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From the sport pages of the Daily Mirror...
Amusing reading, especially if you're a Gooner.
-----
BOW OUT NOW FERGIE
It may not often be easy to like Alex Ferguson, but you can't ignore him.
With his revelation at the weekend that Sven Goran Eriksson was offered his job, there was much to raise the eyebrows, although - since he was on his best behaviour - nothing quite to graze them.
Dangling his granddaughter on his knee, joshing with his wife Cathy, pressing the gift of a horse racing book on the interviewer - what a cuddly sweetheart Sir Alex is.
He even insisted that he remains the socialist he's been since his Clydeside shipyard days.
I'm not quite sure where a man who pocketed a tax free £10million from his half of the Rock of Gibraltar fits into the Marxist mainstream, but then Brian Clough loved to bang on about his socialism from the seat of his gold Rolls Royce.
In fact, of all the great managers who preceded him, it's Cloughie who is the best comparison. Both were strikers who went into management young, proved themselves at small clubs and then achieved great success at two different clubs more through motivational ability than tactical nous.
Both were foul-mouthed tyrants who harboured grudges like Mafia godfathers. Years after they fell out, Cloughie said that if he saw Peter Taylor on the road he'd run him over, while Ferguson declares there are no degrees of loyalty. "If someone lets me down," he boasts, "there's no way back."
If I've referred to Sir Alex, as well as Cloughie, in the past tense, that's because the past is where they belong.
A few months ago it was widely assumed Ferguson was finished, but United's improved form has persuaded most that this was premature. I don't buy that.
We were right first time, and if he lingers at Old Trafford until he's 80 he'll never recapture the glory days.
Watching Manchester United at Bolton on Saturday, you couldn't help notice again that, despite the usual late goal, something vital was missing - and that was the passion that comes from the terror of losing.
They'd had a fatiguing midweek Champions League match, of course, but Arsenal had too and they blitzed Manchester City inside 20 minutes. Ferguson likes to blame vast salaries for his stars' loss of motivation, but none of Arsene Wenger's squad are on Stanley Matthews wages either and they play as though they'd rather lose a limb than a game of football.
It's Arsenal and their professor-like coach, needless to say, who are doing Ferguson's head in. Like all control freaks, he can't tolerate competition, let alone being made to look a bit of a clumping thickie.
And that's exactly what Wenger, so much cooler and cleverer, does to him. As if producing a far more lethal attacking team wasn't enough, he's somehow managed to implant an inferiority complex inside that wildly arrogant Glaswegian head. That's why Ferguson overreacted so violently after their Cup defeat at Old Trafford. It wasn't the losing. It was losing to Wenger.
Every sport needs titanic rivalries, and the one between the Glaswegian hood and the Gallic thinker is up there, in terms of contrast and intensity, with Borg and McEnroe. Any such battle of wills is decided in the head, and that's where Wenger is so superior. The quieter and more wryly dismissive he becomes, the more livid and desperate Fergie appears.
Asked about Wenger's intellect, Sir Alex tries to sound aloof.
"Intelligence? They say he's an intelligent man, right? Speaks five languages. I've got a 15-year-old boy from the Ivory Coast who speaks five languages."
As Forrest Gump's mother told her boy, stoopid is as stoopid does - and the stoopidity in this playground put-down is that it bares the very inferiority complex he desperately wants to hide.
Ferguson knows he's up against a smarter, better coach. So let's do the decent thing and leave the old boy to his wine cellar and his gangster fantasies, his vast tax-free fortune and his socialist ideals, his dreams of turning the clock back and the reality that - regardless of tonight's result at Juventus - the Worthington Cup is his only serious hope of honours this season.
And let's touch wood Sir Alex has the sense, when his power to terrorise players fades further, to learn the lesson of Brian Clough and get out while his reputation is still intact.
Amusing reading, especially if you're a Gooner.
-----
BOW OUT NOW FERGIE
It may not often be easy to like Alex Ferguson, but you can't ignore him.
With his revelation at the weekend that Sven Goran Eriksson was offered his job, there was much to raise the eyebrows, although - since he was on his best behaviour - nothing quite to graze them.
Dangling his granddaughter on his knee, joshing with his wife Cathy, pressing the gift of a horse racing book on the interviewer - what a cuddly sweetheart Sir Alex is.
He even insisted that he remains the socialist he's been since his Clydeside shipyard days.
I'm not quite sure where a man who pocketed a tax free £10million from his half of the Rock of Gibraltar fits into the Marxist mainstream, but then Brian Clough loved to bang on about his socialism from the seat of his gold Rolls Royce.
In fact, of all the great managers who preceded him, it's Cloughie who is the best comparison. Both were strikers who went into management young, proved themselves at small clubs and then achieved great success at two different clubs more through motivational ability than tactical nous.
Both were foul-mouthed tyrants who harboured grudges like Mafia godfathers. Years after they fell out, Cloughie said that if he saw Peter Taylor on the road he'd run him over, while Ferguson declares there are no degrees of loyalty. "If someone lets me down," he boasts, "there's no way back."
