News of Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement brought to mind two scenes nearly three decades apart.
In the first, it is 11 May 1983 and I am with friends clustered around the TV in a cramped London apartment.
A strong Scottish contingent is hoping to witness a miracle: the humbling of Real Madrid by Ferguson’s new kids on the block from Aberdeen, a side built around the indefatigable Gordon Strachan and the formidable centre-back pairing of Alex McLeish and Willie Miller.
Scarcely believably, the miracle happens, thanks to a 112th minute winner from sub John Hewitt.
Fergie is on the map.
Fast forward to 5 March 2013 and I return to my car after watching a goalless draw in an English second-tier match between Bristol City and Brighton & Hove Albion, a match so tame that the visitors mustered not a single shot on- or off-target.
The radio lights up to reveal that Ferguson’s Manchester United have been knocked out of the Champions League by the same old adversaries, Real Madrid, once again with a 2-1 scoreline.
Ferguson was said to be too “distraught” to attend the post-match media conference.
The thought occurred to me then that this might be the moment when the greatest man-manager football has seen in the pay-TV era realised he was to be deprived of a dream send-off at Wembley against Barcelona, or another giant of the European game.
Thirty years is a long stretch in any walk of life; in top-level sport, with its short careers, which telescope time, it is an eon.
It is widely remembered that Ferguson’s United career began in November 1986 with a 2-0 defeat not against Real Madrid, but Oxford United, giants only of the Oxfordshire game.
People also recall that the Red Devils were very much at the wrong end of the old first division table – third from bottom after 14 games – although this still left them one place above local rivals Manchester City, the team that last season forced Ferguson to wait a year before delivering United’s 20th league title, now two ahead of Liverpool.
When Fergie arrived at Old Trafford, Ronald Reagan was in the White House, Mrs Thatcher at 10 Downing Street and the Reds from Merseyside had earlier that year secured their 16th title, against United’s seven.
Swansea City, now set to be the last Premier League visitors of Ferguson’s reign to the Theatre of Dreams, were vying for second place in the fourth division with the likes of Colchester United and Southend.
Oh and, according to Alan Dunn’s diary in my yellowing Manchester Guardian Weekly, Ferguson was “believed to have signed a four year contract worth £400,000”.
When you look at where United stand today, and at the role Ferguson has played in putting them there, that has to go down quite simply as the best investment in the history of football, perhaps of any sport.
Of course you don’t achieve what Ferguson has achieved, or anything like it, without a profound understanding of tactics and training-ground drills.
But if I had to choose one quality that set him apart from his peers, I’d say it was his keen understanding of human nature.
The son of a Glasgow shipbuilder, Ferguson has seen a thing or two of life outside the football bubble in a way that the last generation or two of European players – fast-tracked, some of them, to the top from an early age – very often have not.
In his innate shrewdness in dealing with other people and his attention to detail, Ferguson reminds me very much of Guy Roux, the great Auxerre manager, just three years Sir Alex’s senior, who also looked as though he might go on forever prior to his retirement in 2005.
Ferguson’s retirement as manager has been announced before – almost 12 years ago, creating just as big a splash, even without the help of Twitter, which, it seems, was generating 13,000 Ferguson-related Tweets per minute at its peak on Wednesday at 9.34am UK time.
This time, though, there seems little room for doubt that this is the end.
For one thing, he is older, at 71; for another, his interest in a potentially absorbing hobby – National Hunt racing – appears to be growing.
Two days ahead of last month’s Manchester derby, he was pictured at Aintree following the fortunes of two outsiders he partly owned in the Grand National, one of horseracing’s most famous contests.
I would not be in the least surprised to see him leading in a Grand National winner before he is done.
David Owen worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 2010 World Cup and London 2012. Owen’s Twitter feed can be accessed at www.twitter.com/dodo938