On this day, 1st June 1978, Sir Alex Ferguson took over as Aberdeen manager, replacing Billy McNeill who had left at the end of the season to be the Celtic manager. He would go on and become the greatest football manager that the United Kingdom has ever produced. The following interview took place with Sir Alex when he formally inducted into the AFC Hall of Fame a few years back.

“The first time I came here, I had lost my job at St Mirren the previous day. Aberdeen had made an approach for me to come here as manager the previous week. I drove up and met Mr Donald in his office opposite the theatre, we then had a spot of lunch and met Chris Anderson and we had a look around Pittodrie.

“Chris was going to America the next day. I ended up going down to London to get a visa and then I flew out on the Saturday morning and met him in Washington. Aberdeen had a big American connection at the time because of the oil industry and we used that to go over to look at the off-field activities that we might be able to incorporate from the way they promoted “soccer”.

“Before I came to Pittodrie, Ally MacLeod had won the League Cup in 1976. I had a lot of time for Ally. People sometimes misunderstand someone who is so enthusiastic but believe me, that is a talent, it energises people. Then Billy McNeill came in and he was very unlucky not to win anything. But when I came in, I had my own ideas of what I wanted to do with the team.

“Without the learning curve I went through at Aberdeen, I would never have achieved what I did at Manchester United. When I was 32, I wanted to rule the world. When I came to Aberdeen, I soon realised I had a lot to learn! It was a settled club. Dick Donald understood me and did more than anyone to help me be the manager I became. Winning the cup final in Gothenburg was very important, but the biggest thing for me was the fact that I matured at Aberdeen. I matured because we had a fantastic chairman who understood me. He understood my personality and had the patience to understand my personality. I am not an easy person to live with! Dick Donald understood that and he matured me. He was fantastic for me.

“My dad had just died at the time so Dick was responsible for making me the manager I was. By the time I had got to United, I had a foundation. I had a philosophy to believe in and that philosophy was young people.

That was all to do with the time I had at Aberdeen.

“Dick was not the type to tell you want to do. What he was good at telling you was that nothing outside the club mattered. He did not worry about the press. He just told me to concentrate on the team. I remember shortly after I arrived I asked him to give the first team players a rise. He told me not to worry about them. I should look after the young kids. I should give them the rise.

“From early on, I think the younger players did see me as a father figure. One thing you have to do when you are managing any group of people is to create a trust, a loyalty and a unity. One of the great things you have to do is to create a good human being. They can be resilient, responsible and when they grow older, that character comes out more than ever. And I think when you look at the Aberdeen players from that time, they were like that – good human beings. Good character. They have all done well as human beings. I don’t hear silly stories about them, they have lived their lives well. That was a responsibility I always took as a manager.

“Aberdeen was a club that had no expectation when I went there. I had to create the expectation for them. And you need that for the club to be successful. Eventually Aberdeen players created an expectation and they were responsible for that. They had to fulfil that every week.

“It takes time. Even at Manchester United, it took me two and a half years to get to where I wanted to get to. Aberdeen was much the same. My first year, we lost the final of the League Cup to Rangers. There was still a long journey to take. Having been a Rangers player helped me. I knew the only way to be successful in Scotland was to beat Celtic and Rangers. That was always my aim, to beat the Old Firm. That was paramount to me.

“To get the players to believe they could do that was a long journey. You need inspirational moments. For Aberdeen that moment was in January 1980 when every game was off in Scotland. We were on the Pittodrie pitch at six in the morning, clearing the snow off the surface so we could get our game on because I knew we could close the gap on Celtic and winning when others were off would help put pressure on them. We played the game and beat Morton 1-0. We then went on a run of 15 games without defeat to win the league. That was an inspirational moment for everyone.

“I always remember when we beat Celtic at Celtic Park 3-1 on the way to the title, a Wednesday night game. I looked in the dressing room afterwards and it was euphoric. But I looked at Willie Miller and he sat looking down at the floor. The difference was he knew we could do it. He was not jumping on top of anyone, he was sitting quiet in his little patch in the dressing room. That was the scale of the man. Years later, I was desperate to take Willie Miller and Alex McLeish to Old Trafford with me but I told Dick I would not go for them. I took Jim Leighton instead.

