact that I've been there for such a long time of course helps. But also I think that players that come to United that come to such a great club they don't want to miss the bus. They want to go on the bus all the time. And I think that was really important. Now how do you let's switch the topic a little bit and talk about compensation. Some of these players are getting paid a lot of money a large amount of money obviously. How do managers cope not you because you were among the highest compensated in the Premier League but there are some clubs where the managers are paid less than their players. How do they ever have a chance of establishing authority in those clubs? I think in most cases I was maybe a little bit different because I feel always feel that being the manager of Manchester United I should be the highest paid person. It's important because the responsibility of managing that club is huge. I've got the biggest responsibility so I feel that should be always recognised. Not always but in earlier years by the way it took a long time to agree with me. But I think from other managers' point of view I think they expect that if a top player is going to be paid more. I have no issue at all with what players get paid. The top players. You know why? I think you look at golfers, American footballers, basketball players, hedge fund investors. Yeah, exactly. Or you just pretend to be wealthy young men out there. But I have no issue with that because they are bringing 75,000 people into Old Trafford. What about saying goodbye to players? Whether they were 16, 17, 18-year-olds you didn't think were going to make it. And then let's talk about them and then I want to talk about some of the players who had done well by you that you had to say goodbye to. What about the kids? Well the most difficult task for any manager is telling a young kid he's not going to make it United. When we bring a boy to the club we speak to the parents and we say to them we hope your boy plays in front of 75,000 people. If not we're confident we can get him a career in the game. Even to this day there will be about 90 players in England, Scotland, Denmark, Germany, all started their careers at Manchester United. And that's been like that for 10 to 15 years. Very difficult to tell them that. I did this stupid thing when someone was a young coach. I was terrified to tell a young boy he was not going to be good enough. So this idea to bring the five of them together and I told them when they started crying I wondered how was that finished. It was a difficult time. It was not easy. And what about some of the older players who had done very well by you and then you had to break the news to them? That's so equally hard because you don't become a father to them. It was such a family business man anyway. For instance, team 94 was with us for quite a few years. From around 91 to 96, 97. Dennis Irwin, Steve Bruce, Brian Robson, Gary Pallister. They would love to play until they were 90. They don't realise they're getting older. I'm the one who recognises it because I see it on the football field. What I did was make sure they were given free food. It wasn't the elbows. They were polished. I was ordering the grass feed for the grounds men, the pies for the director's room, the programmes on a Saturday. You forget to manage up the way you did. didn't realise I still carried on the way I did. Let's talk about the two things. One, how did you learn to delegate? I didn't recognise it until I got to 60. I realised I had to give the trust to that. I trusted my staff. When you have energy and you have done something for so long, you don't think it will change. Age changes you. I delegated far better. I delegated a lot after that. The thing about energy, anyone listening to this is really important, when you start at 43, 44 years of age, you see the energy bouncing out of you. When you get to 60, you still expect to see it. I had to look at myself in terms of energy. When I was a young manager, four or five years, no problem. When I got to my 60s, I needed six or seven hours. You go to bed earlier, you look at your diet better, Saturday nights were out after the game on home. Very, very seldom Saturday night. I had to examine myself with my energy because people want to see the energy. A very important aspect of it. The second aspect of that was what you just alluded to. What is the advice you give managers these days when they call you about the relationship they should have with the owner of the club? You have to find a way to work good way. To agree that you are both going in the same direction. Even if you find a way and they are going that way, it doesn't work. You have to find a way of agreeing where the club is going. and the job you're doing. The other thing about recognition and communication is a really important part of it too, that you must recognize that people are working for you. Knowing their names, saying good morning in the morning. I had a manager as a player who couldn't say good morning to you, he walked by you. Now that could be lack of confidence, could be anything, but you have to recognize that people work for you. And every time we won a cup, a trophy, every member of that staff were in that canteen. The laundry girls, the canteen staff, the groundsmen, champagne out, because to see a trophy as much as the players, it became a team that way. Did you enjoy the celebrations yourself? No, not really, no, because maybe it'll last for me, any game will last for me about half an hour. And I'm thinking of it tomorrow, you know, it's just. Even after 1999, the famous travel season. After the dinner, I went to bed. And after the club, I went to my bed. Did you wake up the next morning in a bad mood? I was on. I was exhausted. After the game, actually, when the team had been presented with the cup, I went for a walk. And in Barcelona, there's all these alleys and little corridors and all the rest. And I'm walking through there on my own. And I bumped into this friend of mine from Aberdeen. He couldn't take it either. He was walking like, how do we manage that? And we're walking through all these alleys, and then we see this buggy coming up. And it's a guy who's looking for me. He says, you've got to go to the press conference. This is about half an hour after the game. You know, I can celebrate for half an hour, but then it goes away quickly on it. How did you avoid complacency, getting complacent? Well, it's a disease. Every time at halftime, if we win a game, it's come up. It's come up all the time. You know, there's nothing you can do about it when you get complacent. I've