Stories
Every time Manchester United are mentioned or reference is made to Sir Alex Ferguson, I think of the journalist Gerald Barry. We knew him as Gerry.
At least one generation now working in our reporting trade probably never heard of him. But anyone fortunate enough to share the space with him quickly realised he was exceptional.
Gerry started working in RTÉ during the 1970s when the organisation was in a golden phase. Radio was more powerful than television then, driven by the News Features radio team, started by Mike Burns and Seán Duignan. The new unit was a magnet for talent, the likes of Gerry, Kevin Healy, Dick Hogan, Kevin O’Kelly, Olivia O’Leary, Brendan Keenan, Shane Kenny and a rookie Joe O’Brien.
Gerry had studied politics and economics at UCD. He loved detail and nuance. It was such an interesting time to be in journalism. Ireland was taking the first tentative steps from black and white life to technicolour. Northern Ireland was simmering. There were so many big personalities and rows – Charlie Haughey, Garret Fitzgerald, Margaret Thatcher – Labour trying to grow.
He also had an unconditional love for Manchester United. He didn’t just know the personalities and statistics of the reserve teams. He tracked the underage sides and all sorts of obscure factors that might have an influence at some stage of the performance of the first 11.
In 1999, I had a chance to do him a good turn.
One of the many wonderful sides of my twelve-year stint working for RTÉ in Brussels involved covering sports fixtures on mainland Europe. As Manchester United had a substantial Irish following and Denis Irwin and Roy Keane were in their first 11, the club was newsworthy for our audience.
It was always possible to swing an extra ticket for the ‘fixer/security detail/sound recordist’ role to accompany the reporter and cameraman. RTÉ newsroom colleague Richard Crowley took holidays and made his way to Turin for the role in the 1999 semi-final second leg against Juventus.
That was the night Roy Keane dragged United from the bin, scored the first goal in their fightback, outshone Zidane, but picked up a yellow card which ruled him out of the final in driving his side to qualify for that game in Barcelona.
Richard put his name on the fixer ticket for the showdown against Bayern Munich. But the newshound in him intervened as the final approached. He was heading for what is now Myanmar, hustling for a promised interview with Aung San Suu Kyi.
The match in Barcelona was set for a Wednesday night. By Monday morning Crowley gave up on the possibility of getting to it.
Making the call to Gerry Barry brought more pleasure than delivering news of a Lotto win. All connections from Dublin to Spain, or even a hop through the UK were booked out. Gerry used a credit card to secure a pathway via Amsterdam.
From high up in the Camp Nou stadium we watched a United side, without the suspended Keane and Scholes, struggle. Basler gave Bayern the lead with a free kick in the 6th minute and they almost scored twice in the second half.
As the game drew to a conclusion and Bayern in the driving seat, Gerry was in benign mode. The previous weekend he had been to Wembley and seen United beat Newcastle 2-0 in the FA Cup final. His beloved club were league champions for the fourth successive year and there was no shame in being beaten Champions League finalists.
Then Teddy Sherringham got an injury time equaliser and in less than two minutes another sub, Solskjaer, stabbed in the winner.
In the pandemonium after the final whistle, we made our way down to the area of the stadium where some of the reporters queued behind barriers, waiting for the players to pass on their journey to the team bus.
It was a side of the spectacle Gerry hadn’t seen before. Eventually, in dribs and drabs, the exhausted athletes began to emerge. The RTÉ microphone cover acted as a marker for Denis Irwin and true to his mannerly nature, he always obliged.
Roy Keane was one of the last to emerge. He had been wearing the official club suit on the side line all during the game. It must have been excruciatingly difficult for a gladiator to be tethered like that. He walked quickly past the microphone but the quarter smirk on his face suggested there might be a turn in him and sure enough, after pleas, he came back, and answered a question or two.
In March 2011, Gerry Barry was seriously ill in Beaumont Hospital after a series of brain haemorrhages the previous year. I got in to see him towards the end of a visiting times slot and he was alone. I did the talking as his energy levels were low. It was an opportunity to say thanks to him on many levels.
There was a beautiful moment. When the Nou Camp adventure was raised, a boy-like smile came to Gerry’s face and there was a sense of joy in his eyes.
That was the parting memory.
*****
Earlier this month I finally made the space to watch the Sir Alex Ferguson documentary, Never Give In, directed by one of his three sons, Jason. It provides many insights into the greatest footballer manager of modern times, including his brain haemorrhage in 2018 and the aftermath.
He identifies that 1999 Champions League final victory as his sweetest of all as it allowed him match the achievement of his fellow Scot, Matt Busby, when United won the European Cup in 1968.
