"I know it was you, Ruudo" - Alex Ferguson vendettas, pt I

what was the rooney shouting match about on sat

Stam was the funniest iirc and also perhaps the most destructive, short term.

the whole chain of events set in motion by ferguson kicking a boot, hitting beckham, prompting him to leave, and culminating in rebecca loos wanking a pig on TV should win the chaos theory award.

shit didnt even see beckham, voted heinze but wd change

Beckham- ferguson just wrong all the way through. Don't think he's ever been more of a cunt to one of his own players. Kind of the exact reverse of the rooney saga of last year, beckham performing on pitch and ferguson taking every swipe he could. Media consistently running with 'disruptive/out of form' beckham rumours, was all p much bullshit iirc.

i thought at the time that the Beckham thing was sheer jealousy and i still think it's as likely a cause as any

Beckham wasn't actually performing that well in his last season at United but was immense right before that and United clearly missed him badly when he left. Still, "Ashley Cole made you look a cunt", "yeah well Wenger made you look a cunt, again" = still funny.

Keano probably the funniest, Stam the most destructive.

i can't find the rumours online but wasn't Stam supposed to have been sold because he'd been SUPERINJUNCTIONing SUPERINJUNCTION's SUPERINJUCTION?

beckham prob the best player on the pitch for the 30 mins i caught of gnevs testimonial. Those fuckin 60 yd passes, i'd forgotten how uniquely gifted he was tbh.

I know we talk up thudd/alonso, imo beckham was and is still a cut above even those two

stam was done for steroids not a year after moving to ac milan.

I'd say he'd only just started on them and ferguson definitely had no idea.

-_-

Beckham still loves Fergie though. Kind of like an abusive dad.

St. Mirren FC should be on the list

"St. Mirren have been the only club ever to sack Ferguson. He claimed wrongful dismissal against the club at an industrial tribunal but lost and was given no leave to appeal. According to a Billy Adams Sunday Herald article on 30 May 1999, the official version is that Ferguson was sacked for various breaches of contract including unauthorised payments to players.

He was counter-accused of intimidating behaviour towards his office secretary because he wanted players to get some expenses tax free. He didn't speak to her for six weeks, confiscated her keys and communicated only through a 17-year-old assistant. The tribunal concluded that Ferguson was "particularly petty" and "immature". It was claimed during the tribunal by St. Mirren chairman, Willie Todd, that Ferguson had "no managerial ability".

On 31 May 2008, The Guardian published an interview with Todd (by now aged 87), who had sacked Ferguson all those years earlier. He explained that the fundamental reason for the dismissal was a breach of contract relating to Ferguson having agreed to join Aberdeen. Ferguson told journalist Jim Rodger of the Daily Mirror that he had asked at least one member of the squad to go to Aberdeen with him. He also told the St. Mirren staff he was leaving. Todd expressed regret over what happened but blamed Aberdeen for not approaching his club to discuss compensation."

the only club so far

http://i.imgur.com/QiKK4.jpg

looks like edward woodward in the wicker man

The Stam sacking always struck me as particularly stupid.

well yeah, but only if you assume fergie didn't find out he wasn't clean

prize if you can untie that one

I don't know what the stories behind most of these are, anyone want to summarise? The voting public being educated is important.

pfft since when

Whiteside & McGrath - these two and Robson emblematic of the drinking culture at OT when Ferguson arrived. He wanted it cleaned up. Robson complied, the other two wouldn't or couldn't and were forced out. A bit much calling it a vendetta, probably, though I think McGrath in particular took a lot of stick from him.

Strachan - I didn't know this until today, but Ferguson apparently spent a lot of time at in the 80s calling him a snake and badmouthing him behind his back as untrustworthy. I imagine Strachan enjoyed winning the league with Leeds quite a lot.

Leighton - made scapegoat for the 3-3 draw in the 1990 FA cup final, dropped for the replay, booted out of OT a shell of a man.

Ince - Ferguson called him a 'big-time Charlie' in a documentary after he left. I imagine Ince precipitated this one by leaving to try his luck at Inter.

Sharpe - forced out for being forever ready to par-tay. Ferguson probably called this one right tbf.

Kidd - had the gall to quit being Ferguson's #2 to be Blackburn's #1. Man Utd relegated Blackburn that year, Ferguson pretended not to know about it in the post-match interview.

