Did Irish duo spite Fergie?

IT IS almost 19 years since Sir Alex Ferguson initiated legal action against Irish racing kings John Magnier and JP McManus over stud rights to the Rock Of Gibraltar. Magnier and McManus, we remember, also owned almost a third of the shares in Manchester united.

Ferguson’s dispute with his old racing friends was bitter and ugly and was settled out of court. Magnier and McManus’ final act, though, was to sell their share in united to the Glazer family.

It is worth thinking about this now, as the ruinous reign of the Americans continues to cast such a shadow over England’s biggest football club.

The so-called Coolmore Mafia have never explained why they sold those shares. Ferguson, meanwhile, dealt with it all in just a couple of paragraphs in his last autobiography.

Did the Irish sell because they sensed a good business opportunity? Or did they do it to spite Ferguson by plunging his football club in to the disarray of hostile ownership? Whatever the truth, the further away we sit from those extraordinary days, the more tawdry, destructive and utterly unforgivable the whole episode looks.