Sir Alex Ferguson led Manchester United to a famous Treble in 1999 – at the start of that season though, he briefly quit as boss.
The Red Devils had lost the Premier League title to Arsenal in 1998, despite leading by 11 points at the end of February, prompting chairman Martin Edwards to have a frank conversation with Ferguson that summer.
In an exclusive interview with FourFourTwo, Edwards revealed that the chat almost went badly wrong – resulting in the manager offering his resignation.
“It happened so quickly,” Edwards said. “I felt Alex had taken his eye off the ball the previous season – he was reported to be at race meetings, although he’d likely argue it was the break from football he needed.
“I thought maybe we shouldn’t have lost the title, and we hadn’t won a trophy. We’d been winning trophies consistently, so it was to try to get him back on track. He believed that was harsh, and offered his resignation one afternoon.”
That wasn’t exactly the outcome Edwards had been looking for, although he sensed that Ferguson would change his mind. As it turned out, the Scot had done just that before the end of the day, and his brief vow to quit didn’t become public at the time.
“I accepted his resignation, because that’s what he’d offered, but I didn’t want him to resign,” Edwards said of Ferguson’s quit threat.
“By the end of the afternoon, before I’d gone home, he’d withdrawn it. I did feel initially that it probably was a reaction, and he’d come round eventually.”
Ferguson was pushing for new signings that summer, in a bid to solve their problems in the Champions League. Initially handed a kitty of around £14m, he spent just over £10m on Jaap Stam, £4m on Jesper Blomqvist, then waited until shortly before the Champions League registration deadline to sign Dwight Yorke for £12.6m in late August, so the cash could be set against the next financial year as a workaround for the club’s budget.
Partnering Andy Cole up front, Yorke would help Ferguson to his most famous achievement – that season, Manchester United won the Premier League, the FA Cup and then the Champions League, to seal their manager’s legacy once and for all.
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