Nev: The unexpected hairdryer was the worst!
Sir Alex Ferguson's 'hairdryer' entered the realm of legend long before he stepped down as Manchester United manager in 2013.
Almost every footballer who played under the great Scot seems to have a nerve-shredding story about drawing Ferguson's ire – many of which you'll have read about in autobiographies, or heard on podcasts.
Gary Neville worked closely with Sir Alex for 20 years, and saw him launch his spittle-flecked barrages on countless occasions, so it was inevitable that when the Bury-born former Red sat in on the latest UTD Podcast that we'd have to ask him about the subject.
For Neville, the scariest experience of all was receiving the hairdryer at an unexpected moment, when he didn't think he'd been playing too badly.
How terrifying was Sir Alex's hairdryer? Video
How terrifying was Sir Alex's hairdryer?
UTD Podcast | What was it like to feel the full force of the Ferguson hairdryer? Gary Neville tries to explain...
"You knew sometimes that it was coming, you know what I mean?" explained Gary. "You knew you’d had a bad half or you’d given a goal away, or you weren’t at it.
"But it was the ones where you weren’t expecting it that shocked you! You would go in, you'd have your drink, and you’d sit down.
"And then you got that [look from Ferguson] and you’d look at him and he'd say [adopts Glasgow accent]: 'Stop looking like I've got horns on my head!' [That was] because you’d be looking at him like: ‘Me? Today? No, not today. Last week, maybe!"
UTD Podcast co-host David May admitted he was relieved when someone else received the hairdryer and not him, but Neville had a different opinion, suggesting it was always an uncomfortable thing to witness, even if directed at a colleague.
"Oh, you’d never enjoy it if it was to any of the lads in the dressing room, honestly!" he grimaced. "You’d never, honestly. Oh no, you never enjoyed it, it was never pleasant.
"But it mellowed from the early days of me getting into the first team with the lads like Brucie [Steve Bruce] and Choccy [Brian McClair] and Pally [Gary Pallister] and them lads. There were some European nights around that time which were ferocious. We got knocked out by Gothenburg or Moscow.
"I remember Moscow, where we lost on penalties. Oh my God! Bryan Robson was still there then. It was unbelievable, really. But do you know something, they were all animals, in a good way... When I first broke in, every one of them could have been a captain or were captains, or have been managers since. Every one of them."
Watch Neville's UTD Podcast in full Video
Watch Neville's UTD Podcast in full
UTD Podcast | Our interview with Gary Neville is compelling, more than an hour long and viewable in its entirety here...
Interestingly, Neville reveals that the England dressing room was also confrontational in the 1990s, which suggests that many managers and players of the time employed hairdryer-type rollockings. But, of course, few achieved the same successes as Ferguson and United.
"The England team was similar," stated Neville. "The England team had [David] Platt, [Paul] Ince, [Alan] Shearer, Tony Adams, Gareth Southgate, David Seaman, Stuart Pearce. You know, lots of big, massive characters and the Man United dressing room was exactly the same.
"I was literally a kid, and soft basically, compared to this lot. So you’re just in this environment of 'wow'!"
Back to Top