1989-1990, Manchester United season

The 1989-1990 season was the season when the Manchester United board held its nerve. Despite wholesale changes in personnel, Alex Ferguson struggled to create a winning team. As supporters called for his dismissal, the board stood by him, his team won the FA Cup and the successful nineties began.

Lots of money was made available at the start of the season. Neil Webb, Mike Phelan, Gary Pallister, Paul Ince, Danny Wallace and Les Sealey all moved to Old Trafford. Inevitably the newcomers took time to settle. Despite an opening day 4-1 victory against league champions, Arsenal, the season didn’t begin particularly well. Four games were lost by the end of September, including one against Manchester City that City won 5-1. In October, Tottenham Hotspur knocked Manchester United out of the League Cup with a 3-0 victory at Old Trafford. The club’s league form in mid-winter was desperate. Between the end of November and the beginning of February the team went eleven games without a win. The media was convinced that Ferguson’s days were numbered. In early January, the club was drawn away to Nottingham Forest in the third round of the FA Cup. Surely Ferguson couldn’t survive defeat in that competition too? The game was won 1-0. In the next round the club scraped past Hereford United of the fourth division. They then beat Newcastle United and Sheffield United to reach the semi-finals. There they needed two games to defeat Oldham Athletic, then of the second division, followed by two more games in the final to defeat Crystal Palace. (For the second of these Ferguson controversially dropped his goalkeeper Jim Leighton in favour of Les Sealey. This effectively ended Leighton’s career at Old Trafford and Leighton never forgave Ferguson.) In the league, the club had slipped to thirteenth place, but Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United had at least won a trophy. The board always maintained that Ferguson’s job was never on the line, but they may not have been able to resist the pressure had there been no 1989-1990 cup run.

At the beginning of the season it appeared that chairman Martin Edwards had sold the club to businessman Michael Knighton. (Knighton even appeared on the pitch in full first-team kit ahead of the opening game.) But Knighton’s finance didn’t materialise and so no sale followed. Justifying his readiness to sell Edwards argued that, post-Hillsborough, the stadium needed much investment and that Knighton had promised to provide this. Two years later, Edwards floated Manchester United on the Stock Exchange to deliver the necessary capital by a different route.

The death was announced during the season of one of the stalwarts of the Busby-era. Jimmy Murphy, Matt Busby’s assistant for many years, died in November.