Manchester United’s managerial woes since Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement in 2013 only serve to highlight even more the incredible job the Scotsman did at Old Trafford.
Legendary career
Ferguson spent 27 years as manager at the club, winning an incredible 13 league titles, five FA Cups and two Champions League trophies.
He managed to take a side on its knees in the 1980s to being the most successful club in English football and one of the most famous names in the world.
Sadly, he lost his wife in 2023 and had his ambassadorial role taken off him by Ineos last year.
The BBC have held an interview with the United legend discussing his life in recent years.
Charity work
Ferguson has recently been working with dementia charities and the correlation between music and slowing down the disease was discussed.
Sir Alex revealed that he has always been a big singer and claimed, “my staff would know I was in the building when I came in the morning. I don’t think they liked it. I think it’s just part of you. If I’m in the shower, wherever, singing is part of me.”
As an ambassador for the Playlist for Life charity he asserted, “music has an important role for dementia sufferers and we must continue that. You don’t need to be a great singer to join in, just to know the words. It’s wonderful.”
Personal connection
The former United manager revealed that he has a personal situation with dementia as his brother is currently suffering from the medical issue.
Delving into the topic he added, “I have a situation myself, with my brother. It’s not easy. I have to be in touch with him a lot. He recognises me [but] the memory’s not great. But he’s not bad. He’s not getting any worse, let’s put it that way, which is very encouraging.”
Ferguson revealed that dementia is something that is “at the back of his mind” because of his age and his brother’s own problems.
He added, “I keep telling him: ‘Write things down.’ I think he tries to do that, but he forgets a lot of the time. When you get to my age, you do have a little worry about whether your memory is going to stand up.”
Ferguson stated that it is normal not to have a perfect memory in your 80s but opened up on how important memory was for him in his managerial career.
The former manager claimed he now pursues other activities to keep his mind active. He said, “now I do a lot of crosswords, I sing a lot and read. I tend to go into history – the American civil war. I went to a few of the battlegrounds in America, which I really enjoyed.”
Wife passing
Sir Alex revealed that he found himself being stuck in the house a lot after the passing of his wife so he moved into the countryside to be closer to his son.
He also revealed that he has travelled to places such as Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong and Bahrain to keep himself busy.
His final piece of advice was “occupy yourself. Dealing with the dementia group has been good for me. It’s something that I enjoy.”
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Alex Browne
Alex is a huge Manchester United fan, inspired by greats of his homeland such as George Best, Harry Gregg and Norman Whiteside. Proud owner of such niche shirts such as Kleberson, Eric Djemba-Djemba and Gary Neville. Grew up pretending to be Ruud van Nistelrooy and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in the back garden, with little success.
