Sir Alex Ferguson’s half-time team talks seldom became dialogues.
More often than not, the legendary Manchester United manager would issue a one-way tirade towards his players in an act which became known as his hairdryer treatment.
Many men felt Fergie’s fury throughout the Scot’s 27-year spell in charge of the Red Devils and few had the courage to stand up to him.
But Paul McGrath was an exception to that.
“What are you doing passing the ball back?” Ferguson bellowed at McGrath from close range during a friendly game against Altrincham.
McGrath’s had been a United player for several years and he had seen Ferguson distribute that kind of treatment on more than one occasion up to that point.
But the then-Ireland international refused to tolerate it that day.
“I said, ‘Shhh! I can hear you. Calm down, calm down’. At that stage I was really going to say, if you want to duke it out we can do it,” McGrath told Manchester Evening News.
“I was so upset because I was being belittled. To be picked out because I made one mistake in the whole of the first half annoyed me and then I started standing up for myself, but I should not have done it in front of the kids.
“That made me feel ill about it afterwards.”
McGrath had been offered a testimonial match by Ferguson at the age of 29 but the defender instead decided to take his talents to Aston Villa.
He spent seven years with Villa and when he came face-to-face with Fergie after the 1994 League Cup final, which Villa won 3-1, McGrath still regretted undermining his former gaffer.
“I wanted to apologise for the way I had spoken to him and had that thing on my mind,” McGrath said. “I had never spoken to another manager that way.
“I had never said shhh to anyone, even when I did get barked at, so that was playing on my mind but after ’94, I think it was the League Cup final, he just came up to me and gave me a big punch in the chest and said, ‘Well done big man’. I just said, ‘Thank you very much’.”
