Gary Neville: 'The idea he is always ready to let someone have it, is wrong'

After two decades working with him, the pundit tells Ian Herbert there is so much more to Sir Alex Ferguson than 'the hairdryer.'

Since retiring earlier this year, Neville has become a respected television pundit (Getty)

Sir Alex Ferguson is easily misunderstood. When the Manchester United manager suggested in Lisbon this week that Wayne Rooney couldn't entirely be compared with Pele because "he's white, completely white," the Portuguese press corps struggling with his Glaswegian accent thought he was talking about the striker's "weight". A diplomatic incident was only narrowly avoided.

The complexities of Ferguson's temperament are also not always best appreciated, viewed as they always tend to be through the prism of what he says in the five minutes after every match, snapping at a "stupid question" in Lisbon or growling about "typical Germans". One of the joys of Gary Neville's rich, new autobiography of almost two decades at Old Trafford, Red, is the precious detail it inks into our knowledge of his ways.

You wince when Neville starts up his story of how John O'Kane, the one member of United's legendary 1992 Youth Cup winning side whose career was a genuine disappointment, was picked by Ferguson to play at left-back in a Uefa Cup tie against Russian side Rotor Volgograd in 1995 but came in after the warm-up to ask the manager, 15 minutes before kick off, if he could play right-back instead. Then you learn that Ferguson acceded to the request. And while the manager's leniency about Eric Cantona pitching up in denim jacket rather than club blazer has always been presented as a one-off, he was evidently not initially much inclined to come down hard on Dwight Yorke, even when the stories – of cocktails balanced on his head, Yorke leaping over bars to help waiters – got back to Ferguson from his legendary network of contacts. "I know where you were last night," Ferguson would tell Yorke. "He turned a blind eye as long as Dwight delivered," Neville observes. Mark Bosnich was equally fearless, when tackled by Ferguson about his weight. "Boss, I'm just the weight I want to be," he'd say in return.

The O'Kane story is "probably not the best example" of the way Ferguson's munificence is overlooked, says Neville, with a wide grin, as he perches in a storage room before braving the queue for his book-signing which is snaking along the mall and up a staircase at the Trafford Centre. "Did I put in the book that he was subbed after 27 minutes?" O'Kane never played for Ferguson again and relied on another United for his best days: Hyde. "But you don't stay at Manchester United for 25 years and have the players that he has had by shouting at them," Neville insists. "You do have to show a personal side. If you asked me how much of his 25 years there has been spent angry, I would probably say 0.001 per cent. The rest of the time he is a manager. You see him 99.9 per cent of the time on the training pitch. Every day he is talking to players about football, different things, how it went with internationals, normal conversations. He does have a streak, there is no doubt about that, and I think everyone is aware of that and it is something. But this idea that he's always ready to let someone have it is wrong."

It is also Neville's observation that the home-grown players always got it hardest off him – with the defender always seeming to be simply "Neville" when on the receiving end. "What's happened to you, Neville? I'm only picking you... because you play for England," were the words of Ferguson's first eruption at him, after a 1-1 draw at Nottingham Forest when he actually thought he'd done quite well. Neville's questionable decision to tell Ferguson to "fuck off" at Lille, after infuriating the manager by following protesting French players to the touchline, resulted in a loud reception in Ferguson's office, and a rather quieter penance. Two away trips, to Reading and Fulham, to sit in the stands. "I wouldn't be swearing at him again."

But Ferguson's critical – and until now relatively unknown role – in preventing the players' threatened strike, which Neville led, over Rio Ferdinand's omission from the England side to face Turkey in a Euro 2004 qualifier, revealed the less appreciated approach. A telling section of the book also covers Neville's debilitating loss of self-belief, when his form collapsed for six months after his disastrous second game in United's controversial World Club Championship appearance, against the Brazilian club Vasco da Gama. (Or "Fiasco da Gama", as Paul Scholes described it in the typically wry text Neville got from him after the game.)

