Alex Ferguson at 68 – 20 years on from the goal that saved him and Manchester United Alex Ferguson celebrates his 68th birthday on New Year's Eve. Three years after earning the right to a state pension and a bus pass, the Manchester United manager is still showing absolutely no signs of retirement.Quite right, too. Giovanni Trapattoni is still patrolling his technical area as Republic of Ireland manager at the age of 70, while John McCain almost became the President of the United States as a 72-year-old in 2008. Ferguson has previously claimed that he will not be working beyond his 70th birthday, but we all remember how he planned to retire in 2002 before performing an about-turn when the finishing post began to zoom into view. Nobody knows when the Scot will call time on his incredible reign at Old Trafford. Perhaps he doesn't even know himself. But turn the clock back to January 7, 1990, and you could have found good odds on Ferguson not even seeing out the week as United manager. With relegation-threatened United travelling to in-form Nottingham Forest for an FA Cup third round tie, the word was out that Ferguson would be sacked if his team lost. Four weeks earlier, a disgruntled supporter had unfurled a banner on the Stretford End during a home defeat against Crystal Palace which read, 'No more excuses. Three years and we're still crap. Ta ra Fergie!' Although director Sir Bobby Charlton and then-chairman Martin Edwards have since insisted that Ferguson was safe, whatever the result against Forest, he was undoubtedly losing the backing of the supporters. An exit from the FA Cup would hardly have helped Ferguson's cause in appeasing his growing band of critics. Yet as the history books prove, United won.
that will forever be described as the one that 'saved Fergie from the sack.' United went on to win the FA Cup that season to give Ferguson his first piece of silverware as manager since his arrival from Aberdeen almost four years earlier. Twenty years on, Ferguson has added another 32 trophies to that crucial first FA Cup, including eleven Premier League titles and two European Cups. He is the most successful manager in the club's history, light years ahead of Sir Matt Busby in terms of trophies won, and one of British football's all-time greats. But just imagine what might have happened if Robins had not scored that goal at the City Ground. Just contemplate the possibility that defeat would have cost Ferguson his job. Instead of being viewed as arguably Britan's greatest ever manager, he would have been cast alongside the likes of Frank O'Farrell, Dave Sexton and Wilf McGuinness as managers who failed to cut it at Old Trafford. He might have headed back to Scotland, perhaps taken a job at Dundee United or Hearts or maybe even back at Aberdeen. The Robins goal was his Sliding Doors moment, a fork in the road that, fortunately for Ferguson and United, headed towards unimagined glory rather than failure. Who knows who United would have turned to had they parted company with Ferguson. Bobby Robson maybe? Brian Clough? Howard Kendall? Terry Venables? All were floated as possible successors when Ferguson was feeling the heat in late 1989, but Fergie could any of them achieved even half of his success at Old Trafford? Unlikely. Ferguson has made it clear on countless occasions that he has no time for looking back. The future is his only concern. But while his birthday marks another signpost to his longevity, the 20th anniversary of the Robins goal is much more significant. It marks the day when Manchester United's modern history was created. Had Robins not headed Mark Hughes's cross into the back of the net, the landscape of English football would look altogether different today.
