Rubbing shoulders with Sir Alex priceless

One day when one of my future grandchildren asks me whether I was privileged enough to meet the great Nelson Mandela, I’m going to have to disappoint them.

Sadly, that was one of my greatest wishes but never materialised. But as a consolation, I’ve prepared a solid comeback.

“No I didn’t meet Madiba, my sweetheart, but would you believe that I was fortunate enough to be in the great Sir Alex Ferguson’s company a couple of times. So go on and Google him or whatever it is you kids do today.”

The first time I found myself in the same room as Sir Alex was during a Manchester United supporters dinner for charity at Emerald Casino in Vanderbijlpark back in 2002. Fans who paid thousands of rands to spend the evening with the Scot came out dressed in every imaginable type of wearable Manyoo merchandise and they were not to leave disappointed. In fact, I don’t think they could have ever thought how up close and personal they would actually get with the great man.

Ferguson went through the formalities of making his speech and afterwards visited every table in the room, shaking every single person in attendance’s hand, gave everyone the opportunity of taking a picture with him while making himself available to sign whatever it was you needed his signature on. Just looking at him walk up and down, circling every table was tiring I remember wondering where he got the drive and energy from to be so consistently polite to so many people, managing the same warm smile for every picture. And remember, those were the days before fancy cellphone cameras, so most brought their chunky still cameras along for the occasion which not only took ages to manually adjust, but a second – or third – picture was the order of the day just to make sure.

But he never flinched and even asked a trivia question only diehard United fans would know and personally sponsored the winner’s prize – a piece of club memorabilia.

Fast forward six years and again I found myself opposite Sir Alex as Manchester United were invited to take part in what was called the Vodacom Challenge alongside Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates.

This time the atmosphere was slightly more hostile and the press conference very uncomfortable as hordes of English reporters and television crews had been flown all the way to Mzansi to ask Ferguson one question. And surprise, surprise ... it’s wasn’t about Chiefs or Pirates. It was all about Cristiano Ronaldo, who didn’t even make the trip.

Fresh from winning the Champions League in 2008, Ronaldo was heavily linked to a move to Real Madrid, something that would only materialise a year later. But nonetheless, the obnoxious fellows kept on asking the same question over and over again. They kept on getting the same answer too, which they clearly didn’t want to hear.

Then one day he decided to put an end to it. But he didn’t lose his cool, didn’t shout and wasn’t nasty to anyone after listening to the question for the umpteenth time.

“Listen, I saw the boy’s signature on the contract. He staying for another season and that is the end of that.”

Needless to say, nobody dared ask him about Ronaldo again. That is the kind of respect only Ferguson would get and is again evident in the global support he is getting in the aftermath of his emergency brain surgery.

Please get well soon Sir Alex, you are a living legend.

And essential to my street cred as a grandpa.