Sir Alex Ferguson described ‘Fergie Time’ as a little tactic he employed when Manchester United needed to score toward the end of a game. He won 38 trophies throughout his 26-year tenure as manager. Ferguson claimed that his strategy of standing on the sidelines and checking his watch was intended to make the officials and the opposing team think differently and possibly feel stressed.
Sir Alex Ferguson on ‘Fergie Time’
Football fans often talk about something called “Fergie time,” suggesting that when Sir Alex Ferguson’s team, Manchester United, is losing, the referee adds extra time. But is this a real thing? The last minutes of a football game can be very tense, especially if the score is tied or one team is behind and trying to equalize. Some people, mostly those who aren’t Manchester United fans, claim that Ferguson’s team gets more added time to score a crucial goal than other teams, and they call it Fergie time.
If Fergie time is real, it means referees might not be doing their job right. Referees are supposed to figure out how much extra time to add after the regular 90 minutes. Many people think referees add around 30 seconds for each goal and substitution, plus some extra time for things like injuries.
Ferguson, who retired as a manager after the 2012/13 season, was honest when talking about Fergie Time. He retired after successfully winning back the Premier League title from Manchester City.
“That’s why I used to go to my watch. I never looked at my watch, I didn’t know how many minutes. It gets across to the opponents and the referee, which is a little trick. The thing about the last 10/15minutes of a game, particularly at Old Trafford, you’ve got 65k people there. At half time I always stress don’t panic, be patient, wait. In the last 15minutes you can do what you like. I’m a gambler, shove bodies up front, take the gamble, it didn’t always work but a lot of times it did,” Ferguson said.
Sir Alex Ferguson speaks on why 'Fergie Time' was such an important part of Manchester United's identity. pic.twitter.com/Ff5kpJOa9z
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“If you’re in that dressing room after the game and we’ve scored in the last minute the electricity is unbelievable, they’re jumping on top of each other, hand clapping, it’s a fantastic place to be. Most important thing is that those fans are walking out of the stadium desperate to get down to the pub to talk about, desperate to get home to tell their wife and their kids what happened at Old Trafford in the last minute of the game. And that’s my job, to get them home happy,” he added.
