Advertisement

Sir Alex Ferguson almost moved to Canada in playing days, which could have changed history

andrew bucholtz

It's always fun to ponder what could have been, and famed former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson has given the world a great example of that with comments about how he almost moved to Canada. As part of a tour promoting his new autobiography last month, Ferguson told an audience in England that when he was struggling as a player with Scottish club St. Johnstone's reserve team in the early 1960s, he just about left for across the ocean. From The Daily Mirror:

As a young striker in his early twenties, Ferguson was going through a difficult time. Plying his trade with the Scottish side St. Johnstone's reserve team he was struggling to see regular action at first-team level and The Saints were in the midst of a miserable run, losing 9-1, 10-2 and 8-0.

As a result Ferguson made a decision to take his life in a different direction.

"I once got the papers to emigrate to Canada," said Ferguson, speaking in Govan as part of his book tour.

"I went to Canada House on the corner of Waterloo Street and Hope Street in Glasgow and put them in a drawer in the house while I made my mind up."

It was another decision and some outside interference that kept Ferguson from following through, though:

While questioning the way forward, Ferguson decided to feign illness ahead of a reserve game while other players were missing through legitimate injuries.

As such, a female friend contacted manager Bobby Brown on a Friday afternoon but the man who would go on to become Scotland manager in 1967 gave Ferguson his own taste of what has now become known as "the hairdryer".

"He told me I was a disgrace and to report the next day because there were players who were genuinely injured," said Ferguson.

"And I scored a hat-trick – my first ever. It changed my life and from that day I always tell people, 'Don’t miss your opportunities.'

"Nine months later I found the Canada papers in the drawer. I never did sign them."

That's a pretty remarkable story, and it could have changed the course of world soccer. If Ferguson didn't stick with St. Johnstone and become an impressive player in Scotland, it's unlikely he would have become a manager there. If he didn't manage at small clubs there, maybe he never got a chance to run Aberdeen and the Scottish national team, and maybe he never took over Manchester United. Without him, do the Red Devils become a dominant team in the 1990s and 2000s, winning 13 Premier League titles, five FA Cups and two Champions League titles? Does the Premier League reach the heights of international popularity it has today?

Meanwhile, what about Canada? If Ferguson had kept playing soccer on this side of the ocean, would he have wound up in something like the old Eastern Canada Professional Soccer League, or the very early days of the NASL? Might he have gone on to be a successful manager here and lead Canadian teams to greater success than they experienced? Could he even have taken over the Canadian national team and led them to more than one World Cup appearance? Or maybe he would have quit the sport entirely, and like another European celebrity, taken up working at Pizza Pizza? We'll never know, but it's certainly interesting to contemplate...