The Ferguson Effect - Hardcover

Harris, Harry

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0752817949 ISBN 13: 9780752817941

Publisher: Orion, 1999

Synopsis

From his early career as a manager for Aberdeen and then to taking the helm at Man United and guiding the club to its most glorious period for thirty years, Alex Ferguson has become without doubt the most famous, influential and successful football manager in the country. Man United dominate the English game and stand on the threshold of European glory. Just how has Alex Ferguson - this ex-Aberdeen and Rangers player - taken them there? This book has the answers. In this unique tribute, his one-time playing colleagues, fellow managers and the international stars of the game provide personal insights into the secrets of Ferguson's mercurial character and glittering career.

About this title

Product Description:

Football book. Colleagues and football writers pay tribute to the remarkable Manchester United manager and his seemingly endless trail of glory. Large 8vo. 173pp. 8 pages of photographs. Dust-wrapper, very good. Signed nicely by Ferguson to fly-leaf.  

Review:

Manchester Utd's unprecedented treble of Premiership title, FA Cup and Champions' League reserved Alex Ferguson's seat at the table with Shankley, Paisley and Busby, and there can hardly be a more public expression of this acceptance into the British football aristocracy than his knighthood. So why, when Daily Mirror journalist Harry Harris asked a "Who's Who" of the game's leading figures to contribute their views of The Ferguson Effect, is the result something less than an unreserved celebration of the man and his methods?

The answer is that on and off the pitch Ferguson is guided by the same simple principle--you're on his side or the wrong side, and for all the accounts of his personal charm and loyalty included here, the wrong side looks to hold the numerical advantage.

Several of the celebrity contributors portray an obsessive, bullying man with a violent temper who goes out of his way to oppose the right of others to express opinions. Others are less forgiving. Yet, in an era when club loyalty is something only the mediocre or the injured seem to practice, Ferguson has successfully nurtured a longstanding squad of international stars. Footballers who've made the first team since they were old enough to spit, and who could presumably go anywhere else, are apparently happy just to spend time on his bench.

Ferguson's is a life lived between apparently irreconcilable poles of opinion and this entertaining book asks whether this is the principle catalyst of his extraordinary achievement. --Alex Hankin

About this edition

• Publisher: Orion
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0752817949
• ISBN 13: 9780752817941
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192