Contrary to what you might have seen on breakfast television some years ago, I never did come to blows with Sir Alex Ferguson. From one particular angle, it looked like it. We had argued at his press conference, he was leaving the room, I approached him to explain a few things, he wasn’t in the mood for stopping, we did a little dance around each other, then continued rowing outside through various underground car parks at the Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro. A long time ago now, of course. And the following day it was reported back home, widely, as fisticuffs.
And then the fun started. There was a rival newspaper, with an aggressive editor, whose target appeared to be getting his staff banned from every football club in the country. Manchester United should have been one of the easier ones. Nobody was quicker to fatwa than Ferguson. You didn’t even have to do anything. One bloke was nearly banned for having the same surname as the journalist Alex actually wanted to ban. And he could hardly help it. They were brothers.
But back home, the fact a journalist appeared to have provoked Ferguson into the ultimate fury went down very badly with my rival’s editor. The order was delivered: get banned or get banjoed. No excuses. My press box colleague spent the rest of the trip trying to goad Ferguson into knocking his teeth out with ever more confrontational questions. And all he got was the odd death stare.
It’s a bit like that with the modern Conservative Party. They’re all so desperate to be noticed, so desperate to be the provocateur. “I’ve been smeared for trying to speak out about Islamist extremists,” squeaked Robert Jenrick this week, desperate for some of Lee Anderson’s Islamist action. Jenrick wishes. He wants to be the renegade, the outlaw. They all do. Liz Truss palling around with the Stateside allies of Tommy Robinson, pitching bad economics as a fight with the forces of repression. Suella Braverman poking any passing culture war bear with a stick. They’re all on manoeuvres. What a rotten lot. And they wouldn’t last two minutes in a room with Fergie, any of them.
Matt and Mogg
Yet here we are, stuck with them. The diary story of Matt Hancock being confronted by 16-year-old Peter Rees-Mogg during a talk at Eton — Hancock made a joke at his father’s expense, Peter described Jacob as a great man in public and private — suggests there may be another generation of that family wrongfully encouraged to think they should rule the world.
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There’s a story about Mike and Bernie Winters playing the Glasgow Empire. Mike opens the show with some clarinet and light patter. It isn’t well received. Then Bernie sticks his head around the curtain: “Eeee…” “For f***’s sake,” says a voice from the stalls, “there’s two of them.” And many more in the case of the Rees-Moggs.
Railway grown-ups
Model railways. Now there’s a nice hobby for a young man. And for an ageing pop star. Sir Rod Stewart and Jools Holland, collaborating on a new album of swing classics, are both enthusiasts. So was my old headmaster, Frank Young.
He was an austere chap, a mathematician, always wore the black headmaster’s gown as he swept into school assembly, coins jangling in his pocket, striding to the lectern with the hall in terrified silence. Yet he had a softer side. Discovering one of the kids shared his interest, he invited him to his house to see his railway layout. Impressive stuff, apparently. Frank left the room to go and find a GWR Toplight Mainline City Second 3911, BR Maroon Livery, or maybe just a little man to sit in the signal box, leaving this boy alone with the rattling collection, and his wife.
“What age are you?” she asked.
“Fourteen,” her guest replied.
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She eyed him sceptically, as her husband, nearing retirement, busied himself in the spare room.
“Bit old for this sort of thing, aren’t you?” she said.
