A few more scores are settled and there are some more illustrations of the power plays that went on behind Old Trafford’s closed doors. But then, almost an after-thought, is the short letter – the most extraordinary letter – which in 600 words or so reveals more than all the collective wisdom the Harvard intellectuals have distilled and put down on paper in Leading, their new book about Sir Alex Ferguson.
It is tucked away (in full here) amid the book’s images of miscellaneous correspondence, entitled “The Archive”, and is nothing less than a love letter, written on 18 August 1997, by Ferguson to Eric Cantona when the player had decided to leave Old Trafford. We always knew that he considered him special. Yet, to read Ferguson telling Cantona about the summer days, before the 1997/98 season, when he hoped in the face of all reason that they would spend another campaign together, is to appreciate that there was a kind of a mourning for the manager after he had told him he would be gone.
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“When we re-started training, I kept waiting for you to turn up as normal but I think that was in hope not realism and I knew in your eyes when we met, your time at Manchester United was over...” Ferguson writes, the sense so vivid of him casting wistful glances to the Carrington gatehouse, hoping he might see the Cantona car. His life is going on much the same as he writes. Cantona’s is on another plane, destined for screen and stage. But the older one left behind looks for a way they might yet still connect. “One thing, I would like you to remember is to remain active and fit,” Ferguson says, reaching back 33 years to locate some common experience. “I always remember when I finished at 32 and I started management, I was more concerned about organising training...”