Lights, cameras, action! Sir Alex Ferguson strides on stage to thunderous applause. The Boss claps back. We might as well be at Old Trafford, scene of so many of Manchester United’s triumphs under Sir Alex, the most successful football manager in history.
Tonight the venue is London’s Barbican and I am facing one of the toughest assignments of my career: an hour-long conversation with a man whose prickliness toward journalists is legendary. The good news is that Sir Alex, who retired last May, looks to be on best behaviour. He is promoting his new book, unfussily entitled My Autobiography (his second, in fact), which he tells me has already sold more than 300,000 copies. My job is to encourage him to talk about leadership, management and football.
Sir Alex’s team, led by his son Jason, have been meticulous in their pre-match preparation: no audience questions, no recording, no video-streaming and no tweeting. One hour, and not a minute more. But I am no slouch either: I have read dozens of press cuttings, a Harvard Business School case study on his 27-year tenure at Manchester United, and three books, including Michael Crick’s highly readable if irreverent biography The Boss.