The importance of attitude

Grant Leboff Damian, in your book, one of the things that you talk about is attitude and Sir Alex’s take on that. You’ve got a great story about what happened with Robbie Brady in a queue at Manchester United and I wondered if you could expand on that for us?

Damian Hughes Sir Alex spoke about the idea that the difference between good and great teams was having the people who had the courage, and that was the reference that he used. Now people assumed that great coaches were giving Churchillian type speeches out and Ferguson demonstrated that it was really simple, short, succinct interventions that really made the difference.

There is a great story about the young footballer, Robbie Brady, the Northern Irish player, who was at the club for a number of years. Brady speaks about one afternoon when he was queuing in the training ground at Carrington, waiting for his  lunch when Cristiano Ronaldo, the great Portuguese footballer, came striding out of the showers to queue up behind him. Brady recounts a story that when Ronaldo arrived, Brady allowed Cristiano Ronaldo to go in front of him in the queue to get served first.

He says that when he was coming out of the canteen, Ferguson was waiting for him, pulled him to one side and said; ‘why did you do that’? To which Brady replied; ‘I was just being polite’. Ferguson said; ‘But it wasn’t just being polite, he was prepared to queue behind you. Why did you do it’? And Robbie Brady said that after a bit of reflection he said to Ferguson; ‘It’s because it’s Cristiano Ronaldo, who is the best footballer in the world’. And he said Ferguson stopped him in his tracks and said to him; ‘I want you to believe that you are better than him, because if it doesn’t start with you believing it, why should I or all the other coaches have confidence in putting you in the team as well’?

Now Robbie Brady was subsequently moved on and has had a very good career in the Premier league with Hull City, but I think the difference between being good and great is where Ferguson spent a lot of time operating, and the Robbie Brady story is just a really nice encapsulation of it.

Grant Leboff I think that’s a brilliant story. So what other things did Sir Alex do to instil that kind of confidence in his players? What are the other techniques that you brought out in the book, ensuring that everyone starts with that right attitude?

Damian Hughes One of the ways that he would do it – especially when developing young players when they were coming through the ranks at the club – before he would get hold of them to decide whether they had the potential to become first-team regulars, was to put young players through media training. Now the players always assumed that the reason for the media training was because they were learning how to speak in front of the cameras and how to respond to journalists questions, but what very few of them ever realised was that it was the nature of the questions that Ferguson was most interested in.

Most of the questions that he asked were all centred around; what’s your biggest loss, what’s your worst defeat, what’s your poorest ever game? And what Ferguson and his coaching staff would then pour over, in minute detail was – how did the players respond? So which were the sort of players who were quick to point the finger at other people; the coaches didn’t prepare us right or the referee was rubbish or have other excuses, because he realised that those players were very unlikely to make the mental adjustment to being a member of his team. He looked for the players who were keen to accept responsibility, to work out how they could improve and how they could do better.

So the famous example is with the class of ‘92 that most people are aware of, with the likes of the Beckham, Scholes, Neville, and Giggs. Now when they were interviewed, each of the players was searingly honest about their own shortcomings and their own mistakes, but Ferguson realised he was dealing with a real rare calibre of talent, after the interviews. It was Gary Neville who arranged a whip round amongst the players to hire a minibus and drive over to the Pennines and scout there opponents Leeds United, who they were going to face in the FA Youth Club final.

And it was that willingness to not only fail, but learn from those failures, that Ferguson differentiated as having the courage, or as you’ve just said ‘the attitude’, that was really going to distinguish them.

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