Ferguson's assistant Steve McClaren involved the sports psychologist Bill Beswick in Neville's crisis. But Ferguson's response, not detailed in the book, was less intrusive and did not involve attacking Neville for the poor displays which beset him for six months. "He didn't actually say too much," Neville recalls now. "And when I say that I can think of a couple of managers with England who were constantly talking to you because they are worrying. He almost entirely leaves you to your own devices at times and lets you work your way out of it. You have some managers saying in a situation like that: 'I don't think you played well on Saturday, come on, get your confidence back'. What a waste of time that is from a manager to a player! 'Get your confidence back!' It's just time that lets you get your confidence back. It's like going through a personal problem in a relationship. It's time that lets it evolve. He knows things like that. He doesn't panic."

How many trophies England would have actually won with Ferguson is a subject Neville recently addressed in a BBC radio interview. The answer is none, but the Scot would not have fallen asleep during one of his staff's tactical talks as Kevin Keegan did when coach Les Reed was giving one of his lectures about the opposition during Euro 2000. "You could see [Kevin's] shoulder sagging, his nodding forward," Neville recalls in the book. "He woke up with a start and all the lads burst out laughing. It's unbelievable to recall that now, even though it was funny at the time... Under Kevin we didn't learn."

Neville's devotion to Ferguson makes it hard to imagine that even a memoir would disclose such a story, though the fabric of this book makes it equally hard to imagine that there ever was one. It was Ferguson's extraordinary eye for detail which led him to criticise Gary Pallister in the dressing room after Neville's brief debut as substitute, against Torpedo Moscow at Old Trafford in September 1992. Neville's only touch came when he took a throw-in. "Pally, have you ever watched the youth team. Have you not seen his long throw?" Ferguson demanded to know, after the 0-0 draw, preceding an away leg which would see United go out on penalties. "Then why weren't you in the box?"

The theme is picked up in the book's revelation that Ferguson's new fascination with orthoptics, working with Liverpool University's Gail Stephenson, helped inform his decision to demand his players shed the notorious grey strip after trooping in 3-0 down at half time at The Dell in 1996. "I didn't know at the time," Neville reflects in the book. "She would later work with all of us on our peripheral vision. She gave me eye exercises to do before a game and I'd work on them just like stretching my calves or hamstrings. Attention to detail."

Ferguson's work and influence in the dressing room is also revealed to be more multi-layered than some would imagine. Neville reveals how his team-talk is from 1.30pm to 2pm. "This is his moment," he says. "In later years we had a video to watch but the manager always spoke from handwritten notes... It's mostly serious, though sometimes he'll lighten the mood, often unintentionally. We'd always look forward to playing Aston Villa, to hear him mangle Ugo Ehiogu's name. 'Make sure you pick up Ehugu, Ehogy, whatever his name is.' We'd always chuckle at that one."

And confirmation comes that those who goad United off the field really do give Ferguson ammunition as he sends them out on to it. Patrice Evra's tangle with Chelsea groundsman Sam Bethell in April 2008 is only one example. "Look at Patrice," Ferguson told his players in one dressing room talk soon afterwards. "He's 4ft tall and he's not afraid of anyone. He's not giving in to anyone. He's a fighter. Now, what about the rest of you?"

But it is what Ferguson does not say which will live with the player who spent 19 years observing him operating. "He won't overcomplicate it," Neville says, before heading into the throng of those clutching books. "He won't over-speak to you. If you said to me how many times a year over 15 years had he called me into his office, you are probably talking once a year until I was captain, and maybe he'd have a chat with me out on the training pitch – in passing. Before a game people might think he's ranting and raving. But he's always been the same – that five minutes, 10 minutes before you go out on the pitch he leaves you. He just stands there. He might say one or two things very rarely but generally he will stand at the door, looking out down the corridor, and then make sure he shakes everybody's hand. It's not a great deal of information and too much information but the information he does give you is right, I think."

'Gary Neville: Red'. Bantam Press £18.99

Neville's trophy haul

European Cup 1999

Premier League 1996, 1997, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2007, 2009

FA Cup 1996, 1999, 2004

League Cup 2006, 2010

Intercontinental Cup 1999

Club World Cup 2008

* 1992 Makes debut for Manchester United, against Torpedo Moscow.

* 1997 Scores first of seven goals for the club, in a 3-3 draw with Middlesbrough.

* 2005 Appointed club captain.

* 2011 Neville makes his 602nd and final appearance for United, in a 2-1 win at West Bromwich Albion on New Year's Day.