Sir Alex Ferguson’s autobiography to be published on 24 October

I agree with that. It's a good read, but that is the bad point. Someone else said they thought it was like an interview. From the comments made by Bosnich, Keane and Beckham and Hargreaves, they think it should be in the fiction category as well.

It is basically an interview.

This should not be called an autobiography unless Fergie got out a typewriter and did the hard work himself.
 
It is basically an interview.

This should not be called an autobiography unless Fergie got out a typewriter and did the hard work himself.

Don't think you get many of them nowadays, people, especially football managers don't have the time to write them. You wonder if he was making notes of his thoughts or if Paul Hayward asked him loads of questions and the book was compiled. Would Sir Alex have spoken about some of the people he did or was he only answering Hayward's questions.
 
Maybe in the sporting world where people don't want to put in the effort and want a quick payday.

These types of "authorised biographies" are generally rushed and usually pretty terrible (there are some good ones of course).


Agreed, generally. I'll still read Fergie's though because he's an interesting bloke.
 
Maybe in the sporting world where people don't want to put in the effort and want a quick payday.

Not exactly. Writing a book is not that simple, if you are expecting it to sell. So you hire a writer to do it for you. Someone who has knowledge of the literary world, can help put your thoughts in a format that may be acceptable to a wider populace. It's more of a question of expertise than a quick payday.
 
Not exactly. Writing a book is not that simple, if you are expecting it to sell. So you hire a writer to do it for you. Someone who has knowledge of the literary world, can help put your thoughts in a format that may be acceptable to a wider populace. It's more of a question of expertise than a quick payday.

I can understand someone like Wayne Rooney needing help with his "autobiography", not Fergie.
 
Not exactly. Writing a book is not that simple, if you are expecting it to sell. So you hire a writer to do it for you. Someone who has knowledge of the literary world, can help put your thoughts in a format that may be acceptable to a wider populace. It's more of a question of expertise than a quick payday.

That's usually what a publisher helps you with, to be fair.
 
I can understand someone like Wayne Rooney needing help with his "autobiography", not Fergie.

Nope. The autobiographies of people like Bill Clinton etc also were ghostwritten. Just being educated does not make a good writer.

That's usually what a publisher helps you with, to be fair.

Publisher enahnces a writers contribution, like making it smaller, snappier, two volumes etc...but it does not replace a writer's work!
 
Publisher enahnces a writers contribution, like making it smaller, snappier, two volumes etc...but it does not replace a writer's work!

That's what I meant. If Fergie wrote a pile of work about his life it'd be up to a good publisher to arrange it into a format he knew would sell. Very different to actually writing it for him, like a ghost writer.
 
That's what I meant. If Fergie wrote a pile of work about his life it'd be up to a good publisher to arrange it into a format he knew would sell. Very different to actually writing it for him, like a ghost writer.


I don't quite remember how much, but I do seem to recall that Fergie said he wrote a crapload, then Hayward helped him compile and organize it.
 
Beckham won't criticise Fergie

David Beckham has refused to openly criticise Sir Alex Ferguson for comments about him in his autobiography.

The former Manchester United manager has revealed he sold Beckham to Real Madrid in 2003 because he felt the former England captain had lost his focus.
But Beckham has no ill feelings toward the man who nurtured his career at United and admits he wants Ferguson to manage his Major League Soccer franchise.

Beckham, who was speaking to fans on his Facebook page at the launch of his new autobiography, said: "I'm not going to sit here and be negative about a man who gave me the chance to play for my boyhood team. That I'd always dreamt of playing for.
"For me, like I said, he gave me the chance to do that. He believed in me, he believed in the rest of the young lads that came through with us.
He joked: "Funny thing was, obviously I'm involved in the MLS and I'm involved in bringing my own franchise into the league and actually he was one of the first numbers that I was going to call to be manager, but I'm not so sure anymore. I'm not sure he'd accept.

"All joking aside, at the end of the day, I wouldn't be negative about Sir Alex Ferguson because he was the man that gave me the chance to live my dream.
Beckham is planning to set up his MLS franchise in Miami, although an ownership deal is yet to be agreed.