The documentary includes remarkable footage, focusing on Ferguson on the side line during those crucial minutes when the result was pulled from the fire in Barcelona. One of those he hugged soon after the final whistle was a suited Roy Keane. Their shared joy is palpable.
My first up-close access to Ferguson came in May 1991. His life at Old Trafford was on the turn. After his three miserable seasons as United manager, the club had managed to win a trophy – the FA Cup.
They had drawn the final 3-3 against Crystal Palace and for the replay Ferguson dropped his goalkeeper, Jim Leighton, the fellow Scot he brought from his former club Aberdeen. Leighton never spoke to him again.
To this day Ferguson believes it was the right decision. The replacement, Les Sealey, wasn’t a better goalkeeper “but he thought he was.” United won the replay 1-0.
The victory gained them entry to the European Cup Winners Cup competition and they worked their way to the final. It was against FC Barcelona in the Feijenoord Stadium, Rotterdam. Mark Hughes scored twice for United against his former Spanish club, Dutchman Ronald Koeman scored a consolation goal for Barcelona – a free kick that hit the upright and crossed the line off the legs of goalkeeper Les Sealey.
That occasion was unusual for the lack of formalities immediately after the trophy presentation. Our “fixer” that night was a Co Waterford man, Tom Mulhall. His son, Dan, then the Department of Foreign Affairs press officer in Brussels and now Ireland’s ambassador in Washington, had to pass on the ticket offer so his visiting father was glad to replace him.
There was a function area in an upstairs section of the stadium where United players and officials were gathered. Tom Mulhall spotted how the parents of Bryan Robson, the United captain, were struggling to get past a Dutch security man. Tom made a case that we were keen to interview the Robsons, alongside their son. It got them entry to the celebrations. Half an hour later Tom had Bryan Robson in a corner, quizzing him on whether recent signing, Denis Irwin, had the talents to nail down a first team place in the side.
But the abiding memory from that night was the sight of Ferguson. The sense of relief was flowing from him. One of the travelling journalists in the company that night was David Meek, the chief Manchester United reporter on the Manchester Evening News. Every so often Ferguson would catch his eye and give him the thumbs up. It was if he was saying thank you for backing me when others doubted.
In the ‘Never Give In’ documentary, Ferguson says when you get an opportunity you have to take it.
*****
After United won the first of the five league titles of the 90’s under Ferguson, gaining them entry to the Champions league, opportunities for brief chats with the manager arose. The typical format was a pre-match press conference on the eve of a game and a better attended after-match few minutes. For minnows on the hunt for a quick interview, the earlier one was always the better chance.
At one of those, in the informal banter, Ferguson asked about my accent. When I mentioned Sligo and my club, Sligo Rovers, a door opened.
In the “Never Give In” documentary, Alex Ferguson mentions his younger brother, Martin. They grew up in the Glasgow area of Govan, close to Ibrox, home of Glasgow Rangers. Their father worked in the shipyards for 40 years. At a time in their childhood Martin was being bullied and Alex called round to the culprit’s house. The father wouldn’t let him past the front door but Alex sought out the bully in school and that was the end of Martin’s problems.
That same Martin Ferguson went on to manage Waterford FC. According to Alex, after a match in Sligo Showgrounds, the dynamo on the Waterford bus stopped working and Martin drove the team the long road south, through the darkness, with a scout car up ahead, its headlines on full beams.
From then on, a reference to ‘how is the brother?’ or a mention of Sligo often worked to attract the Manchester United manager’s attention during informal media gatherings.
We got Fergie to Sligo in the summer of 2002. In fact, he gave the go-ahead by mobile phone to sign Rio Ferdinand while playing golf in Rosses Point.
The carrot that persuaded the Manchester United manager to travel to the north west of Ireland was linked to his earlier life. He was acknowledging a Sligoman, Seán Fallon, who helped him on his way when assistance and direction were in short supply.
Ferguson is from a mixed marriage – his mother was a Catholic, his father a Protestant. It was his father who insisted that he serve an apprenticeship as a toolmaker in the shipyards and get a qualification, in case his football career failed. He met his future wife, Cathy, in the factory. She was a devout Catholic. They agreed there would be no ‘chapel wedding’ and instead were married in a Glasgow Registry Office.
He was playing football part-time while following his trade as a toolmaker. The most important game he played was when he scored a hat trick for St. Johnstone against Rangers at Ibrox. The Glasgow club later signed him for £65,000, a then record transfer fee between two Scottish clubs. He had only two years at the top level and he has always harboured the feeling that some senior figures at Rangers resented the fact that his wife was a Catholic.
