Richard Williams
The key words were these: “They regard him as a kindred spirit, someone who takes on all-comers and does things his way …” His way. It was impossible to miss the significance of that particular phrase.
It appeared in Sunday’s Observer, as part of a piece speculating on the possibility that the members of the Coolmore Mafia the term jestingly used to describe a group of Irish gamblers and businessmen are planning to take over Manchester United. The quote was attributed to a friend of JP McManus and John Magnier, two members of the group, describing their view of Sir Alex Ferguson, who it is said they plan to elevate from manager to chairman.
His way. How very appropriate. After all, Ferguson is from the Frank Sinatra generation of managers, the ones old enough to remember a world in which girls asked for a Babycham. As young men their aspirations were defined by the worldly, finger-snapping insouciance of Songs for Swinging Lovers. And as adults, and as football club managers, no song came closer to mapping their emotional geography than My Way.
“And now the end is near / And so I face the final curtain …” How often in the past few months has Ferguson who will be 60 on New Year’s Eve hummed the snatch of tune that goes with those famous opening lines while turning the big Mercedes out of his driveway and pointing it towards the electric gates of United’s new training ground? And how deeply has he absorbed the song’s message that a man’s worth is measured by the degree to which he is seen to impose himself on the world?
If the stories are true, the Coolmore Mafia have big plans for their new friend, going far beyond charity racedays and the shared ownership of a successful horse or two. On the face of it, what they are offering him is the opportunity to make a bigger mark than the one represented by the major trophies amassed during his tenure one European Cup, four FA Cups, and seven Premier League titles.
Had those victories, together with his knighthood and his considerable personal wealth, been enough to satisfy his appetite, Ferguson would surely have made a quieter and more conclusive exit from Old Trafford. But, as with many great leaders, nothing is ever enough. For the boy from Govan’s mean streets there is always one more challenge, one more trophy, the one that might finally set the seal on his achievement. And when that one turns out to be not quite enough, there is always another.
A precedent springs to mind. By the end of the 1950s, Frank Sinatra had risen from the streets of Hoboken to become the most popular and successful entertainer in the world. A former teen idol, he had recreated himself as a singer for aspiring sophisticates and a film actor of some talent. An album called Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely was his European Cup final; the Oscar for From Here to Eternity was his FA Cup winner’s medal. He had reached such a pinnacle that he could snarl at his enemies, or simply freeze them out. But none of it was quite enough. He wanted more.
Sinatra, too, had friends. One of them, Jack Kennedy, had just been elected president of the United States. Others were what was euphemistically known as men of influence. They liked him because he provided an entre to the world of show business, a world of glamour and celebrity. He liked them because they wielded power.
He went into business with some of them. When he bought a casino hotel on the shores of Lake Tahoe, one of his silent partners was a man called Sam Giancana. Sinatra believed that he could make his hotel into a place where the men of two worlds could meet a kind of alternative Camelot in the High Sierra, with an endless supply of booze and broads.
For various reasons, it all went wrong. The process of unravelling began when the president was advised that associating, even indirectly, with the men of influence would be bad for his image. That was the start of the decline.
The passage of time allowed him to recover his poise and his public. He was able to go gently into his dotage, enjoying worldwide acclaim. But in terms of achievement, his real work had already finished by the time he discovered that doing business with men of influence was a good idea.