been on a few occasions. It was never 100% correct with United because of human beings. But we kept reminding them, well, at halftime, you're winning. Complacency, you know, it's a disease. You know, the Ryder Cup, this is the message I gave to the team, the Ryder Cup. The British team? Yeah. And I said, I told them, I said, we were thinking about Medina two years before. And they're 10-6 on a Saturday night. They're winning 10-6 America. And I'm sitting there at their dinner, and they're probably saying to each other, oh, we only need four and a half points. It's a great temptation, that, isn't it? Only four and a half points. And the coincidence resonated later. But Europe won the first point. And they won the second point, and there was a lot of confusion. And they won the third point, panic and then capitulation. And fortunately, with that message, put Europe, again, into the last game, 10-6 in front. Fantastic. But it is a disease. We had, we played in Everton, we lost a league because of it. Four to seven minutes to go, we lost two goals. And that causes a league. And they're human beings. But the best way is to keep reminding them that complacency can cause heaven. And there's no way out after when complacency sets in. There is no way out, absolutely no way out. One other question from me, and then I know we have some audience questions. You had this incredible record that's unparalleled. Did you ever feel that, or do you feel that you should have won more? Absolutely. I do, honestly. I think that the European Cups was the one, it was my biggest regret. And on some occasions, we were very unlucky. Some occasions, we would get bad decisions against us. And some occasions, we didn't play well enough. And with three semifinals, we lost. And the two worst were against Dortmund in 97 and against Leverkusen in 2001. We should have won those games. Does that still bother you today? Yeah, it does. I don't think you should ever look back with regrets. But when you ask the question, it rebounds in me all the time. But I know bitterness about it. Because football, I can't look at my career in United and regret anything. I had a fantastic time. But the question is, will you put to me, yes, we should have won the European Championship. But my last season, when Real Madrid, that Turkish referee... What do you really think of him? He sends off Nani. And we're absolutely in control of the game. And we're losing the players at that time. It took us 10 minutes to get over it. And by that time, we'd scored two goals. And even two-one down, we made all the chances. So it's a disappointment. But as I say, I can't forget the career I had. Let me welcome Niamh Given. She has, I know, a few questions from the audience. And how many people here are soccer players in the audience? Good. Not bad. And NCAA soccer players? Oh, fantastic. I'm gonna take the liberty of asking the first question. So you touched on aspects earlier, but here in the Valley, our equivalent of the prize footballers are the best engineers. They're paid the most. They get poached by rival tech companies. Yet most of us at the GSB are most likely to go in as their managers. For the early days, what are your top tips to garner their respect, despite the fact that we're not techie, retain control, and ensure that no individual becomes larger than the team or the organization? Well, that, I think, maybe answers a little bit. We've been dealing with players who are megastars or players with egos and are wealthy. I honestly believe that those people are genuinely the winners all the time. That's why they go there in the first place. And yeah, there'll be occasions where they slip off the platform of where they were and maybe get complacent, whatever. But it's easy to remind someone who's a winner. It is easy to remind them how they got there. What is their expectation? I think it's important to remind them that they represent themselves in a big way. And I think that should always be reminded of them. What management trait did you not have that you wish you had, and how did you compensate for that? Languages. Definitely languages. Because when United changed, when the academy system came into being and we had to change the dynamics of the club in terms of scouting, then more European players come in from South America, from France, Italy, Spain, wherever, Germany, all over. One year, particularly, you had 21 nationalities in the club. Now, I had French and German at school. You know, it's like when you leave school and you don't use the languages, you forget about them. So when we started again, I started thinking about how I could communicate, particularly with the French players. And it's not easy. You know, languages is really important. I said to my son, Mark, I says, years ago when he was at school, take languages. He said, no, I don't want the languages. I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that. I says, take languages. Now, he needs them, you know, 20 years later. And it's really, really important to communicate with players in their own language. That's why I brought Carlos Queiroz in. Carlos spoke four or five languages. Fantastic, because we had all these nationalities and the communication was easy and Carlos would do all that. That would do my little smothering as a French. We'd only had one German player, a young boy. His name was Ronnie Zealot, he's with Hannover now. He was the only one I needed to communicate with in German. So I think that's important, languages. I sympathize with that. I've barely mastered English, so. Now, I'm surprised that there weren't more tweets coming through for racing or wine tips from you, seeing that your track record on that is as good as many. Forget the racing tips. But I, sadly, and the audience are going to kill me, but we've only got two minutes left. So I'm going to ask a question which, to you both actually, which is somewhat synonymous with the GSB because it's one that we will have to answer as part of our applications. And that is, what matters most and why? Well, I think your upbringing, I think my upbringing was fantastic. I had parents who gave me good disciplines, good advice, don't be late, don't cheat, don't steal, don't lie. These things stood by me all my life. And I hope then that foundation that I bring to my own children, their kids, and they can bring to their kids. And that's what upbringing is, it's an inheritance. That's what it is. And I think that was important to me. Best family heirloom. Sir Michael? Following your instincts. Short and sweet. So with that, please join me in thanking Sir Michael and Sir Alex.