The Never Give In documentary has wonderful footage of the 1969 Scottish Cup Final when Ferguson’s task at corners was to mark the Celtic captain, Billy McNeill. There are images of Ferguson holding his hands to his head in horror after McNeill powers a corner into the Rangers net. Celtic pushed on to a 4-0 victory and Ferguson was quickly dispatched to what became a lesser life, playing a further five years with Falkirk and Ayr.
Celtic were kingpins in Scotland during that formative period in Ferguson’s life. They accumulated nine successive Scottish league titles between 1965 and 1974 and became the first British side to lift the European Cup, in a famous victory over Inter Milan at the Stadium of Light in Lisbon in 1967.
Celtic were managed by a Scot, Jock Stein, and his assistant, Seán Fallon. It was Alex Ferguson’s interactions with Seán Fallon that brought him to Sligo.
Fallon was brought up in a local authority house in a working-class area of Sligo town. His father, John, was one of the thousands of Irishmen who served in the British Army during World War I. He was a great athlete with a passion for fitness. Before starting work in a local bakery, he would run several miles. He was a handy boxer but football – Gaelic and soccer – was his first love.
He played for Sligo Rovers and also for the Sligo GAA team. He once scored two goals against the great Kerry goalkeeper, Dan O’Keeffe, in a National Football League quarter final, staged in The Showgrounds.
In August 1949, he crossed the border to sign for Glenavon FC. When the offer to sign for Celtic came six months later, Fallon was earning more as a part-timer and baker in Northern Ireland but money wasn’t the deciding factor.
At Celtic he became known as The Iron Man. It was the era when substitutes weren’t allowed. In one game, after being treated for an injury he returned to the pitch with his arm in a sling and finished out the match.
He once said of himself, “I was just an ordinary player with a big heart and a fighting spirit to recommend me.” Traits with which Ferguson would identify. But there was another reason for their bond.
As Ferguson was beginning his life as a manager, firstly as a part-timer, he was desperate for knowledge and the chance to respond to some of the disappointments and lessons from his playing career. Celtic’s successful management duo, Stein and Fallon, and their wives, would eat in the same Glasgow restaurant most Saturday nights, The Beechwood near Hampden Park. Alex Ferguson made it his business to be there.
He found that Jock Stein was slow to engage and part with knowledge. It was a different story with Seán Fallon. In a way he became a mentor of sorts to the rookie manager, desperately keen to succeed. Gratitude for that help at a formative time in his life brought Alex Ferguson to Sligo, almost 30 years later, to attend a function honouring Seán Fallon.
*****
A decade passed before I was in Alex Ferguson’s company again. At that stage my adventures at big European football nights were well and truly over and I had chalked up twelve years as RTÉ’s Belfast-based Northern Editor.
I had a chance to make a Nationwide programme about Seán Fallon’s life and it included the pursuit of his missing Irish caps. He had played eight times for the Republic of Ireland (and once for a North/South Irish league eleven) in the 1950-55 period but most of the caps had not been provided by the authorities.
Fallon was 90 and keen to get hold of the awards to pass on to his grandchildren. To be fair to John Delaney, he eventually came up with the missing caps.
One weekday evening in late 2012 Alex Ferguson made a quick dash from Manchester to Belfast to attend an event honouring Harry Gregg, the legendary goalkeeper who had survived United’s Munich Air Crash in 1958. The word put out by the club press office was the manager would be doing no interviews.
After Ferguson received details of my request for a contribution to the Seán Fallon programme, the access policy changed. He made himself available to talk about his friend.
Early in January 2013, I was with Seán Fallon and his wife, Myra, in their Glasgow living room, interviewing them and filming Seán as he played with his grandchildren, wearing his Republic of Ireland caps. It was the gathering of the final sequences for the Nationwide programme.
We didn’t know it then but there was something beautiful about the symmetry. A few days later Seán passed away suddenly.
Alex Ferguson didn’t just break away from a scheduled Manchester United’s club promotional trip abroad to attend the funeral. He gave the eulogy from the altar in a Glasgow Catholic church, where the congregation included the then Rangers manager, Ally McCoist.
In the cemetery Ferguson quietly called me aside. He knew I had been involved in what was Seán Fallon’s final interview and was keen to know about what sort of form his friend was in during those last days of him life.
It was one of those exchanges that stays with you, like that time with Gerry Barry in Beaumont Hospital.
That magical quality of sport, how it quietly leads us to what matters.
