🎥 Ally McCoist Meets Sir Alex Ferguson: Aberdeen Success, Man United Dominance & 2013 Retirement

Well what a morning we've got ahead of us. I'm really looking forward to it. It's a sit down with Sir Alex Ferguson. I was just thinking about it this morning and I scared myself. I scared myself because I got back with Sir Alex the best part of nearly 50 years. Nearly 50 years since there was that wee boy and he was manager at St Myrne and picked myself up and we headed over to Paisley for a bit of training and he dropped me off after it. Happy days. Good morning. How are you? Not bad. I've got a cow next door. Are you in good form? I'm good. I've got to say to you. I said to myself this morning when I got here one of the few men I would get up early, have a shave and put a jacket on and make sure my hair was all right. Correct. Are you in good form? I'm good. Great. So what we're doing is we're heading through there. That's exactly what we're doing. Well, joining me this morning is none other than Sir Alex Ferguson. First of all Sir Alex, how are you? I'm good, yeah. Thank you. Good form? Yeah. Well I was going to say to you, you're obviously still keeping very busy. The last 11 years more or less when users are going to watch United, it's fine. A few friends and that. No period of paying attention to the tactics of the game. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's going to enjoy it. Then after the Liverpool game I was listening to Frank Lampard. He was fantastic analysing how Liverpool won the game. I thought it was brilliant. I said to myself, maybe I should start concentrating on the tactics of the game. I've got this book here, Gaff, and I'm going to open it up and there's a couple of nice pictures in it. Well I thought they were lovely and I want to kind of refresh your mind. Look at this one, right. This here, right. This is you, the man who shook Rangers. But I want to ask you, the question I want to ask you is, you can tell us about that occasion, right, but what I want to ask you is this. What would Sir Alex Ferguson, the manager, thought of Sir Alex Ferguson, the player? I thought he was a good player. I thought he was... What were your strengths? Fighting. I was going to say. You weren't scared to mix it? No. I was a trainer with a decent scoring record. The problem for me as a player really was down to the fact that my dad would never let me go full-time because I was an apprentice toolmaker. So you're not going full-time until your time as an apprentice. So that was six years of my life really. So I was part-time at Queen's Park and part-time at St Johnson. Then I finished my time and the years adjourned and I got the opportunity to go to the family. Just the summer after I scored that hat-trick. So that changed my life. It changed my life in many ways because I wasn't doing well having to travel by train every Tuesday and Thursday to prepare, getting home at one in the morning, up at six to go to work. It was killing me. Then on that Friday night, I got my brother's girlfriend to phone St Johnson and say that I'd flu. I was taking papers out to go to Canada. You were going to Canada? I was ready to go to Canada. All the Ferguson's are in Canada. Hundreds of them. So I phoned Mandy Isabel because she needed a sponsor. She said, have you spoken to your dad? I said, no. She said, do you want me to phone him? I said, no, no, no. Believe it or not, I scored the hat-trick that day. That was it? Unbelievable. It changed my life. I always say this to people, don't miss the good opportunities. That was the opportunity I needed. I met Cathy a month later and my life changed. Brilliant. Your life also changed when you decided you wanted to coach and wanted to manage. You clearly always had an interest in playing, but did you see yourself as a scholar of the game very early? Absolutely. At that point in my life, I made up my mind I would never go back to engineering. That early? I was 22. I started doing all the coaching badges. I got my full badge the second year. The B licence, then the A licence. I started going to the coaching schools every summer. I went to Willis Hall and there was a great old manager there called Jimmy Siddle. I remember him. He was the manager of Notts County. He said, you want to be a manager, son? I said, well, that's what I'm intending to do. He said, I'll give you a bit of advice. Don't let the bugger's contracts go to the same year as your knackers. The second thing, he said, always buy players who play every week. That's amazing. Available for selection. Walter must have got that from you. Walter used to say to me, when you're signing a player, make sure he turns up for his work. By that, he meant he wasn't in the team. It seems such a simple, simplistic thing to say, but how correct is it? 100%. What about St Mern? Was that an obvious next step for you? St Mern gave me a guide. East Stirling, I was only there for a month. I tried to develop local kids to train and coach them as a stepping stone for East Stirling to have a youth policy. I was only there for a month. Then I went to St Mern and they were really part-time. It's the biggest town in Scotland. They were struggling. I said to the board, well, there wasn't any money to do anything about it. I thought coaching was the best thing. We coached young players, yourself, at 14 years of age. Steve Cowan. We were all young players. We did really well in terms of preparing young players