An intriguing speculation in Monday's edition of The Times… featuring Manchester United manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, who has been summoned by the English Football Association to a disciplinary hearing for accusing referee, Martin Atkinson, of not being “fair” in a recent match against Chelsea.
In an opinion piece, The Times chief football correspondent, Patrick Barclay, a Scot from Dundee, lambasts his fellow Scot, Ferguson, commenting: “For a man to be staggering around as if intoxicated by what he perceives to be power is bound to make an undignified sight at any age, let alone one’s 70th year. Not that Ferguson gives any impression of caring about appearances.”
And on the preceding page, the weekly catch-up, ‘Behind the headlines’, speculates what Ferguson might say, were he to be interviewed on the club's TV channel: “After it emerged last week that Mario Balotelli is allergic to certain types of grass, Sir Alex Ferguson, the Manchester United manager, reveals another odd condition: an allergy to journalists.”
'Behind the headlines' describes itself as taking “a wry look at the events that may have passed you by and suggests what to look out for in the next seven days”.
And Ferguson is further imagined, saying: “’It flares up after especially controversial defeats when I read the next day’s papers. Maybe it’s the ink they use. The symptoms are that I turn bright red and find it impossible to talk in public, and have this uncontrollable, irrational feeling of anger and injustice. It’s incurable, I’m afraid.’”
