THAT Alex Ferguson's comments in these columns last week, about Arsenal's "belligerent" style of play, sparked a furore will have surprised nobody. That he should subsequently apologise to Arsène Wenger, and claim he had been "stitched up", certainly did.
The United manager's reaction is hardly uncommon, and may have been the product of a genuine misunderstanding, but I cannot allow his version of events to pass unchallenged.
Ferguson's view, that certain Arsenal players "like a scrap", came at a Sunday-newspaper briefing attended by three other journalists. I taped the proceedings, and at no stage were the phrases "off the record", "don't use this", or "this is not for publication" used.
The Sunday Times in general, and this correspondent in particular, is not in the habit of breaking codes of confidentiality, and the only "stitching up" on this occasion is to repair sides splitting at the sheer nonsense of it all.
After enough hot air to keep David Mellor going for a whole radio show, it is time to examine what happened. Ferguson agreed to meet the Sunday papers on new year's day in the foyer at the Cliff, as United's training complex is known. Four papers were represented: The Sunday Times, Sunday Mirror, The People and the Express on Sunday. The day after his 57th birthday, Ferguson was in a particularly good mood, and during a 30-minute discussion he was unusually forthcoming on a wide range of subjects.
After the men from The People and Sunday Mirror had set the ball rolling with some questions about last week's FA Cup-tie, at home to Middlesbrough, I sought to broaden the discussion by asking Ferguson if the FA Cup was third on his priority list, behind the European Cup and the championship, and whether it was possible to campaign successfully on all three fronts.
Ferguson said he favoured a reduction in the size of the Premiership, to 18 teams, to give English clubs a better chance in European competition, but thought it would never happen, because the "traditionalists" held sway. There was nobody at the Football Association, he said, who knew what it was like to play 60 games a season.
So far, so good. It was now, warming to his theme, that Ferguson became unusually outspoken, and after a strong, personal attack on one of the candidates for the FA chairmanship, I counselled caution by saying to him: "You're taking us on trust a bit here [not to quote him], aren't you?" He replied: "I think you know that."
Other targets on whom the United manager vented his spleen included biased referees (named), grasping agents (named) and the player who is "the biggest cheat in football" (named). Had I chosen to report his remarks in full, and really "stitched him up", I have no doubt that Ferguson would have been in serious trouble with m'learned friends. Instead, I took it for granted that the vituperative parts of what he said were "off the record".
The bone of contention between us came next. Here it should be explained that I attended the press conference with my own agenda. I had spoken to three other managers (George Graham, Gerard Houllier and Wenger) about the problems of imposing discipline on millionaire players to whom the maximum permitted fine of two weeks' wages represented a drop in the ocean, and to complete my research for the article I had in mind, I asked Ferguson, the most celebrated disciplinarian of them all, how he commanded respect. He replied with a lengthy discourse on self-discipline, responsibility on and off the field, and his attitude to fines, and this brought him on to the subject of Arsenal's behaviour.
They were "belligerent", he said: "When they're not doing well in a game, they turn it into a battle to try to make the opposition lose concentration. The number of fights involving Arsenal is more than Wimbledon had in their heyday."
Ferguson made no mention of these comments being off the record, and moved on to discuss other matters, including foreigners play-acting to get opponents booked or sent off, the attitude of the players' union to such things, Aston Villa's championship potential and United's intention to put in a new-year charge to burn off their title rivals.
It was only at the end of the briefing, after I had questioned him about United's disciplinary code, that he said: "I don't want to say anything about discipline." Ferguson claims that this was in reference to his remarks about Arsenal. I took it to mean that I should scrub from the record his responses to my line of inquiry about how he, alone among his contemporaries, was still able to rule with a rod of iron at United.
When the meeting broke up, I went out into the car park, where I had a conversation with Teddy Sheringham. The other journalists went into a huddle, after which the man from The People approached me and said I had gleaned more material than they had expected, and it would be a good idea to keep some back for use the following week. I refused. The story ran, and Ferguson's comments about Arsenal appeared in later editions of The People.
There has been much talk of "cronyism" of late, and the word is a good description of what goes in some sections of the Manchester-based media, where Ferguson's every word is treated like the original tablets of stone. Keen, no doubt, to ingratiate himself, one of the reporters present last week took it upon himself to apologise to the United manager for what I had written. I would have thought his newspaper has enough problems of its own without fighting my battles, and would remind him that if and when an apology is appropriate, I will be the one making it.
I won't be.