to play in the first team. I think four or five became internationals. I remember that team, it was a young generation and it grabbed the imagination every day, didn't it? The benefit for me was this. We won the league the next year and we won it in the most fantastic style. We had to beat Dundee at Dundee in the second to last game. We won 4-0 up at Dundee. It was fantastic. Stark and McGarvey were running amok. It was unbelievable. It was a real enjoyment. Then Aberdeen won to me. There was no way I was starting to do it because I turned them down the year before. They all took the job and then you left to go to Celtic. I took the job at Aberdeen. It was fantastic. Well, I want to show you my next picture. There you go. I'll show that to the camera as well. What you achieved up at Aberdeen was, in my opinion, absolutely remarkable. The domination that Rangers and Celtic had for the best part of 40 years. How do you break that stranglehold? When I was a player at Rangers and I left under the cloud a bit, I never left my home away. Expectation. Everywhere I went, there was expectation. Creating expectations for the players, for the fans. Because your job really is to get footballers who send fans home happy. It's amazing. Just to back that up, I was lucky enough, as you know, to play for Rangers for the didn't appreciate the expectation until I went somewhere else where there wasn't as great expectation. What you try and do is try and get those expectation levels up wherever you go after that. I understand that. It's an amazing thing, expectation, isn't it? It can drive you. Incredible period at Aberdeen. That team effectively won a Cup Winners' Cup in Gothenburg. One of the greatest achievements, in my opinion, for a British football team, genuinely. What a team you had. My old school pal, primary school pal, Eric Black, getting one of the goals. I think people tend to forget, brilliant result in the final clear of beating Real Madrid. But I'll never forget, Petardrie, the night you beat Bayern Munich. No, the 3-2 game, yeah. But it was a great side. Beating Bayern Munich gave us the impetus. And when we got to the final, and I said to Archie, with certainty, Archie says, for Christ's sake, don't tell anybody that. And you know, we were the last football club to beat Real Madrid in the final. That's, what is it, 40 years? Yeah. And we actually battered them. Yeah. We went to extra time, I don't know how, but we actually battered them. Also, if I may, you also had the, and it is an honour, great honour, of managing the country at a major tournament, I'm thinking of the 86th World Cup, where obviously due to unforeseen circumstances, you got the job. Tell me what that felt like. Was it, in any way, shape or form, did you treat it differently to club management? I mean, it clearly is different to club management. Or do you try and take the same principles with you into that particular tournament? Well, I tried to approach it to give the best chance we possibly could. I went down to see Alf Ramsey, and he was working in Ipswich. He'd also retired. And the first thing he said was, take your own water. Because they suffered with Nettie, the goalkeeper. 1970, wasn't it? 1970, and he was very, very helpful. My biggest problem was strikers. I think you'll find in the 1986 World Cup, that was my biggest problem with strikers, not your biggest problem with strikers. I mean, it really was a problem. So, I was hanging on how Archibald was. Yeah. And he hadn't played all season. He was at Barcelona. And I said, I've got to take him. Because I thought he was a marvellous player. And I also picked Kenny, and then Kenny withdrew. That's right. But it was only a week before he'd gone away. I decided to give him a shot. Because I thought, he's different from the rest. Yeah. And I left yourself out. That was one problem. The big problem I had whilst we went there, so many Aberdeen players. Yeah. And I felt, sort of, what would the players think, if I picked all the Aberdeen players? But is it not natural? You would go for players that you know, and have it let you down? Surely that's a natural thing, is it not? No, it preyed on me anyway. You know, it doesn't matter how you look at it, it preyed on me. Right, Gaff, I'm moving on now. I'm a handsome guy. Off to Manchester United, right? Which, at the time, it must have been a, kind of, pinch yourself moment. But because of your success at Aberdeen, did you have any other options than Manchester United? Or was it pretty straightforward? Well, I turned down Arsenal, I turned down Will, I ran to Mondres, and I turned down Tottenham. Right, and the reasons for that? Well, the reason that Dick Donald said to me one day, he says, and I said to him, maybe it's time for me to leave, and blah, blah, blah. He says, don't talk like that. He says, you've got a great set-up here, you should only go to one club. And I says, who's that? He says, Man Utd. And Dick Donald said that to me. It's amazing. So, I never budged until that came along. And once it came along, pretty straightforward decision? Absolutely. Oh no, it was, couldn't get there quick enough. And what was your initial thoughts, first couple of weeks, moving into Manchester United? Well, I would have to say there was a lot of trepidation about it. So, travelling down that morning, in the plane with Martin Edwards and the lawyer, Maurice Watkins, I was asking a lot of questions, and I wasn't