Stam - called the Nevilles 'busy cunts' in his autobio, among various grumbles (quite mild I think). Sold post-haste, Utd a defensive wasteland as a result.

Yorke - enjoying life too much, frozen out. Probably fair.

Beckham - see above. Bloody ridiculous affair. Sold as a stray boot, aiui was actually a simple punch (possibly while holding a boot). Did not know that quote in Matt's post, but it's all-time classic.

van Nistelrooy - don't actually know, think he was just being mouthy especially with teammates.

Keane - ripped teammates a new one on MUTV, but by then he was pretty shot and it was him who got the boot. Had been wobbly for a while iirc, though I can't recall exactly why.

Heinze - gawd knows. Heinze wanted to leave for Liverpool, Ferguson point-blank refused to deal with that shower.

Wayne Rooney (tbc) - other shoe still to drop here. No way is Rooney getting away with that nonsense from earlier this season.

Dimitar Berbatov - ????

Van Nistelrooy was benched for the League Cup Final against Wigan Athletic, fuelling speculation of a rift between him and coach Alex Ferguson, which Van Nistelrooy denied. He was nonetheless left on the bench for six consecutive league matches, and though he then returned to the starting line-up and scored match-winners against West Ham United and Bolton Wanderers, fresh doubt spread over Van Nistelrooy's future when he was benched for United's season finale win over Charlton Athletic. Ferguson claimed that Van Nistelrooy was angry at the decision and left the stadium three hours before kick-off. On 9 May 2006, Setanta Sports reported that Van Nistelrooy's exclusion from the squad was due to a training session fight between him and team-mate Cristiano Ronaldo. Van Nistelrooy allegedly criticised Ronaldo's tendency to hold onto the ball instead of passing to his team-mates, which sparked the fight, after which Van Nistelrooy remarked, "Go crying to your daddy."[8] The article claimed that this was not a reference to Ronaldo's father (who had died earlier in the season), but to United's Portuguese assistant coach Carlos Queiroz.

van nistelrooy criticised the sale of beckham on several occasions, then upset the portuguese lad who wouldn't cross to him, the superstar striker, by saying 'lol ur dad's dead' in training one day

the 'busy cunts' was colloquialism for 'always up to something' iirc, where stam really fucked up was admitting in his autobiography that he'd been tapped up.

Thanks Ismael, I will now consider this at length before forgetting to vote.

I don't think most of these count. McGrath & Whiteside were given the chance to sort themselves out and didn't take it - it's not as if Ferguson sold them as soon as he arrived, they went two-and-a-half years later. Jim Leighton was dropped for the replay for making not untypical errors in the FA Cup final - he had been dodgy during his two seasons and his confidence was suss. But that's not a vendetta or anything, just a sensible managerial decision. Sealey was better and Schmeichel was much better. Lee Sharpe's rumoured party animal antics saw him have two lengthy spells out injured early in his career, but Ferguson stood by him. He wasn't sold until 1996 when he was past his best - his career took a rapid nosedive after that. Heinze took umbrage to being dropped in favour of Evra, but Evra was a better player.

Stam was sold very quickly after his book came out and I think it was connected, but had nothing to do with his description of the Nevilles. I think it was much more likely to do with Stam saying that he'd been tapped up by United before signing. He wasn't properly replaced (Blanc wasn't at his best) and the team definitely suffered from his absence. Worse still, despite having paid £28 million (or thereabouts) up front to Lazio for Veron just a month or so before, they didn't get any of the £12 million (or whatever it was) for Stam in return and had to threaten to go to court or something in the end to get the money. So that one wasn't too smart.

I could be wrong, but with Brian Kidd I think he genuinely wished him the best when he went to Blackburn and I think he really didn't know that Blackburn had been relegated that night (obviously he was far more preoccupied by United's situation in the tight battle with Arsenal). I think the falling out came a few months later when Ferguson's autobiography came out - I think he said something about Kidd not being suitable to take over United in the long run and Kidd wasn't very happy about that. Ferguson was almost certainly right about Kidd's unsuitability for that role, but he didn't need to say it publicly.

With Paul Ince he just seems to have been vindictive.

ince a bit of a cunt himself tbf.

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