“I said ‘Come on then!”
Former Manchester United star Paul Ince reveals that Alex Ferguson once ‘went for him’ after a heated dressing room row that nearly got out of hand.
Ferguson was famed for his ‘hair-dryer’ outbursts and short temper, but they weren’t exclusively saved for defeats, as the Scotland native could be just as furious even when his side won.
Speaking on the Up Front podcast, Ince explained why the manager was furious with him, despite getting the three points.
“It happened after a game away at Norwich. We were 3-1 up and I’d had a very good game, I was playing really well. In the last five minutes, I tried to beat one or two players with the ball and got caught – that was it.
“We get into the changing room, everyone is high-fiving and saying ‘What a great result’. Sir Alex Ferguson comes in shouting and I’m thinking, ‘What’s he going mad for, we’ve just won 3-1?’
Little did Ince know, he was about to go from delight at winning a football match, to almost coming to blows with the most powerful figure in English football at the time.
“He singles me out – ‘You, you’re not Ryan Giggs or Andrei Kanchelskis. Your job is to pass the ball!’ I said, ‘What the f*** are you on about?’
“He’s hollering and shouting, and getting closer and closer. I wasn’t having it. I didn’t care what the repercussions were, I really didn’t.
“I said to him, ‘Gaffer, you can go f*** yourself. I don’t give a f*** gaffer, go and f*** yourself, do what you want.
“You’re moaning when we’ve just won, f*** off’. All of a sudden he said, ‘Don’t talk to me like that’, and he went for me.
“I said ‘Come on then!’ I wasn’t prepared to have that from him. But everyone jumped in and that was it. That was the end of the conversation.”
Ince left Man United for Inter Milan in 1995 and later signed for Liverpool, the Red Devils’ arch-rivals.
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