Ferguson's crick in the neck

By Brian Glanville, World Soccer

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MICHAEL CRICK'S warts and all biography of Alex Ferguson accuses him variously of being a bully, a hypocrite, a tapper up of wanted players, with abundant chapter and verse.

But in at least one respect I think Crick is being unfair. He lays much emphasis on allegations that the United players liked Brian Kidd in his days as youth and senior coach at Old Trafford than they did the more remote and less avuncular Fergie. Tell us the old, old story.

Ever since coaches were "invented" in British soccer, it has been so much easier to coach than to manager, so much easier for a coach to endear himself to the players, while the manager keeps the rain off him and has to make the tough decisions.

Last week's European Cup tie in Leverkusen however surely emphasized what Mark Bosnich recently criticized as Fergie's tactical weakness. Above all, his £28 million purchase of Juan Sebastian Veron, when it should have been obvious that he couldn't accommodate the Argentine in his preferred, playmaker role. Using him wide or just behind the front line has never been a valid option and I was glad to hear the ex United manager Ron Atkinson singing that song on the TV commentary.

Last Monday at the United training ground expletives flew when Ferguson damned the Press for abusing Veron. But the one guilty part is surely himself, for misusing the Argentine, so ineptly. Or buying him in the first place!

RECENTLY, at a nostalgic and endearing reunion of England's 1966 World Cup winners in London, I spoke to Gordon Banks about that morning in Leon when, afflicted by a stomach bug, he had to pull out of England's 1970 quarterfinal versus West Germany, with devastating consequences.

"I don't know what it was," he told me. "It was certainly not a glass of beer. I find it a big strange that we all ate together and I had a bad bout."

Strange indeed and you still wonder whether there was dirty work at the crossroads. After the tournament, the late Bob Oxby, a football correspondent, stopped off in Washington to visit his cousin, the late, then celebrated, senator Stuart Symington who told him, said Oxby, that it was a CIA job. "We couldn't let anything stop Brazil winning the World Cup."

Certainly Brazil's win helped its government then, but Leon's after all, was only the quarterfinal and the Brazilians had already once beaten England. Still, CIA or no CIA, it does seems strange that Banks alone should have fallen ill.

AN OUNCE of prevention is worth a ton of cure, and it was surely suicidal to allow Birmingham City fans to attend the return play off against Millwall at the New Den.

Having said which, my Deep Throat, who observed the brutal, subsequent violence from the front line, assures me that it was the worst he had ever seen, that some 900 thugs attacked the police with every kind of missile and with flares, and that the police themselves behaved with astonishing bravery. Reinforced a full hour after the trouble was at its height, the police were successfully preventing the Millwall rioters from attacking the Birmingham fans.

One of the most sick aspects of the riot was that the cars of hapless local residents were attacked, burned or had their windows smashed. This in an area largely inhabited by poor people.

One assumed, though without any certainty, that the usual Millwall apologists, who emulate the Three Wise Monkeys won't be as tiresomely evident as usual. Though they will have been pleased to read a Daily Telegraph match report which doesn't even mention the violence.

Much as if a critic had attended the theatrical performance where President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkie Booth and merely written a review of the play. But as my Deep Throat remarked, this was, however appalling, only the latest of the season's riots outside the ground, beginning with the so-called August friendly against Spurs.

One can't see the police successfully suing Millwall as they might try; but you could even see the New Den being forced to close down.

DUCKING and diving frantically, failing in a crude and clumsy attempt last week to stop the FIFA executive committee -- who booed his lawyers! -- permitting secretary Michel Zen-Ruffinen to present his scandalous dossier, Sepp Blatter can surely not survive.

Even if he does manage to get the massed ranks of sycophants, grovellers and snouts-in-the troughs who gave him such an easy ride in Buenos Aires to back him at the ensuing congress. Even if, taking advantage of the fact that the findings of the FIFA investigative committee cannot be made known till after the May 29 Presidential Election in Seoul, even if he were confirmed Lord help us, as president, what kind of a president could he be? Not least if, after all these accusations of malfeasance, it transpired that he could be prosecuted under Swiss law.

And what of the future of the ineffable Jack Warner, King of the Caribbean, now it has been shown that FIFA made him a £6 million loan which has mysteriously been written off? Plus the £1.8 million provided for a "centre of excellence" in Port of Spain under the aegis of Warner's CONCACAF. To say nothing of that dubious project GOAL which seems little more than a means of sweetening third world FIFA members, and an unauthorised £35,000 payment to Blatter's discredited predecessor, Joao Havelange? Who, in his abysmal 24 years at the help, was lucky his secretary was called Blatter, not Zen Ruffinen. Another question.

How can Michel Platini and George Weah, renowned as estimable men, rationalize their support of Blatter? We know all too well why the German DFB has fallen into line; they've been made a huge payment towards their 2006 World Cup costs and that is in dispute, as well.

LET'S hear it, at the end of the Italian season, for Dario Huber, that gloriously irrepressible journeyman striker who, with a couple of goals in Piacenza's last game, ended as joint top scorer with Juventus' David Trezeguet.

True, the French international didn't score from any penalties, but then he was supported by a multi-million pound team; Hubner as is his wont was working in the shallows in deep provincial obscurity.

Not as if he has ever wanted it any differently. Now 35, he never even kicked a ball in Serie A till his debut with Brescia in September 1997. Which he celebrated with two goals at San Siro against Inter that were saved from humiliation only by a couple from another debutante, Uruguay's Lever Recta? His early seasons were spent with C2 and C1 clubs like Program and Fan.

What an object lesson and inspiration to players who can't at first crack it!

WATCHING Nourish crash at Millwall in their first league game of the season, who'd have believed they'd eventually break through to the play off final. Though by all rights they shouldn't be there at all.

Illogical, almost immoral, for them to have the opportunity to knock out Wolves who'd finish 11 points above them. More evidence that the play offs are no more than a cynical gimmick.

And now, Celtic and Rangers? What will happen if and when they play at Millwall?

Brian Glanville is Britain's most celebrated football writer. He also writes a monthly column in World Soccer magazine.

His latest book, a fully updated edition of THE STORY OF THE WORLD CUP is available in all good bookshops. Readers of worldsoccer.com can buy this highly-acclaimed history of the World Cup and enjoy a 10% discount by clicking here.