If I've referred to Sir Alex, as well as Cloughie, in the past tense, that's because the past is where they belong.
A few months ago it was widely assumed Ferguson was finished, but United's improved form has persuaded most that this was premature. I don't buy that.
We were right first time, and if he lingers at Old Trafford until he's 80 he'll never recapture the glory days.
Watching Manchester United at Bolton on Saturday, you couldn't help notice again that, despite the usual late goal, something vital was missing - and that was the passion that comes from the terror of losing.
They'd had a fatiguing midweek Champions League match, of course, but Arsenal had too and they blitzed Manchester City inside 20 minutes. Ferguson likes to blame vast salaries for his stars' loss of motivation, but none of Arsene Wenger's squad are on Stanley Matthews wages either and they play as though they'd rather lose a limb than a game of football.
It's Arsenal and their professor-like coach, needless to say, who are doing Ferguson's head in. Like all control freaks, he can't tolerate competition, let alone being made to look a bit of a clumping thickie.
And that's exactly what Wenger, so much cooler and cleverer, does to him. As if producing a far more lethal attacking team wasn't enough, he's somehow managed to implant an inferiority complex inside that wildly arrogant Glaswegian head. That's why Ferguson overreacted so violently after their Cup defeat at Old Trafford. It wasn't the losing. It was losing to Wenger.
Every sport needs titanic rivalries, and the one between the Glaswegian hood and the Gallic thinker is up there, in terms of contrast and intensity, with Borg and McEnroe. Any such battle of wills is decided in the head, and that's where Wenger is so superior. The quieter and more wryly dismissive he becomes, the more livid and desperate Fergie appears.
Asked about Wenger's intellect, Sir Alex tries to sound aloof.
"Intelligence? They say he's an intelligent man, right? Speaks five languages. I've got a 15-year-old boy from the Ivory Coast who speaks five languages."
As Forrest Gump's mother told her boy, stoopid is as stoopid does - and the stoopidity in this playground put-down is that it bares the very inferiority complex he desperately wants to hide.
Ferguson knows he's up against a smarter, better coach. So let's do the decent thing and leave the old boy to his wine cellar and his gangster fantasies, his vast tax-free fortune and his socialist ideals, his dreams of turning the clock back and the reality that - regardless of tonight's result at Juventus - the Worthington Cup is his only serious hope of honours this season.
And let's touch wood Sir Alex has the sense, when his power to terrorise players fades further, to learn the lesson of Brian Clough and get out while his reputation is still intact.
From the sport pages of the Daily Mirror...
Amusing reading, especially if you're a Gooner.
-----
BOW OUT NOW FERGIE
It may not often be easy to like Alex Ferguson, but you can't ignore him.
With his revelation at the weekend that Sven Goran Eriksson was offered his job, there was much to raise the eyebrows, although - since he was on his best behaviour - nothing quite to graze them.
Dangling his granddaughter on his knee, joshing with his wife Cathy, pressing the gift of a horse racing book on the interviewer - what a cuddly sweetheart Sir Alex is.
He even insisted that he remains the socialist he's been since his Clydeside shipyard days.
I'm not quite sure where a man who pocketed a tax free £10million from his half of the Rock of Gibraltar fits into the Marxist mainstream, but then Brian Clough loved to bang on about his socialism from the seat of his gold Rolls Royce.
In fact, of all the great managers who preceded him, it's Cloughie who is the best comparison. Both were strikers who went into management young, proved themselves at small clubs and then achieved great success at two different clubs more through motivational ability than tactical nous.
Both were foul-mouthed tyrants who harboured grudges like Mafia godfathers. Years after they fell out, Cloughie said that if he saw Peter Taylor on the road he'd run him over, while Ferguson declares there are no degrees of loyalty. "If someone lets me down," he boasts, "there's no way back."
If I've referred to Sir Alex, as well as Cloughie, in the past tense, that's because the past is where they belong.
A few months ago it was widely assumed Ferguson was finished, but United's improved form has persuaded most that this was premature. I don't buy that.
We were right first time, and if he lingers at Old Trafford until he's 80 he'll never recapture the glory days.
Watching Manchester United at Bolton on Saturday, you couldn't help notice again that, despite the usual late goal, something vital was missing - and that was the passion that comes from the terror of losing.
They'd had a fatiguing midweek Champions League match, of course, but Arsenal had too and they blitzed Manchester City inside 20 minutes. Ferguson likes to blame vast salaries for his stars' loss of motivation, but none of Arsene Wenger's squad are on Stanley Matthews wages either and they play as though they'd rather lose a limb than a game of football.
It's Arsenal and their professor-like coach, needless to say, who are doing Ferguson's head in. Like all control freaks, he can't tolerate competition, let alone being made to look a bit of a clumping thickie.
And that's exactly what Wenger, so much cooler and cleverer, does to him. As if producing a far more lethal attacking team wasn't enough, he's somehow managed to implant an inferiority complex inside that wildly arrogant Glaswegian head. That's why Ferguson overreacted so violently after their Cup defeat at Old Trafford. It wasn't the losing. It was losing to Wenger.