expecting all the answers, you know what I mean? And me going on strike, he used to phone me quite a lot, and I didn't get a great picture out of that, you know what I mean? But, so I knew that, I knew all the players, I mean, they're world-class names in many ways. But I was determined to install what I believed, Aberdeen, and that was to produce young players. I thought that was the best way to go. And plus the fact, I had all this evidence of Matt Busby. He was the greatest manager of that time, and what he did for Manchester United is amazing. Well, you mentioned Dick Donnell there, and it's a theme throughout, I think, your career. People that you look up to and are thankful for their help and guidance. You mentioned Sir Martin Edwards, Sir Bobby Charlton as well were Bobby Charlton, different class, wonderful man. Sir Martin was terrific, you know, if I could go into Old Trafford during the week, I could smell his pipe, you know, and they were laughing upstairs. I was going for my cup of tea with him, and he was great. But Bobby Charlton was fantastic with me, honestly. He's wonderful. We used to go to the games together, and I say to him every day, I think the best Scottish team would have beat the best English team. And he laughed. He says, how do you work that out? I says, well, Law and O'Gleash up front. And he says, Bobby Duncan Edwards. I say, oh, okay, we'll get it. We've talked about him before. It's funny, because we've done it as well. We pick our all-time British team, and I go, right, Law and O'Gleash, that's the forward sorted, right? But as I say, great the arguments and discussions. But you won, I think, the first trophy you won with the Cup in 1919. There's obviously a story, Mark Robbins scoring the goal and all that. So what do you remember about it? I think it might have been your fourth season, and you won the Cup. Did that feel, not so much a weight off your back, but, you know, it must have been, you know, you used to winning things at this point, Aberdeen. That particular December, through the whole December, the A-Games never won a game. You know, and of course, with the press play apart and all these things, I'm afraid that there's no, it's no nice to read. And I always said, Ma always said, don't read the papers, don't read the papers. And I did that in that particular time. So the Cup tie against Delos Forest was going to be huge, because Clough's team were arguably one of the best Cup teams. Yeah. But the thing that won us that day, because we had a few injuries, the thing that won us that day was the fans. They were defiant. They were absolutely out of this world. And they were urging us on all the time. You couldn't help but smell the opportunity of it, you know. And they played well, the team. Yeah. I mean, 1-0 was well justified, you know, we played really well. And the winning goal with Sparky, outside of his foot, I'll wake up in the night and see that, outside his right foot, curled around. And the funny thing about Mark Hughes was, he was a big game player. But he was a fantastic crosser of all. Unbelievable crosser of all. See if he drifted out, wide of the left foot. Delivery on. 100%. So Mark Robbins scored that winning goal. And every game after that, was away from home. Yeah. And we won the Cup. Amazing. And it does make a difference. Makes a difference to the players, to the club, the ambitions of everyone else. I want to show you a picture. Another picture. It sums up football for me. And it was, I think it was your first championship. Here we go, man. What a picture this is. 1993. Look at that. That sums up for me. Sheffield Wednesday. Sheffield Wednesday. Look at the kid on his knees and you in the touchline. For me, that just sums up football. Passion. Everything. Relief. A release of tension. You obviously remember that occasion. After the game, Trevor Francis was manager. Trevor. And they come into my office and says, you scored on the second leg. Eight minutes injury time. So I says, well, actually, wait with me, you know. And I went home that night and watched the game. You know how many minutes this should have been? 15 minutes. I knew you'd go the other way. 15 minutes. I bet you were pleased when he blew the whistle and didn't play the extra time. No chance. As soon as we scored that winning goal. Anyway, the referee got injured. The referee got injured. Yeah, and he was carried off. You should have been on and taken the whistle. I did after that. But the Wednesday came on. There was 50 minutes. Is that right? Yeah, yeah. And there's another one I want to show you, which I mean, this was unbelievable. I don't care. One of the most. And when you beat Bayern Munich. You beat Bayern Munich to lift the Champions League. Was there at any point during that game you thought it's gone? It's easy to say this, but a homework one is a game. So when we did the analysis of Bayern was on big games in particular, they used to take the two white players off and go a tight midfield. So we know I've been keen in schools. I had to gamble in my midfield. And I wanted to make sure we had a passing ability. And I decided to play David Beckham in centre midfield, along with Nicky Butt. Yeah. Nicky do all sorts of jobs. They're gigs away. Right. And Blomqvist went away. And it didn't work the first half at all. And I was waiting for them to make a substitution. So the minute they made the substitution, I went three in the middle and three up. And