carlyluvsunited
08-12-2007, 03:38 PM
Museums at night have always been considered sinister places, the exhibits are
too much like ghosts. The film Night At The Museum had a security guard, played
by Ben Stiller, terrorised by the displays coming to life when the building shuts
down.
Stiller was fortunate; he only had a Tyrannosaurus and Attila the Hun to deal
with. Should he have found employment at the Manchester United Museum deep
within Old Trafford's great North Stand, he would turn a corner and be
confronted by manager Sir Alex Ferguson striding around his office.
The image is a hologram, the centrepiece of a museum which like much else at Old
Trafford is uncommonly well done. The questions Ferguson answers from
disembodied voices are not ones that would stretch Jeremy Paxman but they are
the questions he is most often asked, the ones he would be asked if he did step
through the screen.
The only other similar hologram features John McEnroe at the Wimbledon Lawn
Tennis Museum and Ferguson took less than half the nine hours McEnroe
required to film his contribution. In passing, Ferguson proves himself a
reasonable actor. "Aye" he grins, "I have had a lot of practice, you know."
The flesh and blood Ferguson conducted one of his first press conferences in the
museum, which combines two of his great loves, football and history. He still
visits it. "I have had a great part of this club," he reflected. "But I get more
pleasure looking round the museum and seeing the old United. Charlie Roberts,
Sandy Turnbull and Billy Meredith."
He stops by a photograph of Matt Busby coaching Scotland in the late 1950s and
offers a bottle of good red wine if we can name the three players. Shamefully, we
do not guess Dave Mackay or Tommy Docherty but he knew we would not get
Eric Caldow, an exceptional full-back with Rangers who somehow managed never
to be booked.
In a perfect world there would a companion hologram of Busby, the man whose
journey from the bombed-out hulk of Old Trafford to the European Cup final via
the ghastliness of Munich form the heart of the Manchester United story.
Ferguson knows he will always be judged alongside the man who created the
modern Manchester United. He has won more trophies than Busby, though not
more European Cups, which he considers "ridiculous". "You have to wonder
whether we'd have achieved what we have without his vision and foresight," he
said.
"Would England have gone into the European Cup as early as they did? Chelsea
won the title in 1955 but didn't want to go into the European Cup because they
didn't see any future in it and neither did the FA. But Matt did and that changed
the whole concept of our domestic game. He lost and rebuilt a team, rebuilding it
the right way, in the fashion of what he thought Manchester United should be.
My job, really, was to regain that."
You feel that of his 21 years at Manchester United, Ferguson is most proud of the
early seasons, when so much of the spadework for what was to follow was
done. In early 1990, he was approaching four years at Old Trafford, roughly the
same time allocated to his predecessors, Docherty, Dave Sexton and Ron
Atkinson and he had perhaps achieved less than any of them. His was a story
that could have gone either way.
"We got great pieces of luck like taking Ryan Giggs from Manchester City. If I
hadn't have come to the club, when I did, he would have ended up playing for
them, no question. My first real challenge was to get Ryan signed up on
schoolboy forms and we worked hard at that. We were up at Ryan's door every
night until he signed.
"We had training sessions every night, we used to trial players down at Albert
Park in Salford. You could see things were changing bit by bit. In fact, the
standard got so good we were turning players away. We should have signed
Jonathan Woodgate but our Sunderland scout died playing five-a-side one night
and we lost the point of contact. At the time, people outside the club couldn't see
what was happening but, within it, we felt we were getting somewhere."
If there is a difference between Busby and Ferguson it is physically. When you
see pictures of Busby embracing Bobby Charlton at Wembley after the 1968
European Cup final, he seems dreadfully frail. The War and Munich would have
played a part but then he was only 58, seven years younger than Ferguson is
now.
"You have to have a good constitution to do this job," Ferguson said. "There are
a lot of demands on your time, a lot of late nights, which is why I try to rest as
much as I can. But the bottom line is you have to love this game to stay in it. The
disappointments you get, the frustrations you get?.?.?. it can be a difficult job.
www.telegraph.co.uk
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too much like ghosts. The film Night At The Museum had a security guard, played
by Ben Stiller, terrorised by the displays coming to life when the building shuts
down.
