Succession Crisis Goes to Extra Time
Sir Alex's eternal power fantasy is like Thatcher seeking a fifth term.
It's popular at the moment to find comparisons for politics in popular culture. Tonight's finalists in the ITV1 talent show Pop Idol, Will and Gareth, took to their battle buses this week, prompting articles on how politicians could learn from them about the art of appealing to the people. But the really powerful current cross-over between the entertainment industry and government lies in football.
The comparisons are not exact - top Premiership managers earn around 20 times more per year than the prime minister - but recent events at Manchester United offer a fascinating picture of what might have happened if, in 1990, Margaret Thatcher had been able to persuade her party to let her stay in office. Soccer is about to show us what happens when a great leader, their powers failing, is allowed to indulge the fantasy of eternal power.
Sir Alex Ferguson has an unusual attitude to time. The end of most matches finds him pointing theatrically at his watch, encouraging the referee either to end the proceedings or extend them, depending on whether his team is ahead. So famous is his finger jabbing towards his wrist that I've long thought he should change his name to Sir Timex and exploit the sponsorship possibilities.
So it should not be surprising that, having claimed for a year that he would be spending more time with his race-horses at the end of this season, he should suddenly have decided this week that the whistle is being blown too soon. He is now negotiating a new contract, although yesterday's whispers suggested that he may be asking for a longer second-wind than is on offer. If he does evade his retirement date, he will have managed what all politicians dream of and which only Churchill and De Gaulle achieved: the official declaration of their irreplaceability.
By improbable coincidence, the week of the retirement-sidestep at Old Trafford has also seen the return of another manager, Graham Taylor - this one actually already superannuated - to his desk at Aston Villa. It's as if the 1922 Committee suddenly came back with reports of total backbench support for Mrs Thatcher or Clinton forced through legislation permitting a third term.
Yet, in even imagining Clinton 2000 or the fifth Thatcher term, we understand why politics is right and football wrong. Most leaders stay too long and Sir Timex has just lost his sense of timing. The fact is that his original announcement of his retirement seemed very sensible. In an uncanny parallel with Thatcherism, the least appealing aspects of the leader's personality - paranoia and a conviction in the infallibility of his judgment - had become dominant with age.
Always shorter than a David Beckham haircut with the press, he now, in what was claimed to be his final season, refused to speak to the media at all, except for awe-struck patsies from the club's own channels. This made it impossible to find out whether it was true that a few disobedient paragraphs in Jaap Stam's memoirs really were the reason that Sir Timex sold his best defender and secured as the replacement a man - Laurent Blanc - so old and slow that the player really is retiring at the end of this season, if his manager now doesn't. Stam is his Nigel Lawson, Blanc his poll tax.
And, even despite a recent run of victories against the weaker Premiership teams, the team's current form suggests that the clock on Sir Timex's management skills is running down. Out of the FA Cup (because of the failure of an arrogant gamble that Middlesbrough could be beaten by a B-team) and unlikely to triumph in Europe this season (the manager's greatest dream) with a defence as leaky as a No 10 press spokesman, their best remaining hope is to win the Premiership by a far closer margin than when manager and team were at the top of their game.
In fact, none of the excellent reasons for 2001-02 originally being chosen as his last has changed, except perhaps that it has proved harder than predicted to appoint a replacement. And even this succession crisis is partly the construction of Ferguson himself, because of his insistence on remaining with the club in a consultative position after he goes. His admirers blame this season's stuttering results on the loss of authority which came from being a lame-duck leader but, if his contract is extended, the perception of a boss about to come to a stop could merely be repeated next year.
Sir Timex is close to Tony Blair both directly and through Alastair Campbell, who is generally credited with having secured the Manchester United manager's knighthood. We don't know if the government's communications supremo advised its footballing knight on throwing away the pipe-and-slippers plan, but the Ferguson precedent may be worrying for Gordon Brown and David Blunkett if they happen to believe the theory that Tony will decide to leave the arena and watch Leo grow up.
In his memoirs, the Manchester United manager attests to life-long socialism. But he would be well-advised to spend the weekend dreaming of Margaret Thatcher: at the dispatch box, contesting the 1992 election. He would wake up screaming as - yet - might the Manchester United board.
