Before Manchester United, Alex Ferguson was sacked by St Mirren and lost his tribunal
The manager who went on to win more trophies than anyone in football history was fired only once, by the Scottish club St Mirren in 1978. He sued for wrongful dismissal and lost, with the tribunal calling him particularly petty and immature. Within two years he had broken the Old Firm's grip on Scotland.
Born on 31 December 1941 at his grandmother's house in Govan, Glasgow, Ferguson grew up in a tenement at 667 Govan Road, the son of a plater's helper in the shipyards, and trained as a toolmaker. He started as an amateur striker at Queen's Park at 16, scoring 20 goals in 31 games, then combined shipyard work with night training at St Johnstone. At Dunfermline he finished as the Scottish league's top scorer in 1965–66, and Rangers paid 65,000 pounds for him, then a record between Scottish clubs.
Management began in June 1974 at East Stirlingshire, aged 32, a part-time post paying 40 pounds a week at a club that did not have a single goalkeeper. Players quickly learned he was a strict disciplinarian. St Mirren lured him that October on the advice of Jock Stein, and he turned a lower-half Second Division side watched by barely 1,000 fans into 1977 First Division champions, with a team averaging just 19 years old.
The sacking cited breaches of contract, including unauthorised payments to players. Its chairman later said the real reason was that Ferguson had agreed to join Aberdeen. He took charge there in June 1978; the club had won the league only once, in 1955. After a shaky first season, Aberdeen clinched the 1979–80 title with a 5–0 win on the final day, the first time in 15 years that neither Rangers nor Celtic was champion.
Appointed at Manchester United in November 1986, he collected 38 trophies over 26 years, including 13 league titles and two Champions League crowns. No English club had managed a league, cup and European treble until his side did it in 1999, the year he was knighted.
Source: Alex Ferguson
