May 31 – Fergie Fired | On This Football Day

May 31 – Fergie Fired

ALEX Ferguson “has no managerial ability.”

Not our words, but those of Willie Todd, the St Mirren chairman who sacked Alex Ferguson today in 1978.

Todd is the only man to have ever fired Ferguson and unless the Scot makes a habit of having his team not turn up like they did in Rome last week, he’ll remain so.

Fergie was made St Mirren boss in 1974 and built up an attacking, young side that won promotion to the top flight in 1977. With the crowds flocking to Love Street, the future looked bright.

Todd had other ideas though, and sacked the Glaswegian, claiming various breaches of contracts, such as unauthorised payments to players. Fergie didn’t take it lying down and took the club to a tribunal.

Ferguson came out of the tribunal looking pretty bad – his behaviour whilst at the club was described as “particularly petty” and “immature” after he intimidated his office secretary because he wanted his players to get tax-free expenses.

The tribunal heard how after six weeks of blanking her and confiscating her keys, he would only communicate through a 17-year-old secretarial assistant. Fergie lost the case and was given no leave to appeal.

Todd later admitted that the reason he sacked Ferguson was that his manager had agreed to join Aberdeen in a breach of contract. “I had no option but to sack him in the end,” he said.

Fergie then indeed went on to join Aberdeen where he would win three SPL titles, four Scottish Cups and the Cup Winners’ Cup in his eight year spell. This caught the attention of the Old Trafford hierarchy and the rest, as they say, is history.

Sadly, we can’t show you the look on Fergie’s face when Todd gave him the boot, but we’d like to imagine it resembled this clip below. Click here to see which Premier League flop came to these shores today and as the slow descent into a football-less summer continues, come back tomorrow for your daily football fix.