Page 91 - Alex Ferguson: My Autobiography

The corridor outside the dressing room turned into a rabble. Arsenal had been defending a 49-game
unbeaten record and had been hoping to make it 50 on our turf. It seemed to me that losing the game
scrambled Arsène’s brain.
That day created a division between us, without doubt, and that rift extended to Pat Rice, who

stopped coming in for a drink after games. The wound was not fully healed until the Champions
League semi-final in 2009, when Arsène invited us into his room after the game and congratulated us.
When we played them at Old Trafford a few weeks later, Arsène came in with Pat, just for a few
minutes.
In football you do see incidents that reflect normal conflicts in life. In our home lives, sometimes.
You know when your wife turns that machine off and won’t talk to you. ‘Christ, what have I done?’
you think.

‘Have you had a good day?’ you ask. ‘Yeah,’ she mumbles. Then the anger passes and normality
returns. Football is like that. I would have hated the silence between Arsène and me to go on so long
that it became poisonous.
At my end of it, I had a formula for defeat. After saying my bit in the dressing room, always, before
going through that door to face the press, to face the television, to speak to the other manager, I said to
myself, ‘Forget it. The game’s gone.’ I always did that.

Whenever people came to my room at the ground after a game, I always made sure there was a
good atmosphere. There was no gloom, no frostiness. No blaming the referee.
When Aston Villa beat us at Old Trafford in the 2009–10 season, it was the first time they had
beaten us on our turf in decades. Martin O’Neill, whose conversation I always enjoy, practically
moved into my office with his wife and daughter. It felt like an hour and a half. It was a really good
night. John Robertson, Martin’s assistant, and a few of my friends joined us and it turned into a real
get-together. I ended up needing a driver to take me home.

When we lost in the FA Cup third round to Leeds United, the Leeds physio, Alan Sutton, couldn’t
stop laughing and smiling in my office. As he left I said, ‘You’re still bloody laughing!’
‘I can’t help it,’ he said. It was the first time in my Old Trafford career that Leeds had beaten us on
our soil and he was just incapable of not grinning. His pleasure was infectious. You have to say to
yourself, I’m a human being, I must keep my dignity.
I was hospitable in that way to all the managers who joined me after the game.

I saw a change in Arsène in the last few years. When the Invincibles were forming, we were in
transition. Around 2002, we were rebuilding the side. The Arsenal side of 2001–02 won the title at
our ground, of course, and were accorded a standing ovation by our supporters. An attribute of
Manchester United fans is that they will always acknowledge class. There were times when I would
think, bitterly, ‘Go on, go and applaud them, why don’t you? Meanwhile, I’ll go into the dressing
room and pick our players up.’ But that is how they are. I remember their standing ovation for the
Brazilian Ronaldo after his Champions League hat-trick against us. As he left the pitch, Ronaldo

seemed bemused, like his manager. ‘Strange club, this,’ they must have thought. Gary Lineker’s last
game in England for Spurs was also warmly received. But there is a lot to be said for it. It brings
football to its zenith. If you see class, excitement, entertainment, there is an obligation to acknowledge
it.
Those people have seen all the best United teams, so they know what a good side is. They have the
necessary reference points. They know what a top player is as well. On top of that, you have to

acknowledge when you are beaten. There is nothing to be done. Sulking is futile. The Old Trafford
game in 2002 was a non-event for me, in one sense, even if we were chasing second place. It was