He gave me enormous help and great advice. He basically sorted out my deal for me when I left United for Everton and I will always be grateful to him because I earned more in my two years at Goodison than I did in eight years at United. In my opinion ,Sir
Manchester United and a great many of them have served the club with distinction. A truly special bond exists between the Irish and Manchester United, a strong bond built on family ties over generations of support for Manchester United, and in many ways it is a quite unique bond.
“The Irish are, and always will be, part of the lifeblood of Manchester United and I thank them for their eternal and unwavering loyalty to me and my team.
“Manchester United understands the family connections between the Irish people and the club.
“From time to time, I get an Irish boy over on trial and invariably the young boy will get quite homesick at the beginning. But my staff and I fully understand what Irish people are like, and we know that the family is a key part of life in Ireland.
“The Irish enjoy a great family unity, and many children grow up with their mother as the matriarch and we at Manchester United know this. Just as Sir Matt Busby did with George Best, then we too take the boy’s feelings into consideration and let the boy have his own time to decide what he wants to do with his life. Manchester United will always fully support the boy’s decision.”
I first invited Sir Alex over in May 1997 as Carryduff Manchester United Supporters’ Club was organising a fundraiser for one of our members who needed a new motorised wheelchair.
In February 1999, he paid his second visit to Carryduff and this time it was a first trip over to raise monies for his charity. The only request he made was that we use the proceeds from the event to help cross-community groups and therefore try to bring young Roman Catholic and Protestant children together through sporting activities.
On the afternoon of the dinner, John Dempsey and I drove to Belfast City Airport where Sir Alex flew in with Barry Moorhouse, who was the man responsible for all of Manchester United’s Official Supporters’ Clubs at the time including Carryduff MUSC, and the former United player and manager Wilf McGuinness, who was going to act as Master of Ceremonies at the event.
As soon as he stepped off the plane, Sir Alex asked to be taken to the nearest bookmakers shop.
I said there was one in the Short Strand in east Belfast, where I grew up, which was five minutes away.
He said: “Take me there. One of my horses, Queensland Star, is running this afternoon at Newmarket and I want to try and catch the race.”
As we drove into my old area, Sir Alex couldn’t help noticing the Irish tricolour flags that were flying and the Republican murals on the gable walls and said: “Here, White, do you not know I used to play for Rangers? Where are you taking us?”
I replied: “You asked to go to the bookies, Boss, so that is where I am taking you. Don’t worry, they are all Man United daft here in the Strand.”
You could have heard a pin drop when the punters first saw the manager of
Manchester United walk in. I spotted my dad, who was in a corner studying form, and introduced him to Sir Alex who then went and put a wager on his horse which he had named after one of the ships his dad helped to build in the Clyde Shipyard.
By this time the place was crammed with people and even a number of women, who would never normally have set foot in such an establishment.
One guy asked: “Which horse in the race is yours, Fergie?” When Sir Alex told him, this same guy took a wad of bank notes out of his shirt pocket and stuck the lot on Queensland Star.
Alas, the horse came in second and as soon as the race was over Sir Alex was besieged by autograph hunters. But none of them had anything for him to sign except a betting slip and so he signed dozens of them, including the beaten docket of the punter who had backed Queensland Star.
The event that evening was a huge success with lots of money raised and again, Sir Alex posed for hundreds s of photos and autographs.
When I later wrote to him and asked him to bring Manchester United over to Belfast to play an Irish League Select XI as a Testimonial for Harry Gregg, he immediately agreed and what a night that was at Windsor Park on May 15, 2012.
Portstewart man Gregg was, of course, the hero of the Munich air crash in 1958 which killed 23 people including eight of Gregg’s United team-mates, the Busby Babes. Given his role in United’s history, that Gregg had never had a testimonial shocked many. Sir Alex felt compelled to put that right, leading out a star-studded team who put behind them the disappointment of losing the Premier League title to rivals City with the last kick of the last day of the 2012 season to honour a United legend.
Gregg’s heroism alone merited Sir Alex’s lengthy, passionate appreciation in the programme where he described Gregg as “beyond legendary” but also as “a most reluctant hero”.
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❝ He was old school but it was great to have that. Even now there are certain situations where I think ‘Would he have liked me to do that?’ It’s kind of a guideline – Jonny Evans
Perhaps Sir Alex’s humble working-class roots growing up in the tenements of Govan, the son of a shipbuilder at the once vibrant but now silent Clyde Shipyards, gave him his unquenchable thirst for success. Whatever it was, the boy from Govan never forgot his roots.
The motto of the Ferguson clan in Scotland is ‘Dulcius ex asperis’, meaning ‘Sweeter after difficulties’.
Of his father, he once said: “The Clyde made the man and that man made me.”
Looking back to that interview in his office at Carrington, I noticed a sign on a wall which simply read: “AHCUMFIGOVIN” (I come from Govan).
He was and remains a proud and passionate Glaswegian, with Northern Ireland in his DNA.
John White is the Branch Secretary of Carryduff Manchester United Supporters’ Club and the author of 17 books about Manchester United.