Alex Ferguson Documentary

He makes reference in this clip that he was asked if he and his wife got married in a chapel and he replies , no we got married in a registry office. He then goes on to say that he should have told them to %^*& off and that he let his wife down there because she was a devout catholic.

surely he let his ‘devout ‘ catholic wife down by not getting married in a chapel , Rather than letting her down by not telling a rangers director to fuk off. what ‘ devout ‘ religious person would agree not to have a religious wedding anyway. So I doubt she is. In those times , many mixed marriages were in registry offices because each refused to get married in each other’s church so a registry office was a compromise. So if this was the case with Fergie , then it makes him a hypocrite with his comments.

I think the man talks a lot of crap.
That is a great point.
However, I cannot see that where he married his wife was going to affect his transfer to Rangers.
Rangers paid a record fee for a Scottish player to bring him to Ibrox, they knew that his wife was a Catholic and it obviously never bothered the club, even if it bothered one or two of the more religiously minded sorts inside Ibrox.
The context of the question would be interesting.
Further why so coy about naming the Director involved, he wasn't shy of laying into Willie Allison?

It should be remembered, that Rangers put Ferguson in the first team as first-choice centre forward and picked him until they signed Colin Stein, so there was nothing to suggest any underlying issues with him being selected.
Ferguson's goal return was excellent, but Stein was simply a more effective footballer all round, although I insist that they complemented each other in the same team.

Sometimes you have to wonder if Ferguson enjoyed playing to the gallery regarding the sectarian issue and let us be honest, if you want to curry favour with elements in the Scottish press this is one way of getting their favourable attention.
Then as the years have passed what was a fairly minor and considerably insignificant issues have grown welcome legs because there are individuals in the Scottish press that might not like your Protestantism, but the moment you lift your skirt to them and show you are prepared to diss The Rangers they will fawn over you like lovesick teenagers.

But I agree, if his wife's devout religion meant so much to him, he should have agreed to marry her in her own church.
I would be amazed if there wasn't some pressure emanating from her family for this to happen, indeed the family priest would have spent a lot of time influencing this as best he could.
Something about the story just doesn't sit right.
 
That is a great point.
However, I cannot see that where he married his wife was going to affect his transfer to Rangers.
Rangers paid a record fee for a Scottish player to bring him to Ibrox, they knew that his wife was a Catholic and it obviously never bothered the club, even if it bothered one or two of the more religiously minded sorts inside Ibrox.
The context of the question would be interesting.
Further why so coy about naming the Director involved, he wasn't shy of laying into Willie Allison?

It should be remembered, that Rangers put Ferguson in the first team as first-choice centre forward and picked him until they signed Colin Stein, so there was nothing to suggest any underlying issues with him being selected.
Ferguson's goal return was excellent, but Stein was simply a more effective footballer all round, although I insist that they complemented each other in the same team.

Sometimes you have to wonder if Ferguson enjoyed playing to the gallery regarding the sectarian issue and let us be honest, if you want to curry favour with elements in the Scottish press this is one way of getting their favourable attention.
Then as the years have passed what was a fairly minor and considerably insignificant issues have grown welcome legs because there are individuals in the Scottish press that might not like your Protestantism, but the moment you lift your skirt to them and show you are prepared to diss The Rangers they will fawn over you like lovesick teenagers.

But I agree, if his wife's devout religion meant so much to him, he should have agreed to marry her in her own church.
I would be amazed if there wasn't some pressure emanating from her family for this to happen, indeed the family priest would have spent a lot of time influencing this as best he could.
Something about the story just doesn't sit right.
Yes context. I can only guess but he might have taken a sarcastic tone type question out of context The question about where he got married might have been a wind up towards him , who knows. Let’s face it Ferguson is a sombre serious person , not known for his sense of humour. Religious jokes , winds ups , etc have been common in Scottish society for decades , it’s not beyond the bounds of possibility that this was another wind up towards him by an older man winding up a young player. Whilst some might think the question was a bit in bad taste , I doubt it was a serious question in order for the director to decide whether Ferguson was suitable or not. As you say they had already signed him and knew his situation. I suppose we will never know , but you are right , something about this story just doesn’t sit right.
 
He took our BB for a couple of coaching sessions. I always thought that was because he was getting married in Croftfoot Church, not the registry office. He stayed in Simshill at the time. He signed his autograph with Rangers FC. I doubt we'd have been interested if he was still at Dunfermline.
 