You've read the piece, now have your say. Send your comments, as sharp or as stupid as you like, to football.editor@guardianunlimited.co.uk
The comparisons are not exact - top Premiership managers earn around 20 times more per year than the prime minister - but recent events at Manchester United offer a fascinating picture of what might have happened if, in 1990, Margaret Thatcher had been able to persuade her party to let her stay in office. Soccer is about to show us what happens when a great leader, their powers failing, is allowed to indulge the fantasy of eternal power.
Sir Alex Ferguson has an unusual attitude to time. The end of most matches finds him pointing theatrically at his watch, encouraging the referee either to end the proceedings or extend them, depending on whether his team is ahead. So famous is his finger jabbing towards his wrist that I've long thought he should change his name to Sir Timex and exploit the sponsorship possibilities.
So it should not be surprising that, having claimed for a year that he would be spending more time with his race-horses at the end of this season, he should suddenly have decided this week that the whistle is being blown too soon. He is now negotiating a new contract, although yesterday's whispers suggested that he may be asking for a longer second-wind than is on offer. If he does evade his retirement date, he will have managed what all politicians dream of and which only Churchill and De Gaulle achieved: the official declaration of their irreplaceability.
By improbable coincidence, the week of the retirement-sidestep at Old Trafford has also seen the return of another manager, Graham Taylor - this one actually already superannuated - to his desk at Aston Villa. It's as if the 1922 Committee suddenly came back with reports of total backbench support for Mrs Thatcher or Clinton forced through legislation permitting a third term.
Yet, in even imagining Clinton 2000 or the fifth Thatcher term, we understand why politics is right and football wrong. Most leaders stay too long and Sir Timex has just lost his sense of timing. The fact is that his original announcement of his retirement seemed very sensible. In an uncanny parallel with Thatcherism, the least appealing aspects of the leader's personality - paranoia and a conviction in the infallibility of his judgment - had become dominant with age.
Always shorter than a David Beckham haircut with the press, he now, in what was claimed to be his final season, refused to speak to the media at all, except for awe-struck patsies from the club's own channels. This made it impossible to find out whether it was true that a few disobedient paragraphs in Jaap Stam's memoirs really were the reason that Sir Timex sold his best defender and secured as the replacement a man - Laurent Blanc - so old and slow that the player really is retiring at the end of this season, if his manager now doesn't. Stam is his Nigel Lawson, Blanc his poll tax.
And, even despite a recent run of victories against the weaker Premiership teams, the team's current form suggests that the clock on Sir Timex's management skills is running down. Out of the FA Cup (because of the failure of an arrogant gamble that Middlesbrough could be beaten by a B-team) and unlikely to triumph in Europe this season (the manager's greatest dream) with a defence as leaky as a No 10 press spokesman, their best remaining hope is to win the Premiership by a far closer margin than when manager and team were at the top of their game.
In fact, none of the excellent reasons for 2001-02 originally being chosen as his last has changed, except perhaps that it has proved harder than predicted to appoint a replacement. And even this succession crisis is partly the construction of Ferguson himself, because of his insistence on remaining with the club in a consultative position after he goes. His admirers blame this season's stuttering results on the loss of authority which came from being a lame-duck leader but, if his contract is extended, the perception of a boss about to come to a stop could merely be repeated next year.
Sir Timex is close to Tony Blair both directly and through Alastair Campbell, who is generally credited with having secured the Manchester United manager's knighthood. We don't know if the government's communications supremo advised its footballing knight on throwing away the pipe-and-slippers plan, but the Ferguson precedent may be worrying for Gordon Brown and David Blunkett if they happen to believe the theory that Tony will decide to leave the arena and watch Leo grow up.
In his memoirs, the Manchester United manager attests to life-long socialism. But he would be well-advised to spend the weekend dreaming of Margaret Thatcher: at the dispatch box, contesting the 1992 election. He would wake up screaming as - yet - might the Manchester United board.
You've read the piece, now have your say. Send your comments, as sharp or as stupid as you like, to football.editor@guardianunlimited.co.uk
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