The 38-year-old admits he is relishing the challenge of setting up an American team following his successful playing career at Los Angeles Galaxy.
Beckham said: "When I signed my contract six, seven years ago, my manager Simon Fuller actually got a clause in the contract that enabled me to have a franchise at the end of my playing career and obviously now I've stopped playing.

"A year before we started looking around at different places. Miami was obviously one of them. We've looked at other places as well, but I'm excited about that. I'm passionate about it. I'm passionate about staying involved in football. An owner of a team is something I'm passionate about."

http://www.football365.com/news/21554/8999553/Beckham-Won-t-Criticise-Fergie


I'm pretty sure this would have already been posted but this is why Becks remains one of my all time favourite United players, even above the likes of Ronaldo etc. A bit of a celebrity but a very classy guy who loves this club.
 
Started reading last night. It reads completely differently to any other book I've read, even in the early days he seems utterly ruthless.
 
I'm pretty sure this would have already been posted but this is why Becks remains one of my all time favourite United players, even above the likes of Ronaldo etc. A bit of a celebrity but a very classy guy who loves this club.

Every time I nearly get over my man crush he comes out with something like this.
 
¿So did the gaffer have anything to say about Berbatov or Tevez?

On Berbatov he said:

I felt he would make a difference because he had a certain composure and awareness that we lacked among our group of strikers. He displayed the ability of Cantona or Sheringham: not lightning quick, but he could lift his head and make a creative pass. I thought he could bring us up a level and extend our range of talents.

He was not short of belief in his ability, but it was based on his way of playing ... when the ball broke down he was inclined to walk. You couldn't do that at our place.
 
Have only read about a quarter of the book so far, and am enjoying it. However there are certain inaccuracies you'd sport. E.g. he said that Veron and Heinze had a run in after a game at Portmouth one year, yet Veron left the year before Heinze joined. Also little things like saying Stam played against United when he was 36, he was 32. Stam was 30 when he left, he was actually 29. And Keane played for United for 11 years, when he was actually there for over 12.
 
Have only read about a quarter of the book so far, and am enjoying it. However there are certain inaccuracies you'd sport. E.g. he said that Veron and Heinze had a run in after a game at Portmouth one year, yet Veron left the year before Heinze joined. Also little things like saying Stam played against United when he was 36, he was 32. Stam was 30 when he left, he was actually 29. And Keane played for United for 11 years, when he was actually there for over 12.


Yeah, I was a bit puzzled about that as well. A bit weird that it was not picked up during editing.
 
Hayward had all that great material - and still made a dog's dinner of it.
 
Ok, what the feck is it with all this media negativity towards Fergie? The Gerrard fuss was way OTT and it's still going on. Todays Mirror I read the Brian Reade column and he claims Beckham not hitting back at Fergie shows he's a bigger, better man. And he actually finished the article with the line "Whereas Ferguson just looks like the bitter, insecure bully he’s always been."

How is this allowed to happen in national newspapers? A genuine agenda against Ferguson because he knocked Liverpool off their fecking perch. The pricks.
 
Who gives a feck about some no-hoper, shite journalist or two? The fact is Fergie is still haunting those even now that he finished his tenure at United.
 
Ok, what the feck is it with all this media negativity towards Fergie? The Gerrard fuss was way OTT and it's still going on. Todays Mirror I read the Brian Reade column and he claims Beckham not hitting back at Fergie shows he's a bigger, better man. And he actually finished the article with the line "Whereas Ferguson just looks like the bitter, insecure bully he’s always been."

How is this allowed to happen in national newspapers? A genuine agenda against Ferguson because he knocked Liverpool off their fecking perch. The pricks.


It's funny how it was ok for those rags to start some shit discussion about 'Scholes vs Gerrard' and then keep praising captain Starfish for no particular reason while writing Scholesy off, but once Fergie had his say in this debate ( albeit a tad late ) they're all butthurt because he's saying how it is.

From perspective of a Pole you'd think that with Gerrard England has won all the world cups, european cups and feck knows what more.
 
