Blogger and KILTR member Jonathan Whitelaw on Alex Ferguson’s unparalleled tenure as football’s most successful and iconic manager.

(Image above from The Mirror newspaper)

Well, that’s it then. The curtain has finally been drawn on the glittering career of Alex Ferguson. The Govan born lad who came good, rocketing up the greasy pole of football to become the most decorated, celebrated and revered manager, nay icon, in the world game.

Put simply there is no facet of Ferguson’s career that can be held under close scrutiny and not lead to the same conclusion. The man was the best at what he did and there is very good reason to believe that there will never be another like him.

Of course there are pretenders. Jose Murinho has the personality, arrogance and, above all else, trophy cabinet to be a natural rival to Fergie. But he lacked the playing experience that Sir Alex had in his younger days, something that, although neither men have publically stated is a necessity to be a successful gaffer, makes for that little edge in the cloud talk debates that will occupy the next few months.

(Image above from UEFA website)

Taking his 26 years at the helm of Manchester United into account, along with successful stints at East Stirlingshire, Aberdeen and St Mirren, the legacy that Sir Alex has left behind is both astonishing and will be difficult to follow. But it isn’t just for the club he has become synonymous with, it’s for a whole sporting nation that otherwise would be in a much worse state than it already is.

Scottish football is on the brink of something special. The proposed league reconstruction, play-offs and pyramid scheme could see the biggest shakeup to the national sport that the country has seen in over fifty years. Distributed wealth, higher levels of competition and a greater threat of relegation for teams who would ordinarily aim for mediocrity should, in theory, lead to a rejuvenated Scottish game that will extend to clubs from top to bottom.

Without the perennial success of Alex Ferguson south of the border, none of this would be at all possible. Quite simple, he kept Scottish football on the map.

Whenever Fergie is portrayed in the media, it is as a “fiery Scot”… Walter Scott romanticism aside, the success Sir Alex enjoyed at every club he managed was never forgotten, Aberdeen’s European triumph being the subject of numerous 30th anniversary celebration this year alone. Whether it was his accent, passion or down right stubbornness, good or bad, they were always attributed to his Scottish roots, something Fergie always relished.

(Image above from the Football Pantheon site)
In his interview with David Frost following the hugely successful 07/08 season that saw him lift his second Champions League trophy, the warbling journalist probed Ferguson on his personal life. Flippantly, and with that knowing glint that had been seen so many times before around April and May when the season was winding down, he said he was learning the piano.

Not a huge surprise to Frost to Fergie it was something out of the ordinary. He proceeded to recount the story of telling his wife his desire to learn piano, to which he was told “don’t be silly, a Govan boy learning piano.” While many may have been unfamiliar with the tongue in cheek nature of the joke, to Scots viewers, it was a wonderful little moment that championed a whole generation, if not generations, worth of attitude that perfectly summed us all up. With no malice or threat of snobbish, upper class fascism, Fergie in that moment reminded the world where he was from and how proud he was to be that.

This perennial connection to Scotland, and in turn Scottish football, has kept the game alive north of the border. The stranglehold the Old Firm has, or had, on the game choked out levels of competitiveness from smaller clubs that grew fat off the success that two of the world’s biggest clubs brought. Mediocrity became the name of the game, the motivation to “just do enough” became the plague that filtered throughout football grounds out with the Glasgow giants and, to a certain degree, corrupted even the Ibrox and Parkhead organisations.

Ferguson’s on-going success meant that Scottish football was never far away from the limelight. And without it, the landscape of the game would have been very different, if non-existent. Like a pilot fish swimming alongside the shark, the game in Scotland became overly reliant on Fergie’s continual pushing of boundaries and redefining of the game.

With him stepping down and the changes waiting in the wings, both at Old Trafford and for Scottish football as a whole, this impending new era should be seen with great optimism. But as is happened so many times before, the powers at be have an uncanny knack for cocking things up.

So bon voyage Sir Alex, and the greatest of thanks for being an unknowing champion for your national sport, even if it came from 214 miles south.

Connect with Jonathan Whitelaw on KILTR here. And if you haven’t already you can sign up to KILTR at http://KILTR.com