“We landed up going to Celtic Park twice in ten days and won both games. I don’t think many teams have done that over the years. We were a team good enough to do it. And the players had the bottle to do it. They were able to deal with all the tricks, such as them delaying the kick off by half an hour.

“Every team has a balance of personalities. You have your quiet ones who never say anything and there are ones you can’t look at in the dressing room because you know it can affect them. I always tended to pick the ones I knew who could handle it. There were enough strong personalities in that particular team, particularly the young ones like Neale Cooper and Neil Simpson who developed a winning mentality.

“When we eventually played that final in Gothenburg, I thought the most telling factor was when Di Stenfano said they could not beat our spirit. I thought that was a fantastic accolade to the team. It was a team that had grown up together. They were all from Scotland. I think the oldest player was 28, a young team. Although it was the greatest moment of the history of Aberdeen FC it was also the worst moment ever for Aberdeen because everyone then wanted our players.

“I have no doubt that if that Aberdeen team had stayed together, they would have dominated Scottish football for many years to come. And I also think if they were in England they would have been in the top four, they were as good as that but within a year the team had started to break up.

“And then I eventually left myself. I needed a change. I remember telling Dick was I was going to leave in the summer of 1985. I said I needed a new challenge, I needed to try something else. He asked me if I had a club and. I said no. He said I would get a club, but his advice was, “Don’t go unless Manchester United come in for you”. I think because his son Ian played for them, he had a certain affection for them.

“After the World Cup in Mexico I brought Archie Knox back to the club, I brought him back as co-manager as he had been manager at Dundee and I did not think it was right for him to step down. But then Manchester United made an approach and I had to go. My wife did not want to go. But I had to go. But I would not have swapped my time here for the world. It helped create my career as well as a lot of the players’ too.

“It was a great team. There was a lot of quality but one of the main ingredients was determination. If you analyse a lot of the great players, they all have an inner desire to do well. Alongside that is the ability to win games.

“One of those players was Stuart Kennedy. If you talk about motivators in the dressing room, he would probably be number one in the sense of the energy he had. Willie and Alex were the foundation of the team, there is no doubt about that, but Kennedy had an energy and confidence in himself. He was also a leader. Every time he would come up against a winger, he would tell them at the start of the game, “You are wasting your time here son!” Stuart was a great player and really helped Gordon Strachan. Gordon never really wanted to be a winger so he would drift infield and Stuart would be up and down that touchline with his energy and his pace. Peter Weir was another. When he played, Aberdeen played.

“I had some of the most dramatic times ever in my career at Aberdeen, especially the game against Bayern Munich at Pittodrie.

“When we drew 0-0 over in Munich, everyone was delighted but I thought it was a bad result. We should have beaten them over there. We played Bell, Cooper and Simpson in the middle of the pitch – I left Gordon out that night. We were brilliant over at the Olympic Stadium. They had a fantastic team with some of Germany’s greatest ever players, but we should have beaten them. But we drew 0-0 and that is not a good result in Europe. An away goal is crucial, and they scored first at Pittodrie. We scrambled an equaliser from Simmy just before half-time and I thought we were back in it but then they scored again. I am a gambler and I put three forwards on. I put McMaster on, I put Cooper on, and we went for it. When we scored the third goal, we had no defenders or midfielders! It was hairy stuff that last few minutes!

“Of course, the second goal came from a free-kick routine that we used to do in European football. It worked that night. Bayern were staying up at the hotel in Altens and the manager of the hotel was German. Apparently some of their staff stayed up to two in the morning, discussing whether we had meant it! We only used it in European games, and it worked that night.

