MASTERCLASS IN FERGIE

Dons legend on how Sir Alex beat big boys

YOU could call them the Ferguson files. What does it take to make unlikely provincial title pretenders into Scottish football’s market leaders? And what are the little leadership hints that can get everyone at a football club – from first-team players right down to the ground staff – pulling in the same direction to scale heights which previously seemed impossible?

It will be 40 years next year since Sir Alex Ferguson achieved the unimaginable and cracked the unbroken 14-year hegemony of Celtic and Rangers at the top of the Scottish top flight, the perfect case study for this season’s wannabes such as Hearts, Hibs, Aberdeen again, Kilmarnock and even Livingston as they attempt to do battle with the two Glasgow giants in what appears for now at least to be the most open league race in years. For the record, it is currently 33 years and counting since anyone other than Celtic and Rangers could call themselves champions of Scotland.

Not only was John McMaster a major participant in the storied Ferguson era at Aberdeen – he made more than 300 firstteam appearances during an era where Aberdeen scooped three league titles, four Scottish Cups, one league cup, the Cup Winners Cup and the Super Cup – he had privileged access during that era to a one-man management and leadership masterclass.

That is why he, in tandem with his business partners Neil Martin and Robin McAusland from the firm Route To Employment, are keen to pass on some of the tricks of Ferguson’s trade to the aspiring business leaders of the next generation. Whether it is corporate networking events in Aberdeen, training days at legal firms, Chartered Institute of Management (CMI) accredited course components at venues such as the University of Strathclyde business school, the trio are gaining traction via McMaster’s personal insights into Ferguson’s management style which is more transferable to other realms of business than you might imagine. McMaster, a former Swansea City scout, has revelled in this outlet, much in the way that John Gahagan, with whom he worked during his stint as assistant manager at Morton, has become one of Scottish football’s foremost after-dinner turns.

“Football is a worldwide business now, one of the biggest in

the world,” says McMaster. “We have an American businessman wanting to buy Wembley, that tells me everything. But I feel sometimes there is a little bit of insecurity in other fields about taking lessons from football.

“When we won the trophy, our first league trophy, in ’79-80, there was a team picture at the Beach End at Pittodrie,” he recalls. “Everyone was involved in it, from the chairman right down the groundsman, to the maintenance staff, old aged

That caring side is the biggest thing that comes out with Fergie

pensioners, wives, families, the lot. We were all there – maybe a couple of hundred people. We had 46 players back in those days with four staff – Fergie, Pat Stanton, Teddy Scott and the physio. “That caring side is the biggest thing that comes out in me with Fergie,” McMaster adds. “A lot of people see this nutcase, throwing teacups around, they still have this image of him. Then I start telling them what he did for me, and for other players, what he still does to this day. He still phones people up, gets cards sent to them. The awareness to know everybody’s name – that is powerful, very