Alex Ferguson Is Retiring

I've put this in the 'laugh at the mancs' thread but thought I'd pop it in here as well to hopefully catch someone who might miss it:

A question for our foreign support:

It was blatantly obvious (to me anyway) that something was going on with moyes because at the beginning of this season sky sports news/pundits all began a love-fest with him, he was lauded at every opportunity in pre and post match comments about his qualities as a manager and how well he's done at everton. To my recollection he was never treated like that before, he was treated as a mid table manager, mentioned on match day with talk about the game and not much else.

The question I'd ask you is if the reaction has been the same on the channels you've watched, not any channel affiliated with murdoch mind (no fox soccer etc) but your native countries match of the day etc equivalent.

I'm just intrigued to see if it's just a UK thing and the obvious back scratching that's gone on between sky and them lot for the last two decades and more.

Please tell me that Paddy Power ad is real!!!

According to this it is!

http://www.offthepost.info/blog/2013/05/bookies-paddy-power-reckons-a-liverpool-fan-has-one-wish-left/

I've put this in the 'laugh at the mancs' thread but thought I'd pop it in here as well to hopefully catch someone who might miss it:

A question for our foreign support:

It was blatantly obvious (to me anyway) that something was going on with moyes because at the beginning of this season sky sports news/pundits all began a love-fest with him, he was lauded at every opportunity in pre and post match comments about his qualities as a manager and how well he's done at everton. To my recollection he was never treated like that before, he was treated as a mid table manager, mentioned on match day with talk about the game and not much else.

The question I'd ask you is if the reaction has been the same on the channels you've watched, not any channel affiliated with murdoch mind (no fox soccer etc) but your native countries match of the day etc equivalent.

I'm just intrigued to see if it's just a UK thing and the obvious back scratching that's gone on between sky and them lot for the last two decades and more.

There's no way the media would have been able to keep their mouth shut for all season had they had even an inkling that this was going to happen.

Think it's just because Everton have been doing quite well by their standards this year.

There's no way the media would have been able to keep their mouth shut for all season had they had even an inkling that this was going to happen.

Think it's just because Everton have been doing quite well by their standards this year.

Nah, I'm not talking the media, I'm talking exclusively sky and the sky/moyes love-fest that started at the beginning of the season before they'd done anything.

You still here Alex?

 

Little Timmy Cahill likening Moyes to Pep Guardiola as the only two managers in the world who could take the Utd job?

He should stick to assaulting corner flags!!

Think this will be the decline of united, they will still be in the top 4 but City will be dominating the league from now on and chelsea title contenders. just a feeling i got.

Will be holding little Moyes hand guiding him through the campaigns.

Gone in 3 seasons.

Vidic is the latest to give his two 'penneth, referring to the old soak and gollum as the same "winners".

Little Timmy Cahill likening Moyes to Pep Guardiola as the only two managers in the world who could take the Utd job?

He should stick to assaulting corner flags!!

I know, I almost streamed soup out of my nose when I heard that - it's crackers

Little Timmy Cahill likening Moyes to Pep Guardiola as the only two managers in the world who could take the Utd job?

He should stick to assaulting corner flags!!

Or making the case that brutal assault causing life long implications IS ok.

I absolutely hate the aul b***ard. To me he is the anti-Shankly. But not only was he made for Manchester and them for him, he was made for them at this exact time.

Graceless, humourless, egotistical, nasty, greedy arl b***ard, to me, he's pretty much the figure head of all what's wrong with the game and a lot of sh*te things in society in general... Phoney, champagne socialist, knight of the realm, bully b***ard, ruling by fear. He's everything I can't stand about what we've got now. That might seem mental, but, to me anyway, he's the perfect symbol of how things have gone over the last 20 years of Me, Me, Me. All hype, no reality to the image, wrapped up in hypocrisy and greed, with no concern for f**k all but himself.

But sticking to football and them and him in particular, he built that club in his own image. And I think that just proves me point. He's made no plans or strategy for when he retires or takes the knock. There's no boot room. There's been no one trained to follow in his footsteps. In fact, every one of his possible successors have been sacked or they've moved rather than stay working with the arl sh*te.

And, as I love to point out, despite all he's done for them, his own fans have never even made a song up for the fella. In fact, except for Gary Neville, I've never seen any genuine affection for the man. And as for the media kissing up to him, well, we all know what a disgrace that shower are. But they aren't as stupid as a lot of us like to think they are. Plenty of them know how vile a human being that fella truly is. They'll turn on him like a pack of Wolves when they sense the time is right.

And I don't even believe that some of them ex Manc players, that rave about him in front of a camera, don't hate the man on the sly. But like all the other greedy bas**rds, they're not going to upset the gravy boat.

An Anfield tribute to the dark night of Mordor

Both of my sons are boys no more. They are men now. One is 26 and one is 20. And until yesterday neither has known so much as a second of their lives when the Knight of Govan hasn’t held sway in the dark empire of Mordor at the far end of the East Lancs Rd.

