It’s like the death of Mrs Thatcher all over again. The end of an era. A temporal shift. A stopping of the clocks.

Which in Sir Alex’s case is appropriate. Over the course of his career the clocks stopped on numerous occasions; usually at Old Trafford when his side were trailing by the odd goal.
The laws of physics were occasionally suspended as well. Like the time United were awarded a goal even though they’d had four players standing in an offside position when the ball was played.

But this is churlish griping. His achievements speak for themselves. The titles. The doubles. The historic treble.

Here was a born leader of men. In fact, a moulder of men. Few managers could both identify, and bring the best out of, such disparate characters as Eric Cantona, David Beckham, Cristiano Ronaldo or Wayne Rooney. Fewer still could defy nature, as he did with his ludicrous elongation of the careers of Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes.

Ferguson had his faults. He was often exposed tactically, most notably in the 1999 Champions League final against Bayern Munich – when he got away with it – and the duels against Barcelona in 2009 and 2011, when he did not.

But his strength, unmatched by any of his contemporaries, was his ability to build a team infused with his own character. His greatest sides simply overwhelmed opponents with their pace and their power and their sheer hunger to win. The spectacle of them charging from box to box, in packs, was glorious, and terrifying to behold.
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