I brought on Teddy Shearer and I said, Teddy, you go and play top of the right centre back. Try and pull the right back in. The right back was Babel. Yeah. You know, and the gigs playing in the left midfield, it was really suited to him. Because running off the space all the time and Beckham on the right hand side, starting to get crosses in. In the last 15 minutes, we made a lot of chances. But having said that, we could have been out. We could have been out long before. They had the cross bar, they missed a couple of chances. And Schmeichel made a couple of saves. I mean, I still watch it, I think. That's amazing. It really was amazing. That side, I tell you what it did have in abundance. I know it's skill and talent, but it's spirit, eh? It's spirit. Oh, the perseverance. We never gave in. And that's the quality that great teams always had. You know, we did that for years. At the end of the day, when you look at my career at United, it's encapsulating the other leagues and all that. But it's also about myself and the team. We were second in the league six times and won the next year. Isn't that amazing? Yeah, it is. Six times second and twice in goal difference and won the league the next year. I didn't know that. Yeah. So it tells you what that club was about, what these players were about. And it was not just one set of players. That was going back to the 94-95 team, tough as nails, to a really talented team in 2008 with Tevez, Ronaldo and Rooney up front. They were unbelievable. Well, what was the big difference between those sides then, effectively? I mean, there's clearly a lot of similarities, as you've mentioned. What would you think was the difference between those two great sides? Well, the 94-95 team was basically an English team with Smyco. We didn't have a lot of foreign influence. By the time we came to 2008, we'd have quit a few foreign players in it, you know. The game had changed. And did they get it, Gaff? Did they get it as soon as they came? 100%. No problem. Every foreign player, every European player would come in, adapted right away. And then also, it's a funny thing. They probably looked upon Company United bigger than anything, because the reputation of the club had grown, you know. There's no question people say it's the biggest club in the world. The club of this probably got a billion fans all over the world, you know. It's that kind of club. It's got a romance about it. Obviously, created through the Munich Air disaster. There's a lot to do with that. But it's also a lot to do with the challenge when any young player, any player comes to the club. The challenge is huge. And when you get success at that club, it's fantastic. You clearly worked with, far and away, some of the best. Robbo, Cantona, you mentioned Tevez. Obviously, Ronaldo, just unbelievable talent. Now, this is kind of strange. Did you treat them all the same, or within reason, did you have to do things accordingly? Well, everybody thought Robbo was my son, because they never got criticised. I don't really believe that, but anyway. No, I think the most important thing for me, as a manager, is to be consistent. So, the players, the staff, everybody recognised the man who came in that door every morning. I never changed. I had the same principles all the time, the same discipline code all the time, and the same attitude towards staff, in particular, all the time. I never changed. So, it made it easy for everybody to feel comfortable with that, you know. 26 years brings a lot of benefits, you know. Right, Gaff, I want to take you for a mate. The title, in 2013. Right, 100 per cent. Clearly, everything and every trophy would mean a lot to you, right, but just how much did that one mean to you? Well, Kathy's sister died in previous October, and she was lost. She was definitely lost. So, on Christmas, I said to Luke, I'm going to retire at the end of the season, and I knew, with her reaction, she was delighted, because she wasn't her own, and she had given me a life to everything about me, was her looking after me, you know, because of my job and, you know, bringing the kids up. So, when I said, I'm going to retire, she was delighted. I knew that. I could tell by her body language, and I always said, when I got to January, what I did every January 1st, I wrote down every year our opponents' games, where I think points could be won or lost, and I put us down to one by ten points. Did you really? I did. The team was playing really well. I thought we'd do that, but I think it was 11 points. So, they did really well. The team played really well, and Van Persie was fantastic. His goals, his thrust in the game, his power and his confidence, you know. I think my record was fantastic, but also, what really made me was losing games. If I lost a cup final, I lost a few cup finals, you know that. Every cup final I lost, I could go right through every minute, how we lost it. Is that one of the signs of greatness, remembering the defeats more than the victories? 100 per cent. That's the thing that should drive you on. I was always, the next day after a loss, I was better. Players knew that too, by the way. I can imagine. I'm sure I'm speaking for everybody when I say, thank you for all the memories, and there's far more memories of you lifting trophies and doing good things than there is losing one or two cup finals. Thanks for your time, Gaffer, I've really enjoyed it. Thanks very much, Alec. Thank you.