The match did not go well for Cantona, even though he obtained the empty consolation of a goal near the end of a second 2-1 defeat. ‘I think Alex could sense my concern,’ said Houllier. By then he was in charge of the French national team and Cantona’s partnership with Papin was fundamental to their chances of qualifying for the next World Cup (or so Houllier was to believe until, after Cantona’s sixth goal of the campaign had seemed to book France’s place in the tournament, a wayward pass by David Ginola let Bulgaria break away and replace them).
The day after the Elland Road match, Houllier took a call from Cantona’s agent, Jean-Jacques Bertrand. ‘Eric didn’t want to play for Leeds any more.’ By Cantona’s own account, he had requested a transfer by fax, putting his dissatisfaction thus: ‘The salmon that idles its way downstream will never leap the waterfall.’ It was not the only time he was to communicate by fish metaphor.
Straight away, Houllier was on the line. ‘I immediately thought about Alex. I had his number and got through to him in his car, which was unusual in those days [it was November 1992]. I told him that a lot was said about Eric, and a lot of people were afraid of his personality, but that he was a nice guy and a very good professional – and a tremendous player. Alex said he would take him, but told me not to say anything to anyone.’ Ferguson knew Leeds were interested in Denis Irwin. That was the bait. Leeds were given to misunderstand that an approach for Irwin might be entertained. Hence Fotherby’s call to Martin Edwards.
It was, of course, not just the goodness of Houllier’s nature but a duty to France that impelled him to find Cantona a more comfortable home at Old Trafford. The player’s talent had been demonstrated to Ferguson on that very ground earlier in the season (and confirmed by Bruce and Pallister after the match) and Houllier offered assurance that reports of his disruptiveness had been exaggerated; that all he required was a firm, paternal and very careful hand. Houllier also gave Ferguson crucial advice that he responded to rigorous training; you can imagine Ferguson almost licking his lips in relish at that.
So Cantona came to Old Trafford. And United began to throb. They took the League leadership on their first outing of the new year, Cantona giving an inspired display in a 4-1 home win over Tottenham, and lost only twice more in the League (though Sheffield United removed them from the FA Cup). One defeat was at Ipswich and the other at Oldham, where Cantona was missing. By winning handsomely at Norwich, where Ryan Giggs, now nineteen and an acclaimed regular in the side, rivalled Cantona for brilliance, they established a slight advantage over Ron Atkinson’s Aston Villa. They just had to win their last six matches and this time an almost luxurious thirty-one days stretched out in which to play them. United could only let fate slip through their fingers. This was the background against which Sheffield Wednesday came to Old Trafford on 10 April.
For sixty-five minutes, the match was goal-less, and then Old Trafford experienced terrible
déjà vu
. Only their Frenchman would not have recognised it, for he had been among the beneficiaries of their late fade the previous season. Was there to be another? The question crossed Old Trafford’s mind as Chris Waddle drifted into the penalty area and, sensing that Paul Ince might injudiciously try a tackle, skilfully nudged the ball forward before falling under the inevitable impact. For the linesman, John Hilditch, who was refereeing because Michael Peck had limped off, it was an easy decision and John Sheridan, the United fan whose goal had snatched the League Cup two seasons earlier, put the penalty away. Wednesday were in front.
Ferguson tried to think positively. He was glad he had been barking away at Hilditch before Peck’s injury, reminding him that there had been so many stoppages for which time should be added. Then he sent on Bryan Robson, who had returned from yet another injury absence, for Paul Parker. The ensuing bombardment began to pay off with just five minutes of normal time to go, Bruce getting his head to a corner and beating both the Wednesday goalkeeper, Chris Woods, who made a valiant dive, and the defender by the relevant post, Phil King, who appeared to be day-dreaming and did not even try to intervene. Six minutes into stoppage time, Bruce headed past Woods again and the rest was pandemonium. Ferguson ran jubilant to the touchline. His assistant Brian Kidd sank to his knees on the pitch, glancing at the heavens, sure, like everyone else, that the title would be coming to Old Trafford at last.