My dad constantly says that the story about him not marking McNeil at that cup final is a smokescreen and he was basically sacked by rangers for spitting at celtic players during that game.


Also, is certain that Ferguson was a serial philanderer
 
Yeah says Spiers who couldn't take it anymore at Ibrox and bailed out over to the Jimmy Savile Dome, to instead drown himself in the murderous hymns of hate towards British people, to regale in the joy at the slaughter of British women and children, and all to the clink of coins in the collection tins to fund the terrorist killers wreaking mayhem throughout our unsuspecting cities.
This, whilst dozens of children in the depths of that club's social folds were screaming as their innocence was ripped from them by a circle of dedicated and organized pedophiles as the upper echelons looked away or covered for their hundreds of crimes.
Yet, none of that particular stench even teased his socially well-attuned discerning nostrils?

Irony not so much, more the weasel words of a sophistic scoundrel dredging the gutter of a debased journalistic narrative.
This should be posted on that twats twitter!
 
My dad constantly says that the story about him not marking McNeil at that cup final is a smokescreen and he was basically sacked by rangers for spitting at celtic players during that game.


Also, is certain that Ferguson was a serial philanderer
What your saying about the cup final is nonsense, I was at the game and there was nothing like that happening during the game. Tbh McNeil had Ferguson in his pocket the whole game, he was never a threat and was outclassed.
 
he just felt he was treated unfairly by us, and that we used the cup final as an excuse to get rid of him, also says one of the higher ups at rangers asked him if his wife was a catholic and if they were married in a chapel, one things for sure, whatever happened between us and him, fueled him and gived him the drive and determination for the rest of his career
Gordon Ramsay said similar, the rejection with us was one of the driving forces to him reaching the top.
 
Behave.

The last title he won for Man Utd was a joke - a team full of bums.

Suspect a bit of hyperbole there but nevertheless I dunno about that...

Possibly lacked depth but still had a spine including de Gea, Ferdinand, Carrick and Rooney with Van Persie at the absolute top of his game.
 
His Celtic supporting son James helped him put together all the info and memories for the documentary. This was mentioned on 5live tonight. No doubt his son was quite keen to push a certain agenda.
 
By the sounds of it from him, his father and son - nobody knows what they are.
Best forgot, arsehole of a man and makes me squirm with the love in with him throughout football.
I can appreciate he was a good manager but ive even heard bears talk him up because they think he was one of us. He has stuck the boot into us many times over the years and you add the fact he was a pish player for us too means we shouldnt really be lauding him. I think as you say arsehole of a man sums him up.
 
The main reason him and Jim Mclean never took the job at Ibrox is that they did not want to leave their comfort zones at both the Sheep and the Arabs.

Any manager within Scottish football with any ambition would have taken the job on to rebuild and turn us into a winning team despite us in the early 80's being rubbish.

Thankfully David Holmes brought in a man with balls of steel untried as a manager a few years later.
 
When you think back to 1995 and his comments about our support you could see there was a real resentment towards us from him.
As for his character look at the way he treated players like Keane,Stam and van Nistelrooy.
 
not to forget their treatment of Stein who was never invited on to their board solely because he was a protestant..not that I am defending or feeling sorry for Stein ...but maybe Speirsy should go with that on his next article ...or will we get the Whataboutary stance ?
It wasn't just the boardroom incident with Stein. A BBC Scotland doc on Stein i watched a couple of years ago interviewed an old reserve player at Celtic when Stein was the reserve coach in the late 50s. This player would give Stein a lift home after training. The player recalls Stein getting into his car and it was clear Stein had tears in his eyes. He told the player due to his success as coach he approached the board with a view to promotion. it was made clear to him he couldn't move up the ladder due to his religion.
 
Although I’ve enjoyed reading this Forum for a number of years as a “visitor” I thought it was about time I signed up and participated with my fellow fans and this thread seems as good as any.

I grew up in the south-west of Glasgow and in boyhood made my way to watch Rangers by the old 23 bus service [Midland Street to Govan Cross] getting off on Paisley Road West and walking to Ibrox. I attended my 1st game in October 1960 and still can recall the thrill of approaching the stadium as an awe-struck wee boy.

When I walked up the cinder and wooden edged steps at, what later came to be more widely known than it was then, as Stairway 13 to the rim of the vast arena that I gazed down upon I was captivated and even the disappointment of Rangers losing [1 nil to what was a very good Dundee team at that time] couldn’t halt my determination to be back as soon and as often as I could.

