There seems to be an awful lot of drivel written about Alex Ferguson's retirement...a 16 page supplement in the Daily Telegraph, 5 pages in The Sun etc. Can it all be as good a read as the papers would like you to think? To the occasional footy fan like myself, he comes across as a grumpy self centred old man - quite normal for a 70 year old, but obviously I don't appreciate his managerial prowess that has kept Man Utd at the top for quite a few years now. I don't suppose any of the sports writers will find time to investigate his allegedly dodgy dealings with agents.
Lawrie MacMenemy (is that spelt right?) was my boyhood managerial hero - helping Grimsby Town to win the division 4 title, then going on to mange Southampton and others (I think). He was even touted as an England manager at one point, but I don't think that happened. The thing is, winning the division 4 title was actually not such a great achievement in the scale of things, but I thought he was some kind of superman by doing this at my local club with local fans and locally (usually) born players. My father even managed to get him to speak at one of his church men's meetings (one of his proudest moments- my dad, not Lawrie).
So, I'm not going to get too impressed with Mr Ferguson's send off, and why spend so much time eulogising him for being manager of a football club that is merely a brand, a franchise that has bought it's success on the open market instead of dragging itself up with local grit, determination and locally honed talent.
I have the Grantham sprint triathlon on Sunday, so looking forward to that. More soon.
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