The final whistle went. Ferguson, still speaking to the BBC in those days, composed his features. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘we’re a point clear . . .’ That night at home he reran the match and calculated that the stoppage time was more than merited. Indeed, he thought there should have been twelve minutes. It was the first manifestation of an obsession with added time that would see him approach countless match officials, jabbing a finger at his watch – though never when United led.
That was it. Clean sheets helped United to win their next three matches and, meanwhile, Villa faltered, much as United had done the previous season, losing at Blackburn and then at home to Oldham, handing United the title. Ferguson was playing golf on that Sunday afternoon: out of nervousness rather than nonchalance. He was playing with his son Mark at Mottram Hall, near his Cheshire home, taking solace from the knowledge that, even if Villa had won, United could become champions by beating Blackburn at Old Trafford the following night. A stranger ran up with the good news. Father and son hugged, abandoned any thoughts of playing the final hole, rang Cathy and went home to find a throng of photographers which, for once, Ferguson thoroughly welcomed.
The celebrations were still going on when Blackburn arrived at Old Trafford, but United proved professional enough to win 3-1 before the long-coveted trophy was hoisted by the four arms of Robson and Bruce in recognition of the leadership each had supplied. United were even to beat Wimbledon in the final match of the campaign at Selhurst Park (which Wimbledon had shared with Crystal Palace since quitting Plough Lane in 1991). They were champions by a margin of six points. United occupied the perch. Liverpool were sixth, twenty-five points in arrears. They were never to crow on it again. Not in Ferguson’s time.
Arsenal proved more resilient opponents, for, although they finished as low as tenth in 1993 and George Graham’s days were numbered, Arsène Wenger was to arrive in England and give Ferguson the fight of his life.
In his autobiography, Ferguson dwells on a newspaper article in which Bryan Robson ascribed United’s success to his – Ferguson’s – development, saying that he had become more ‘relaxed’. Ferguson wondered if it were more a case of his having stood back a little and observed individual players more closely. Anyway, he added, a massive contribution had also come from Cantona. This, from Ferguson, may have appeared becomingly modest. In truth it was not modest enough. Cantona had been the difference. Cantona had filled the team with more confidence than Ferguson ever had. Never before had English football seen such chemistry.
Never, to give Ferguson his due, had there been more skilful man-management. He learned from the breakdown of Wilkinson’s relationship with Cantona at Leeds, once ringing Houllier to ask him to explain to his compatriot – ‘naturally there was a language issue in the first year or so,’ said Houllier – that he had replaced him in a match only to conserve his energies for a more important one.
Once Ferguson, asked why his battery of specialists at United did not include a psychologist, replied: ‘I do that myself.’ He had a more than satisfied patient in Cantona, who later said: ‘He gave me freedom to be involved completely and not feel in jail. That’s psychology – man to man.’
Ferguson also had the courage and wisdom to bend his own rules. On training, for instance. Having studied Cantona soon after his arrival, he was impressed by the newcomer’s work but surprised to be asked by him afterwards if he could have two players to help with an additional half hour’s practice of volleying. Ferguson allotted him three: two to deliver that ball from wide positions and a goalkeeper. The other players heard about this and such was their respect for Cantona that the next day several wanted to join in. Extra practice became part of the United routine and David Beckham was just one of those who flowered in such an environment.
What, Cantona apart, had it taken to bring United the title? The time the board had given Ferguson, clearly, and a lot of money. It had taken six and a half years and nearly £20 million for Ferguson to move United from fourth, where they had finished in the last full season under Ron Atkinson, to first.
By comparison, Brian Clough had taken eighteen months less to lift Derby County out of the Second Division and, in 1972, win the title – at a mere fraction of the cost. On Nottingham Forest the Clough effect had been even more startling. Less than three and a half years after taking over a team in the middle of the Second Division, he and Peter Taylor had made them champions of England in 1978. The cost? Less than £1 million.
When Clough started spending big, laying out nearly £1 million on Trevor Francis, Forest became champions of Europe a year later, and again a year after that. For Ferguson the interval between the English and European titles was to be six years. So Ferguson had worked no instant miracle. Clough, with Taylor, had done that. Clough, with Taylor, was a footballing genius. Ferguson’s special gift would more fit the wry definition of genius usually ascribed to the Victorian Scottish essayist Thomas Carlyle: an infinite capacity for taking pains.