When he first arrived in his new lair from the frozen northern wastes, there was nothing to suggest the nemesis he would become. In later years we would hear that he made a solemn vow back in those distant days. He swore that one day he would knock ‘Liverpool off their F***ing perch.’

And let’s face it, did he ever.

Seldom in history has anyone been so conclusively knocked off any F***ing perch!

For a while all seemed fine. For a while it was business as usual as yet another manager strode through the doors of Old Trafford to throw money at rubbish. These were the halcyon days of Mike Phelan and Jim Leighton and Clayton Blackmore. Mordor started to empty out and for a while they couldn’t even manage 40,000. We sat high on our perch and laughed our heads off.

Little did we know that far behind the scenes he was tearing down the old with the blazing passion of a fanatical zealot. Far away from the public view Sir Alex was mining for Orcs, and by the time they clambered into the light they were already an unstoppable force.

They were the Vandals and the Visagoths and the Gauls.

And we were Rome.

And we got well and truly sacked.

When the true might of his re-booted and renewed dark empire was revealed for all the world to see, we didn’t come close to having an Aragorn to smite them down. We had Julian Dicks, and Torben Piechnik and Phil Babb.

And so it was that Bill Shankly’s shining white city on the hill was smashed and burned and reduced to broken columns and stray dogs mooching through its deserted streets.

And of course we have remained under the heel of the Dark Empire ever since. Hindsight makes me remember the greatest line from George Orwell’s 1984.

‘If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever.’

They have been the boot, we have been the human face.

In the end he didn’t just knock us off our perch. He sawed up the perch and threw it into the molten lava at the heart of the mountain. We idiotically clung on to an era that was already fading fast. For us, 1986 was that golden summer of 1914 when the sun seemed like it would shine forever and nothing would ever change. But change it did. The old times were already breathing their last.

We never saw any of it coming.

But Sir Alex did.

He smelt the future on the wind and geared up for the new world of Murdoch and merchandising. He built a mighty money machine that would ensure that his newly mined army of Orcs would never suffer a day without the chance to eat some flesh.

And all of a sudden, we became an anachronism. A dream. A faded picture on the wall remembering different times. Better times. Times when money wasn’t everything. Times when Billionaires and stock markets were not required.

Our twenty six year long nightmare had well and truly begun.

But the man behind the mask was never what he seemed. Of course he never allowed too many cracks to appear. For two and a half decades he played the role of the Dark Knight of Mordor to perfection.

But everything wasn’t what it said on the Mordor tin. Rumours would creep out through the tiny cracks in the walls. Young managers fired by idiotic owners would tell of late night calls from the great man. Chin up lad. There’s always another job around the corner. When the sky fell in us on 15 April 1989, he was the first to call up Kenny and say whatever he could do would be done. Anything at all.

When Gerard Houlier all but died from a massive heart attack, the first visitor through the door was Sir Alex who begged that it should be kept secret.

When the great Shipworker Union leader Jimmy Reid passed away in 2010, Sir Alex dropped everything to head north to give a heartfelt speech at his funeral. How the bloated money men of Old Trafford must have hated that. Their great leader deserted a pre season till-stuffing banjoree to remember a working class hero from the banks of the Clyde. Something tells me that the Glazers don’t do working class heroes. For the Glazers, a working class hero is someone to be stripped of every penny of their wealth and ground into the dust.

And so it was that the truth emerged as we looked up at the new world order from our new position on the floor under the place where our perch used to hang. And the truth was a hard truth to swallow.

For this Dark Knight of Mordor was in fact a new Bill Shankly. A genuine tough as teak, straight talking socialist from pre Thatcher Scotland. He shared Shankly’s remorseless passion and determination. He shared Shankly’s unstoppable will to conquer everything in his path. And underneath their ferocious public face, they shared the same rock solid humanity.

They were true men of the people.

Maybe the last men of the people.

My one brief contact with the great man shines a light on his true greatness. It was the early days of First Base and I was helping a client along the hard road to becoming heroin free and the hope of a Rehab centre. The client in question was a genuine disciple of Mordor and never missed an opportunity to crow about it. I spoke to him on the phone when he was a few days into the unforgiving regime of the Rehab Centre and when I finished the call I had little optimism he would stay the course.

Slowly, but surely he was being drawn back towards the comfort of heroin’s warm and jealous embrace.

Without much hope I decided on the wing and a prayer option and penned a letter to Sir Alex. I explained how far my client had come and how he was now hanging by a thread. I suggested that Sir Alex must have seen at first hand how the Scottish heroin plague had eaten away at his beloved Govan. I implored him to maybe drop a note to my man and I hopefully included the address of the rehab centre.

I remember clearly dropping the letter into the postbox.

Sir Alex Fergusson. Manchester United Football Club. Old Trafford. Manchester.

Mordor.

And I was almost totally convinced that my letter would disappear into some cavernous post room in the bowels of the dark Empire.

How wrong I was.

A few days later I got a call from my man at the Rehab Centre and the voice was that of a completely different human being. He had received post that morning. A package. It contained a long, hand written note and a signed photo from Sir Alex. And these words were all that was needed to make my man believe in himself. He stayed the course. He found his new life. He was inspired.

