Q & A: Sir Alex Ferguson

Sir Alex Ferguson spoke on stage to Jim Rosenthal at the Player of the Year awards..

You've just seen a video montage from MUTV, how does that make you feel?
I think I'll be able to enjoy it now looking back. I think it's a different perspective looking back as, having managed the club for that length of time, I was always looking forward not back but now I can reflect on my career a bit more.

You've not finished yet - there's a game on Sunday..
Exactly. We've got to win the game on Sunday. West Brom will want to win their last home game but I don't want to lose my last game, that's for sure.

Did you want to go out as a winner?
It was an issue. When Cathy and I chatted about it at Christmas, at that time, we had a five-point lead. I thought we had a great chance and I said we really need to win something. With the disappointment last year, I couldn't take a second one. I was hopeful we would win it and we did and then, in March, I let the club know.

You've managed to win the league at a canter..
I don't think it was a canter but I think we had a terrific points lead. The problem when you've got the lead is when you start to lose a point or two, we lost to City on the Monday night for instance, and you start saying: 'Christ, we can't throw this away'. Fortunately, the next week, we played at Stoke and were terrific and then we went down to West Ham, their crew, and we had to battle in these games. I thought then we'd be okay.

Was it hard to keep your decision to retire under wraps?
I mean sometimes I was sitting with my family and you forget you're actually going to retire and talk about next year. You're afraid you're going to blurt something else but I didn't tell my sons until the end of March, well Jason knew earlier as he works a lot with me. I only told my brother the night before it was announced and he wasn't too pleased! I got a bit of invective off him. It was difficult but the club knew in March. We sat down and discussed it and, of course, David [Gill] is retiring too and it gave me a problem as I didn't want to think we'd be leaving the club in the lurch you know.

Were you happy that it was largely kept out of the media?
The rumour started out didn't it? On Tuesday night, the rumour has gone out and it's hard to keep things intact at Old Trafford. It's a bit of a sieve at times and news seems to creep out from all different angles and sources. I've tried over the years to eliminate these leakages of news getting out. I always thought, over the last 10 years especially, a part of my job is to keep us out of the news, which is nigh on impossible. You have to accept we are news but there's a difference between good news and bad news. I always tried to keep the bad news away from the club and that's difficult in the modern day.

What qualities does David Moyes have as your replacement?
What I know of David is he's hard working and has an integrity about him. He's also got a work ethic about him and he's a serious football man. I think these are the qualities he's going to need. He's got a perseverance about him - look at what he's done at Everton. 11 years without any tremendous financial backing but he's persevered with it and created some decent teams in the last few years. They are the qualities he's going to need at our club. The one thing you have to do is definitely sacrifice and persevere - it's not always a golden path of riches. You have hard days and difficult days especially with the losses. We lost in the last seconds - for 10 seconds we were champions last year - but that's part of our history and we're used to that. Our supporters have suffered many things but also enjoyed many things. It's just part of our history.

You said here last year that the fightback would start from now..
Absolutely. There was nothing to be ashamed of last year. You can all analyse it in many ways and you do that every time. We lost at Norwich this year and I was saying: 'Christ, this could cost us the league'. You think that way, it's instinct and the natural way of handling things. You know a defeat means something at this club but, in context, you win games and say we were a bit lucky, so it balances out. The name of the game is to be points ahead of the rest.

Has it been an emotional week or so for you?
Yes, it definitely has been. On Sunday, I did what I had to do and I thought I did it well. I didn't show my emotion too much. When I announced to the staff, I was a bit blubby, you know. I think, funnily enough, the last few days have been hard and Monday night, after the parade, I slept for 10 hours. I think it was the first time in my life. I was absolutely gone - knackered! I didn't go in [to work]. I don't know what time it was but I kept feeling the presence of Cathy coming into the bedroom. I think she was checking I was still alive!