My Mum had been widowed when I was two years old so it was a case of me going with pals from school and while we weren’t allowed to go the “big” games such as the Old Firm or European matches we settled for going to watch Rangers against the smaller teams and also to Reserve League games which were at the time played at Ibrox when fans watched from the Main Stand Enclosure.

I was lucky enough to see the young Jim Forest, Alex Willoughby, Willie Henderson and Bobby Watson but there many other fine players like Wilson Wood, Denis Setterington and the talented wingers Derek Trail and Craig Watson. In those pre- substitute days it was hard for young players to break through to the First 11 yet several would have graced the subs bench, had it existed, and probably gone on to feature in many more games than they achieved with Rangers.

A few years later I watched Alex Ferguson throughout his time at Ibrox. He was a hard-working, somewhat ungainly in his running style, old-school centre forward who knew what to do with the ball when in front of the goal. He could look after himself on the pitch but in those days you needed to able to withstand the kind of challenges that simply aren’t allowed in football today. He was “all elbows” but as a means of self-protection he needed them to shield himself from defenders and in his role in the team they were almost as useful to him as his boots.

Although I once saw him score with a header from the edge of the 18 yard box at the Copland Road end [in a Fairs Cup game against Cologne as I recall] I don’t remember Fergie as someone who scored “great” goals. He was really much more an instinctive player who took up positions where a predatory forward like him would punish opposing defences, and he regularly did.

He never hid in games and it was obvious that he knew what it meant to wear the blue jersey and so gave his all, as you would expect of someone who grew up as a Rangers fan. He was popular with the fans on the terraces and we all wanted him to succeed. I really believe he would have thrived in a forward line alongside Colin Stein with Willie Henderson and “Bud” Johnston supplying the ammunition from the wings. Davie White, as history shows, didn’t see it that way!

The 1969 Cup Final was a real horror show but it is wrong to scapegoat Alex Ferguson as the whole team under-performed. I remember my grandfather [who had good contacts inside Ibrox] telling me in the days after the game that Fergie wasn’t at fault for losing Billy McNeil. He maintained that although he had been assigned to mark him, Ronnie McKinnon had shouted, as the corner from which the goal was scored was about to be taken, that he would pick McNeil up.

Unfortunately, the ball was whipped in before he got there and it left Fergie looking like he’d failed in his duty. Bad though losing that early goal was, Rangers had plenty of time to recover but failed to hit the form they had shown earlier in the competition and conceded some cheap goals to be 3 nil down at half-time. It's sad that the outcome of that one game is regarded as defining his contribution as a Rangers player and so permanently tarnishing Fergie in so many people’s minds

This brings me to the point I wanted to make about Alex Ferguson, which I learned many years after his playing days had ended when he was already enjoying success as manager of Manchester United, and came from a chap who had been part of the Rangers reserve team squad in the late 1960’s. He would have been a decent player to have been on the books though never made the first team and his entire spell with Rangers was spent with many other hopefuls that didn’t quite make it.

In those days the reserves would head to the St Enoch Hotel to unwind over a few drinks after their home games. It was a venue that, historically, was always associated with Rangers as it was where Cup triumphs were celebrated so its’ allure to the young colts was obvious. Alex Ferguson was then .a member of the First Team squad so would be with the travelling party at wherever Rangers played when they were away from home, generally in the starting eleven.

Yet, when the team coach returned to Glasgow he invariably made a point of joining the young reserve players in their post-match get together when they were chewing over how their game had gone. Fergie wanted to know all about their match, who scored, played well and so on and was a constant source of encouragement to the young aspirants. No other first team players ever did that but the kids in the reserves got a huge lift from him being there and showing genuine interest.

As I said, I was told about this many years afterwards but have no reason to doubt it and I’ve often wondered if that perhaps explained why he was, notably with United, prepared to place his trust in youth players especially those whom he recognised had real talent e.g. the “Class of 92”
 
Ferguson never got a look in once we signed Colin Stein.He only played in the cup final because Kelly of Cellik and SFA made sure that Stein was banned for the final.Ferguson moved on as he was never going to replace Stein and a young DJ was emerging.
 
Although I’ve enjoyed reading this Forum for a number of years as a “visitor” I thought it was about time I signed up and participated with my fellow fans and this thread seems as good as any.

I grew up in the south-west of Glasgow and in boyhood made my way to watch Rangers by the old 23 bus service [Midland Street to Govan Cross] getting off on Paisley Road West and walking to Ibrox. I attended my 1st game in October 1960 and still can recall the thrill of approaching the stadium as an awe-struck wee boy.