Every sport needs titanic rivalries, and the one between the Glaswegian hood and the Gallic thinker is up there, in terms of contrast and intensity, with Borg and McEnroe. Any such battle of wills is decided in the head, and that's where Wenger is so superior. The quieter and more wryly dismissive he becomes, the more livid and desperate Fergie appears.
Asked about Wenger's intellect, Sir Alex tries to sound aloof.
"Intelligence? They say he's an intelligent man, right? Speaks five languages. I've got a 15-year-old boy from the Ivory Coast who speaks five languages."
As Forrest Gump's mother told her boy, stoopid is as stoopid does - and the stoopidity in this playground put-down is that it bares the very inferiority complex he desperately wants to hide.
Ferguson knows he's up against a smarter, better coach. So let's do the decent thing and leave the old boy to his wine cellar and his gangster fantasies, his vast tax-free fortune and his socialist ideals, his dreams of turning the clock back and the reality that - regardless of tonight's result at Juventus - the Worthington Cup is his only serious hope of honours this season.
And let's touch wood Sir Alex has the sense, when his power to terrorise players fades further, to learn the lesson of Brian Clough and get out while his reputation is still intact.
Amusing reading, especially if you're a Gooner.
-----
BOW OUT NOW FERGIE
It may not often be easy to like Alex Ferguson, but you can't ignore him.
With his revelation at the weekend that Sven Goran Eriksson was offered his job, there was much to raise the eyebrows, although - since he was on his best behaviour - nothing quite to graze them.
Dangling his granddaughter on his knee, joshing with his wife Cathy, pressing the gift of a horse racing book on the interviewer - what a cuddly sweetheart Sir Alex is.
He even insisted that he remains the socialist he's been since his Clydeside shipyard days.
I'm not quite sure where a man who pocketed a tax free £10million from his half of the Rock of Gibraltar fits into the Marxist mainstream, but then Brian Clough loved to bang on about his socialism from the seat of his gold Rolls Royce.
In fact, of all the great managers who preceded him, it's Cloughie who is the best comparison. Both were strikers who went into management young, proved themselves at small clubs and then achieved great success at two different clubs more through motivational ability than tactical nous.
Both were foul-mouthed tyrants who harboured grudges like Mafia godfathers. Years after they fell out, Cloughie said that if he saw Peter Taylor on the road he'd run him over, while Ferguson declares there are no degrees of loyalty. "If someone lets me down," he boasts, "there's no way back."
If I've referred to Sir Alex, as well as Cloughie, in the past tense, that's because the past is where they belong.
A few months ago it was widely assumed Ferguson was finished, but United's improved form has persuaded most that this was premature. I don't buy that.
We were right first time, and if he lingers at Old Trafford until he's 80 he'll never recapture the glory days.
Watching Manchester United at Bolton on Saturday, you couldn't help notice again that, despite the usual late goal, something vital was missing - and that was the passion that comes from the terror of losing.
They'd had a fatiguing midweek Champions League match, of course, but Arsenal had too and they blitzed Manchester City inside 20 minutes. Ferguson likes to blame vast salaries for his stars' loss of motivation, but none of Arsene Wenger's squad are on Stanley Matthews wages either and they play as though they'd rather lose a limb than a game of football.
It's Arsenal and their professor-like coach, needless to say, who are doing Ferguson's head in. Like all control freaks, he can't tolerate competition, let alone being made to look a bit of a clumping thickie.
And that's exactly what Wenger, so much cooler and cleverer, does to him. As if producing a far more lethal attacking team wasn't enough, he's somehow managed to implant an inferiority complex inside that wildly arrogant Glaswegian head. That's why Ferguson overreacted so violently after their Cup defeat at Old Trafford. It wasn't the losing. It was losing to Wenger.
Every sport needs titanic rivalries, and the one between the Glaswegian hood and the Gallic thinker is up there, in terms of contrast and intensity, with Borg and McEnroe. Any such battle of wills is decided in the head, and that's where Wenger is so superior. The quieter and more wryly dismissive he becomes, the more livid and desperate Fergie appears.
Asked about Wenger's intellect, Sir Alex tries to sound aloof.
"Intelligence? They say he's an intelligent man, right? Speaks five languages. I've got a 15-year-old boy from the Ivory Coast who speaks five languages."
As Forrest Gump's mother told her boy, stoopid is as stoopid does - and the stoopidity in this playground put-down is that it bares the very inferiority complex he desperately wants to hide.
Ferguson knows he's up against a smarter, better coach. So let's do the decent thing and leave the old boy to his wine cellar and his gangster fantasies, his vast tax-free fortune and his socialist ideals, his dreams of turning the clock back and the reality that - regardless of tonight's result at Juventus - the Worthington Cup is his only serious hope of honours this season.
And let's touch wood Sir Alex has the sense, when his power to terrorise players fades further, to learn the lesson of Brian Clough and get out while his reputation is still intact.
GAL
FOAD