35 years since Sir Alex became United boss

It would prove one of the most important events in the club’s long and dramatic history, and began arguably the greatest managerial reign the game of football has ever witnessed.

 

United had not won a top-flight league title since 1967, and Liverpool and Everton were the dominant forces in English football.

 

The Scot had enjoyed great success north of the border at Aberdeen, but had no experience in England as a player or manager.

However, once the man from Govan had helped the Reds to a first major trophy – the 1990 FA Cup – he never looked back. And what followed was over 20 years of near unbroken success, encompassing 13 Premier League titles, two Champions Leagues and five FA Cups.

 

The early years at Old Trafford were difficult though, as Sir Alex remembered in his 1999 autobiography, Managing My Life.

 

“When I joined United on 6 November 1986, they had gone 19 years without a title and nobody had to tell me that if I did not end that drought I would be a failure.

“Putting them in a position to challenge constantly would, I knew, be a long haul. I would have to build from the bottom up, rectifying the flaws I had recognised and spreading my influence and self-belief through every layer of the organisation.

“I wanted to form a personal link with everybody around the place – not just the players, the coaches and the backroom staff but the office workers, the cooks and servers in the canteen and the laundry ladies. All had to believe that they were part of the club and that a resurgence was coming.

 

“But unless the rebuilding was accompanied by a measure of success, there was bound to be doubt about whether I would be given enough time to fulfil my plans.”

 

Frank McGhee, The Guardian: “The manager Manchester United really need, have desperately lacked and would love to have is unavailable and disqualified for one reason. He is 76 years old. But if they can't get Sir Matt Busby, it is obvious that they must look for someone with almost all that marvellous man's qualities – reaching for the lot would be asking for a bit much. The indications are that in Alex Ferguson they may have come fairly close to hitting the target, even though the most they can hope for is an inner rather than a bullseye.”

Patrick Glenn, The Observer: “When Martin Edwards offered Alex Ferguson the Manchester United job last Thursday, it was as if the Big Fisherman himself had held out the key to the Pearly Gates. The very idea of Ferguson's non-acceptance was absurd. His irresistible competitiveness – at times, it borders on the psychopathic – has long been sustained by apparently endless energy, and to have refused the biggest club in Britain would have seemed to Ferguson a self-betrayal deserving of hara-kiri. Ferguson's unshakable commitment to whatever cause he espouses has been evident since, as a teenager, he led his fellow apprentice toolmakers' industrial action at their factory on the south side of Glasgow.”