“I was never afraid of the draw with Bayern Munich. I was more worried about the possibility of drawing Real Madrid in the semi-final. Because I think going to Madrid in a second leg is difficult. But in the semi-final we played Watershei. Dougie Bell played his part that night. Dougie was a great player. He was very strong on the ball, similar to Paul Gascoigne. I am not saying he was better than Gascoigne because he is the best English player over the past four decades. Dougie probably should have played more, but the form of Cooper and Simpson made it very difficult to leave them out.

“Europe was like a series of stepping stones for us. When we first went into Europe, it was in October 1978 against Fortuna Dusseldorf and we lost. The reason we lost was because we could not keep possession of the ball the same way the Dusseldorf could. The following season it was Frankfurt and it was the same thing.
“And then in 1980, the big lesson was when we played Liverpool. We lost 4-0. They kept possession better than anyone. They were a great team. Yet we were actually very unlucky with the way the game unfolded in that match. At Anfield we were 2-0 down, 3-0 on aggregate and I remember Drew Jarvie saying, “Two quick goals and we are back in this” – Liverpool had only lost seven goals at home in a year and a half!! I just looked at him and said well-done son!

“Then the following season we played Ipswich. We battered Ipswich. After the game Bobby Robson came into the dressing room and shook all the players hands and said to me, “You will win this cup”. The next round was Hamburg and it was a game we honestly should have won by six. Little Gordon missed a penalty and then they went straight up the park and scored the second goal.

“All those lessons eventually led somewhere. In 1982 we beat Sion in the qualifying round and their general manager was a guy called Leon Walker who played and also managed Switzerland. He said, “You will win this cup. You have all the ingredients for a great team”. I told him that if we got to the final he would have to come and be our lucky charm. I invited him to the final but he did not come. He was probably too nervous after making that statement!

“People responded to us and the way we played. It is amazing the amount of grounds I went to in England and people would come up and say to me “I remember watching you beat Real Madrid”. Everyone was cheering us on that night, it was astonishing.

“And then we went on to the Super Cup. I remember in the away leg, Willie Miller actually had a fitness test. He got through it but he was not 100%. The pitch was also covered in snow. The Germans cleared it in about an hour – it would have taken us about ten! We did well to keep a clean sheet in Germany.

“They had an Austrian manager called Ernst Happel. He was a great, great manager. I was desperate to get to know their team. So I went out with my teamsheet and stood in the massive tunnel. He was standing there, smoking. I said, “Mr Happel, there is my team. Can I have yours?” He just completely ignored me and walked away! I was less than happy! I was delighted we won in the end! They were a very good side who had beaten Juventus in the European Cup Final and had some terrific players such as Felix Magath and Manny Kaltz, but we beat them very well at Pittodrie.

“A lot of people said I managed the Aberdeen team by fear. Yes, there were times I maybe lost my temper but if the team did not meet my expectations, then sometimes it was justified. Whatever happened stayed in the dressing room though.

“I would also point out that my Aberdeen team went out and expressed themselves. Fear does not work. My intensity was different, but they understood that and eventually they started to mirror the manager. At the end of the day you go on to a football pitch to win a game. To get to the right level of expectation took time, but once they got there, I would actually find myself not having to say very much as they did it themselves.

“It’s significant that many of them went on to have successful careers in management and coaching. They probably picked things up over the years. When I was at Rangers, I worked with Scot Symon, only for a short period of time, but I learnt a lot from him. He would always stand by his players, and that was something that stuck with me. Don’t criticise your players publicly. These are the lessons you pick up. Jock Stein also used to say to me, “Don’t criticise a player as you will also fall out with the mother, the father, his brothers”. It does not work.

“Looking back, I am very lucky I managed football clubs when I did. Very lucky. Managing a football club now is difficult for a number of reasons. I think the players are more fragile today. I think they are brought up differently. When was the last time you saw a boy climbing a tree? Kids now get driven everywhere. I understand why, but they never walk. You are changing the animal.

“The other part is the owners. They come from all different parts of the world. They are successful in business but it does not mean they are going to be successful in football clubs. And they maybe don’t understand the nature of a football manager. There is also no evidence that sacking a football manager is going to give you success. It is now a different game”.