Everything else notwithstanding I find it astounding that they're trying to portray Fergie as bitter. A bully? Perhaps, looked upon from a certain perspective - but bitter? At who? Rafa? Keano? Stevie G? It makes no sense. They have cause to feel bitter, perhaps - but he surely hasn't. He has swept the floor with all of them in one sense or another. The only people mentioned in the book a truly bitter man might have cause to resent, are being praised in no uncertain terms: Pep Guardiola and his three musketeers, who denied Fergie two CL trophies.
 
Ok, what the feck is it with all this media negativity towards Fergie? The Gerrard fuss was way OTT and it's still going on. Todays Mirror I read the Brian Reade column and he claims Beckham not hitting back at Fergie shows he's a bigger, better man. And he actually finished the article with the line "Whereas Ferguson just looks like the bitter, insecure bully he’s always been."

How is this allowed to happen in national newspapers? A genuine agenda against Ferguson because he knocked Liverpool off their fecking perch. The pricks.

Reade is the chairman of the Fergie hate club. Nothing he says can be taken seriously. Every column he has ever written contains a dig at Fergie.
 
Reade is the chairman of the Fergie hate club. Nothing he says can be taken seriously. Every column he has ever written contains a dig at Fergie.

I know he is, it's just annoying that he gets away with it. Writing shit like "Ferguson just looks like the bitter, insecure bully he’s always been." as if it's fact, to who knows how many readers nationwide.
 
It used to be one of the better tabloids if there is such a thing, but now it's just the Star/Sun without tits on page 3.
 
E.g. he said that Veron and Heinze had a run in after a game at Portmouth one year, yet Veron left the year before Heinze joined.


He was talking about Keane having a run in with Veron and how timid Veron's response was. He was contrasting this with Heinze having run in with Keane and how Heinze was willing to fight Keane.

So he was talking about Keane and Heinze having a run in after the Portsmouth match, not Veron.
 
How many did you spot?


Disgruntled Customer Offered Refund After Noting 45 ‘Factual Errors’ In Sir Alex Ferguson’s Autobiography


“…then we whupped Barcelona at the Stadio Olimpico; I remember it clear as day…”
One customer has been offered a refund by the publishers of Sir Alex Ferguson’s latest autobiography after noting 45 ‘factual errors’ included in the 402 pages of the book.
According to the Daily Mirror, the inaccuracies include Fergie’s claim that United got 11 years of service out of former captain Roy Keane when in fact they had 12, extolling the magnificence of Rio Ferdinand’s performance against Man City in the semi-final of the Carling Cup at Old Trafford in 2009 when it was actually the following year, asserting that Ryan Giggs made his United debut aged 16 (he was 17) and the recollection of having his pacemaker fitted in April 2002 when it actually went in in March of 2004.
As we mentioned at the top, one disgruntled reader noticed a few of these factual accuracies creeping in and then set about counting the number of errors – 45 in total – before sending an email to the book’s publishers, Hodder and Stoughton, to complain.
The Mirror are reporting that the CEO of Hodder and Stoughton, Jamie Hodder-Williams, is “understood to have replied by email to the individual in question” and “offered a full refund” in exchange for the return of the book, with the paper quoting Mr Hodder-Williams as writing:
“We did in fact go through several stages of fact-checking with this book, with a reading from within Manchester United as well as from a specialist football fact-checker.
“Although a very large number of corrections were made we plainly did not pick up everything. Possible corrections that have so far been helpfully pointed out are being checked and will be included in future reprints.
“I am sorry that you feel that your expenditure on the book was not worthwhile. If you would like to send the book to me at our head office address, stating where you bought the book and at what price, we will refund your expenditure and postage.”
A spokeswoman for Hodder and Stoughton then confirmed that a member of the public was indeed not happy with the errors in the book and has since been refunded the full purchase price.
To be fair, the memoirs of most 71-year-old men would be a little on the “loose” side. 45 errors is actually not a bad result for Sir Alex, especially when you factor in all the post-match Chateauneuf du Pape he’s gotten through in his time.

http://www.whoateallthepies.tv/man_utd/179899/disgruntled-customer-offered-refund-after-noting-45-factual-errors-in-sir-alex-fergusons-autobiography.html?


Top 10 here:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/sir-alex-ferguson-autobiography-top-2804400?