Sir Alex Ferguson: 'I was terrified' about Old Trafford return after brain haemorrhage

Highlights

• Sir Alex Ferguson has said he was "terrified" about returning to Old Trafford after suffering a brain haemorrhage in May 2018
• He made that emotional return less than four months later, watching Manchester United draw 1-1 with Wolves from the directors' box
• The comments came in a new BBC Breakfast interview promoting his upcoming book, Games of My Life
• Ferguson's wife, Lady Cathy, was by his side for that 2018 return; she died in October 2023, aged 84

Sir Alex Ferguson built his reputation on never looking rattled. In a new interview, he's admitted that one moment in 2018 frightened him more than anything else in his career.

What happened in 2018

Ferguson, Manchester United's most successful manager, fell ill at his home in Wilmslow, Cheshire, in May 2018, and was rushed first to Macclesfield Hospital before being transferred to Salford Royal, where he underwent emergency surgery for a brain haemorrhage and was placed in intensive care. He has said since that he has no memory of the collapse itself. The surgery also left him temporarily unable to speak — something he's described as one of the most frightening parts of the entire ordeal, recalling his grandsons visiting him in hospital while he had no voice to greet them with.

The return to Old Trafford

Less than four months after his surgery, Ferguson took his seat in the directors' box for United's game against Wolves, which finished 1-1. In his new BBC Breakfast interview, promoting his forthcoming book Games of My Life, he described exactly how unprepared he felt for that moment: "I was terrified. I wish I could say I was comfortable. I wasn't." He said he had no idea how the crowd would react to seeing him again: "I didn't know what the reaction was going to be. Then they make the announcement and then of course there was a loud applause."

His wife, Lady Cathy, was sitting beside him that day. "My wife was with me, and she was nearly crying," Ferguson recalled. "When we sat down, she said, 'that's fantastic.' It's one of those things. That's the generosity of our support and recognising my time there." Lady Cathy, who was married to Ferguson for over five decades and raised their three sons alongside him, died in October 2023 at the age of 84. The moment he's describing is one from 2018, when she was there to see it with him.

A separate, earlier reflection

Ferguson has spoken about this period before, in rawer and more unsettled terms. In the 2021 documentary Never Give In, directed by his son Jason, he described feeling "nervous" and "tense" ahead of an earlier return to watch United in person, and spoke candidly about having confronted his own mortality during his recovery, including recurring dreams in the hospital. Those comments, from a different interview four years ago, add a layer the new BBC Breakfast conversation doesn't revisit directly — together, they paint a fuller picture of a recovery that clearly stayed complicated well beyond the applause at Old Trafford.

The manager behind the moment

Ferguson managed Manchester United for more than 26 years, from 1986 to 2013, winning 13 Premier League titles among 38 trophies in total — a record that still defines the modern Premier League era. He's now 84, and remains a regular presence at Old Trafford. His new book, Games of My Life, revisits 21 matches he considers the defining moments of his playing and managerial career, tracing a path from working-class Glasgow to the most decorated dugout in English football history.