Stiller was fortunate; he only had a Tyrannosaurus and Attila the Hun to deal
with. Should he have found employment at the Manchester United Museum deep
within Old Trafford's great North Stand, he would turn a corner and be
confronted by manager Sir Alex Ferguson striding around his office.
The image is a hologram, the centrepiece of a museum which like much else at Old
Trafford is uncommonly well done. The questions Ferguson answers from
disembodied voices are not ones that would stretch Jeremy Paxman but they are
the questions he is most often asked, the ones he would be asked if he did step
through the screen.
The only other similar hologram features John McEnroe at the Wimbledon Lawn
Tennis Museum and Ferguson took less than half the nine hours McEnroe
required to film his contribution. In passing, Ferguson proves himself a
reasonable actor. "Aye" he grins, "I have had a lot of practice, you know."
The flesh and blood Ferguson conducted one of his first press conferences in the
museum, which combines two of his great loves, football and history. He still
visits it. "I have had a great part of this club," he reflected. "But I get more
pleasure looking round the museum and seeing the old United. Charlie Roberts,
Sandy Turnbull and Billy Meredith."
He stops by a photograph of Matt Busby coaching Scotland in the late 1950s and
offers a bottle of good red wine if we can name the three players. Shamefully, we
do not guess Dave Mackay or Tommy Docherty but he knew we would not get
Eric Caldow, an exceptional full-back with Rangers who somehow managed never
to be booked.
In a perfect world there would a companion hologram of Busby, the man whose
journey from the bombed-out hulk of Old Trafford to the European Cup final via
the ghastliness of Munich form the heart of the Manchester United story.
Ferguson knows he will always be judged alongside the man who created the
modern Manchester United. He has won more trophies than Busby, though not
more European Cups, which he considers "ridiculous". "You have to wonder
whether we'd have achieved what we have without his vision and foresight," he
said.
"Would England have gone into the European Cup as early as they did? Chelsea
won the title in 1955 but didn't want to go into the European Cup because they
didn't see any future in it and neither did the FA. But Matt did and that changed
the whole concept of our domestic game. He lost and rebuilt a team, rebuilding it
the right way, in the fashion of what he thought Manchester United should be.
My job, really, was to regain that."
You feel that of his 21 years at Manchester United, Ferguson is most proud of the
early seasons, when so much of the spadework for what was to follow was
done. In early 1990, he was approaching four years at Old Trafford, roughly the
same time allocated to his predecessors, Docherty, Dave Sexton and Ron
Atkinson and he had perhaps achieved less than any of them. His was a story
that could have gone either way.
"We got great pieces of luck like taking Ryan Giggs from Manchester City. If I
hadn't have come to the club, when I did, he would have ended up playing for
them, no question. My first real challenge was to get Ryan signed up on
schoolboy forms and we worked hard at that. We were up at Ryan's door every
night until he signed.
"We had training sessions every night, we used to trial players down at Albert
Park in Salford. You could see things were changing bit by bit. In fact, the
standard got so good we were turning players away. We should have signed
Jonathan Woodgate but our Sunderland scout died playing five-a-side one night
and we lost the point of contact. At the time, people outside the club couldn't see
what was happening but, within it, we felt we were getting somewhere."
If there is a difference between Busby and Ferguson it is physically. When you
see pictures of Busby embracing Bobby Charlton at Wembley after the 1968
European Cup final, he seems dreadfully frail. The War and Munich would have
played a part but then he was only 58, seven years younger than Ferguson is
now.
"You have to have a good constitution to do this job," Ferguson said. "There are
a lot of demands on your time, a lot of late nights, which is why I try to rest as
much as I can. But the bottom line is you have to love this game to stay in it. The
disappointments you get, the frustrations you get?.?.?. it can be a difficult job.
www.telegraph.co.uk
Click below to join manutdtalk.com forums to read and
discuss all breaking news on all things United !!! Come talk to us….
http://manutdtalk.com/forums/register.php