After that, I became an unshakeable convert. So what that he had knocked us off our F***ing perch. Shankly knocked everyone in sight off their F***ing perches. After that, the football and the tribalism became secondary. After that day I saw only a great man with the heart to find the time to write to a lost lad in a rehab centre who was hanging by a thread.

So farewell Sir Alex and may your retirement be a golden one. I hope your horses win and your grandchildren behave themselves. In the god awful money mad world of the Premiership and Champions League, it seems inconceivable that we will ever see your likes again.

Now at least we might just have a chance of getting back onto our F***ing perch again.

Do you have a source for that article xSkyline? To me it's been written by a mischievous Manc and doesn't warrant detailed analysis of the bollocks within.

Do you have a source for that article xSkyline? To me it's been written by a mischievous Manc and doesn't warrant detailed analysis of the bollocks within.

Author Mark Frankland mate. Don't know much about him, but he's written books about the club and seems to be a fan from what I can gather.

http://marksimonfrankland.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/an-anfield-tribute-to-dark-knight-of.html

Seldom in history has anyone been so conclusively knocked off any f**king perch!

Failure to overtake Liverpool’s European Cup tally will haunt Ferguson till his death. He never built a team that dominated Europe in the way Bob did.  In 26 years of managing the richest club in one of Europe's strongest leagues he pegged back just one European Cup from our lead.

He smelt the future on the wind and geared up for the new world of Murdoch and merchandising. He built a mighty money machine that would ensure that his newly mined army of Orcs would never suffer a day without the chance to eat some flesh.

I wouldn’t argue with this. Ferguson embraced Murdoch and his money making because he knew with his fanbase they would gain most. His socialist principles (if he genuinely had any) went out of the window as the league’s smaller clubs became squeezed out by the giant money making machines of the Premier League and the working class fanbase of his club was driven out.

Something tells me that the Glazers don’t do working class heroes. For the Glazers, a working class hero is someone to be stripped of every penny of their wealth and ground into the dust.

They (Shankly and Ferguson) were true men of the people.

Shankly stood up to Liverpool’s directors and won. Ferguson kowtowed to the Glazers against the will of the supporters. Even when Man U PLC before the Glazers started driving the locals away from Old Trafford by their over-pricing Ferguson said nothing.

The anecdotal stories of him being a good guy are there but we’ve all seen this man in action for 26 years and can see what a foul mouthed, loathsome character he is.

He supported new Labour when they ripped apart the true Labour party to become an alternative Tory party. He said nothing as they sold out on the working class and fought illegal wars for the big corporations.

I have seen him bully and humiliate referees who don’t give him the decisions he wants while at grass roots level we battle to affirm the Respect campaign. The shameful Andy D’Urso episode epitomised what he encouraged his obnoxious players to do. D’Urso rarely refereed at Old Trafford after that. Referees were afraid to upset him for fear of the public humiliation that would follow eg questioning their fitness or their honesty.

He bullied the press if they don't report the way he wanted them to eg BBC ban, personal embarrassing digs at journalists at press conferences,

His xenophobic comments eg “typical Germans” were tolerated. His treatment and witch-hunt of a young Uruguayan footballer were shameful starting off with his marching of Evra to the referee's room to make what was later admitted to be a false claim.

The way he encouraged fellow yes-men managers to gang up on Rafa eg Moyes, Allardyce and the way the press joined in the fun.

So I would class the article as bollocks. Ferguson used his influence and power to bully and intimidate. He did not stand up for the working man but stood by and watched the working man being driven out of his club.

Rant over!

Excellent post Finchie.

Do you have a source for that article xSkyline? To me it's been written by a mischievous Manc and doesn't warrant detailed analysis of the bollocks within.

Outstanding earlier post mate exposing the anology infested piece of deception.
What was amusing was the anecdote about the smack head, heavily dependant on a narcotic that is both physically and neurologically addictive, the acknowledge procedure for getting off is a regime of methadone and in some cases some form of psychiatric assistance is utilised.
Low and behold a letter and a signed photo of bacon face we are informed cured said smack head and he was able to go the match, walk on water and levitate at will.

edit:- Some of the miracle cures above might be exaggerated but in the context of that article it wouldn't be noticed, never seen a more blatant case of flatter to deceive. 

Low and behold a letter and a signed photo of bacon face we are informed cured said smack head and he was able to go the match, walk on water and levitate at will.

Hahaha I rather enjoyed that nice piece of fiction as well.

Seen his blog and he does come across as a bit of a tool, but as one responded to him, he's got the hits and that's all it's about.

Anyway Old Trafford is Snake Mountain, not Mordor!!

The exit of Alex Ferguson marks the end of an era, a winning era, for Man U. The appointment of "The Chosen One" is so fitting. Man U won't make top 4 next season.

A swansea win today a perfect end ,that would be nice.

Will be holding little Moyes hand guiding him through the campaigns.

Gone in 3 seasons.

I give him 2 Shabs