THE conversation on the bus in Paisley on Thursday morning ran along familiar lines. There was the same old shake of the head, followed by the obligatory "imagine sacking Fergie", before several passengers concurred with a collective sigh.
That sigh has carried across the 21 years since St Mirren sacked Alex Ferguson, gathering impetus with each of the 21 trophies he has won for Aberdeen and Manchester United. Each time that famous trophy-burnished grin breaks out, a St Mirren supporter finds his jump of joy tinged with regret. The stigma of sacking Ferguson runs so deep that it could almost be ingrained on the club badge.
One man feels its cut more than most. Willie Todd is a 79-year-old grandfather who likes nothing better than a game of bowls. He is also the man who, on May 31, 1978, told Ferguson his services were no longer required.
Ferguson, then 36, accepted the news calmly, says Todd, although he later took the club to an industrial tribunal, claiming unfair dismissal. He lost. Since that day, though, Ferguson has been the winner and St Mirren have been the losers. William Courtney, who chaired the tribunal, compared football management to a dance: "When the music stops, from time to time managers and clubs pair off. Sometimes the result is a lasting love affair, but more often it is a casual coupling." When the divorce came, Ferguson was granted custody of success.
St Mirren, now marooned in the Scottish First Division, have suffered a slow, inexorable decline since losing Ferguson, broken only by a Scottish Cup triumph in 1987. The supporters believed Ferguson could have delivered a league title within two years. He did, at Aberdeen.
Ferguson chased apathy from the streets of Paisley. Todd would drive a van, while Ferguson bellowed out his plans through a loud-hailer. As St Mirren surged towards promotion from the First Division in 1976-1977, 10,000 fans packed into Love Street for a Boxing Day match against Clydebank. A similar fixture now would be fortunate to attract 2,000. Ferguson's roar would also be heard often in the sleepy innards of the club, too.
Youth, as always, was his ammunition. Tony Fitzpatrick, a midfielder of considerable promise - who would later manage the club twice himself - was called into Ferguson's office when he was just 17: "He told me his plans for the club, how he was going to make St Mirren great again by creating a young team. He said he wanted me to be captain. I left his office feeling 10ft tall."
Fitzpatrick and other teenagers received guidance from older heads such as centre-back Jackie Copland, who had fallen out with Jim McLean at Dundee United and would have been lost to football had Ferguson not intervened. "I met him at Glasgow airport and felt as though I had been hit by a whirlwind," said Copland. "He was full of enthusiasm, ideas and passion. The difference between him and Jim was that Alex's first thought was attack, while Jim's was defence. He reaped the ultimate reward for that policy on Wednesday night."
Sometimes the team itself would come under attack. Copland recalls one row where Ferguson fired a lemonade bottle across the dressing room. "It was aimed carefully, so that it wouldn't hit anybody. Alex's anger was always under control. He knew the effect he wanted to achieve."
Willie Cunningham, the former Northern Ireland international, had been Ferguson's manager at Dunfermline and Falkirk and recommended him to St Mirren. "We had plenty of run-ins; Fergie was always standing up for the players, but I could see he had plenty of ideas about management."
Ferguson's revolution embraced all aspects of the club. Later, at Aberdeen and Manchester United, impressive administrators filled the boards, but at St Mirren no such structure was in place. Ferguson, whose promotion-winning side didn't cost a penny, found himself embroiled in matters for which he had no training. The tribunal recognised this. One of the charges against Ferguson was that he was "petty and immature" when he refused to speak to Patricia Sullivan, a secretary, for six weeks after a row, but "St Mirren were questioned for the way the club was run. The manager's responsibilities included the daily business administration of the club, a skill in which he had little experience."
Todd has no regrets and insists he celebrated Ferguson's triumph on Wednesday night: "Hindsight is a wonderful thing. But at the time Alex left us with no option. We had a good relationship, but it all started to go pear-shaped the moment Jock Stein left Celtic and Billy McNeill moved from Aberdeen to replace him. Alex was appointed Aberdeen's manager four hours after we sacked him. It was a disaster for me. People forget that I brought him to the club in the first place." They do indeed.