Seeing Red, Seeing Himself
B
y trial and error, Ferguson had built this team into which Robson still just squeezed from time to time, making only five starts in the first championship season but qualifying for a medal because of his substitute stints. He had to be replaced and Ferguson, as so often, used Manchester United’s wealth and allure to make the obvious signing, breaking the all-British record to relieve Clough of Roy Keane, whom he had signed from the semi-professional Irish club Cobh Ramblers for £47,000 and for whom Forest now received £3.75 million.
This time Ferguson put one over on an irate Kenny Dalglish, who was by now at Blackburn and, having persuaded Alan Shearer to join him rather than Ferguson, moving the club upward to the extent that they had finished fourth.
Forest were relegated and Clough, prematurely aged by alcoholism, retired. Keane came on the market and Dalglish swiftly reached verbal agreement on a £4 million transfer but, a day before the paperwork was to be signed, Ferguson got in touch with first Clough’s successor, Frank Clark, and then the twenty-one-year-old Irishman, whose change of mind cost Forest £250,000; United drove a harder bargain than a Blackburn funded by Jack Walker, a Lancastrian made good, whose determination to buy his beloved Rovers the title was to bear fruit before long.
It was not the first time Ferguson had broken the transfer record between British clubs; he had done it in landing Gary Pallister. Nor was it the last. In Ferguson’s first twenty years at Old Trafford, it was broken fourteen times, four times by Ferguson, who tried vainly to do it on other occasions.
Once he had come to terms with the English game, it was his turn to take the role of the Old Firm, using his financial muscle to relieve England’s Aberdeens, such as Forest, of their assets, such as Webb and Keane (and he would have taken Stuart Pearce if he could). It was to culminate when he spent nearly £30 million on luring Rio Ferdinand from Leeds United in 2002, and £27 million on Wayne Rooney from Everton two years later; unlike his great rival Arsène Wenger at Arsenal, he was never reluctant to use his club’s budget on the obvious signing. He had come a long way from Dick Donald and the parsimony of Aberdeen.
But after Keane there was no more hit-and-miss. A team had formed and, as at Aberdeen, the first title released a great surge of energy and ambition. The new man from Forest epitomised it. Robson, at thirty-six, had become peripheral and Keane, stepping into the boots of the almost inevitably injured club captain, joined Cantona in overturning a 2-0 derby deficit, scoring the winner against Manchester City after the Frenchman had struck twice.
That was in early November. United already had the leadership and would never relinquish it. Not this team. For the first time since Ferguson came to Old Trafford, it rolled off the tongue: Schmeichel; Parker, Pallister, Bruce, Irwin; Kanchelskis, Ince, Keane, Giggs; Cantona, Hughes. At least that was the team which completed United’s first Double by beating Chelsea at Wembley. Along the way there were plenty of matches for the adaptable McClair, and for Sharpe. The goals came from everywhere, not least the flanks: Giggs got thirteen in the League alone, Sharpe nine and Kanchelskis six.
As Bruce, the
de facto
captain, was later to observe: ‘The manager had created a team that mirrored him in its fierce determination to win.’ Ferguson never hid his relish for that aspect of Schmeichel, Bruce, Ince, Keane, Hughes and Cantona. ‘I’m happy when I look out on the pitch and see myself,’ he once said. So naturally, when that combustible mixture got stuck into the 1993/4 season, sparks flew and red was seen. At one stage even Ferguson became worried about the number of suspensions.
It started when Mark Hughes was sent off for kicking David Tuttle at Sheffield United in the third round of the FA Cup. In the fifth round, against Charlton Athletic at Old Trafford, Schmeichel went and this proved the first of four dismissals in five matches between 12 and 27 March. Cantona was next with an extraordinary two in four days, for stamping on John Moncur at Swindon (‘that was deserved,’ said Ferguson) and then clashing with Tony Adams at Arsenal (‘I thought Adams made a meal of it’) and finally Kanchelskis in the League Cup final for handling on the goal-line in the last minute of a 3-1 defeat by Aston Villa.