When I walked up the cinder and wooden edged steps at, what later came to be more widely known than it was then, as Stairway 13 to the rim of the vast arena that I gazed down upon I was captivated and even the disappointment of Rangers losing [1 nil to what was a very good Dundee team at that time] couldn’t halt my determination to be back as soon and as often as I could.

My Mum had been widowed when I was two years old so it was a case of me going with pals from school and while we weren’t allowed to go the “big” games such as the Old Firm or European matches we settled for going to watch Rangers against the smaller teams and also to Reserve League games which were at the time played at Ibrox when fans watched from the Main Stand Enclosure.

I was lucky enough to see the young Jim Forest, Alex Willoughby, Willie Henderson and Bobby Watson but there many other fine players like Wilson Wood, Denis Setterington and the talented wingers Derek Trail and Craig Watson. In those pre- substitute days it was hard for young players to break through to the First 11 yet several would have graced the subs bench, had it existed, and probably gone on to feature in many more games than they achieved with Rangers.

A few years later I watched Alex Ferguson throughout his time at Ibrox. He was a hard-working, somewhat ungainly in his running style, old-school centre forward who knew what to do with the ball when in front of the goal. He could look after himself on the pitch but in those days you needed to able to withstand the kind of challenges that simply aren’t allowed in football today. He was “all elbows” but as a means of self-protection he needed them to shield himself from defenders and in his role in the team they were almost as useful to him as his boots.

Although I once saw him score with a header from the edge of the 18 yard box at the Copland Road end [in a Fairs Cup game against Cologne as I recall] I don’t remember Fergie as someone who scored “great” goals. He was really much more an instinctive player who took up positions where a predatory forward like him would punish opposing defences, and he regularly did.

He never hid in games and it was obvious that he knew what it meant to wear the blue jersey and so gave his all, as you would expect of someone who grew up as a Rangers fan. He was popular with the fans on the terraces and we all wanted him to succeed. I really believe he would have thrived in a forward line alongside Colin Stein with Willie Henderson and “Bud” Johnston supplying the ammunition from the wings. Davie White, as history shows, didn’t see it that way!

The 1969 Cup Final was a real horror show but it is wrong to scapegoat Alex Ferguson as the whole team under-performed. I remember my grandfather [who had good contacts inside Ibrox] telling me in the days after the game that Fergie wasn’t at fault for losing Billy McNeil. He maintained that although he had been assigned to mark him, Ronnie McKinnon had shouted, as the corner from which the goal was scored was about to be taken, that he would pick McNeil up.

Unfortunately, the ball was whipped in before he got there and it left Fergie looking like he’d failed in his duty. Bad though losing that early goal was, Rangers had plenty of time to recover but failed to hit the form they had shown earlier in the competition and conceded some cheap goals to be 3 nil down at half-time. It's sad that the outcome of that one game is regarded as defining his contribution as a Rangers player and so permanently tarnishing Fergie in so many people’s minds

This brings me to the point I wanted to make about Alex Ferguson, which I learned many years after his playing days had ended when he was already enjoying success as manager of Manchester United, and came from a chap who had been part of the Rangers reserve team squad in the late 1960’s. He would have been a decent player to have been on the books though never made the first team and his entire spell with Rangers was spent with many other hopefuls that didn’t quite make it.

In those days the reserves would head to the St Enoch Hotel to unwind over a few drinks after their home games. It was a venue that, historically, was always associated with Rangers as it was where Cup triumphs were celebrated so its’ allure to the young colts was obvious. Alex Ferguson was then .a member of the First Team squad so would be with the travelling party at wherever Rangers played when they were away from home, generally in the starting eleven.

Yet, when the team coach returned to Glasgow he invariably made a point of joining the young reserve players in their post-match get together when they were chewing over how their game had gone. Fergie wanted to know all about their match, who scored, played well and so on and was a constant source of encouragement to the young aspirants. No other first team players ever did that but the kids in the reserves got a huge lift from him being there and showing genuine interest.

As I said, I was told about this many years afterwards but have no reason to doubt it and I’ve often wondered if that perhaps explained why he was, notably with United, prepared to place his trust in youth players especially those whom he recognised had real talent e.g. the “Class of 92”
I’m not a massive fan of him as a person but great post. To be fair, even those of us who think he’s deeply flawed and also too ready to make mischief about why he wasn’t a success for us when it suits, would need to concede he has a lot of qualities.
 
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