FERGUSON WAS SET TO GO

Sir Alex Ferguson toasted his 20th anniversary at Manchester United with a private gathering of managers, former players and close friends yesterday but as he did so there were revelations that he had considered leaving the club last season. Ferguson confided as much to Sir Bobby Robson in a conversation the former England manager recalls coming shortly after Roy Keane's expulsion and only six months after the Glazer family had taken power.

Robson recalls visiting Ferguson at home in Wilmslow in late November last year and being taken aback by his mood. United had made a terrible start to the 2005-06 season, trailing Chelsea by 10 points, and were heading for a December exit from the Champions League. Ferguson had been booed by the club's supporters during a league match against Blackburn Rovers and a European tie against Lille and was becoming increasingly frustrated by the team's erratic form.

"He confided in me he was thinking of packing it in," Robson says. "I was almost angry with him. I first demanded to know what the heck he was going to do instead. And secondly, I asked him, having worked so hard to build a great club and a great young team, why would he want to hand it over to someone else and risk it being spoiled?"

Robson convinced Ferguson he should stay and show the Glazers he was still up to countering Chelsea's hegemony. Robson, who is 74 next February, is understood to have cited himself as an example of working past retirement age, though he had to use forcible language to tell his friend, in essence, to snap out of it.

Ferguson has never spoken about this period of his career to clarify whether it was a spur-of-the-moment thought or whether he had given it prolonged consideration. However, the fact that he wanted Robson's advice would suggest, at the very least, that he was disillusioned.