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Alex Ferguson

Scottish association football manager and former player (born 1941)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 17, 2026
Entity authorityQ44980 ↗
Source-derived summary

Sir Alexander Chapman Ferguson (born 31 December 1941), also known by the nickname Fergie, is a Scottish former professional football manager and player, best known for managing Manchester United from 1986 to 2013. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest managers of all time, having won more trophies than any other manager in the history of football. Ferguson is often credited for valuing youth during his time at Manchester United, particularly in the 1990s with the "Class of '92", who contributed to making the club one of the most successful in the world.

Ferguson played as a forward for several Scottish clubs, including Dunfermline Athletic and Rangers, and was a Scottish international, earning four caps. While playing for Dunfermline, he was the top goalscorer in the Scottish league during the 1965–66 season. Towards the end of his playing career, he also worked as a coach, then started his managerial career with East Stirlingshire and St Mirren. Ferguson then enjoyed a highly successful period as manager of Aberdeen, winning three Scottish league championships, four Scottish Cups and both the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup and the UEFA Super Cup in 1983. He briefly managed Scotland following the death of Jock Stein, taking the team to the 1986 World Cup.

Ferguson was appointed manager of Manchester United in November 1986. During his 26 years with Manchester United, he won 38 trophies, including 13 Premier League titles, five FA Cups, and two UEFA Champions League titles, in 1999, which completed the first continental treble by an English club, and in 2008.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Alex Ferguson” is scottish association football manager and former player (born 1941). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Alex, Ferguson and Scottish, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1941, 1986, 2013, 1965—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1941-12-31. For this dossier, Alex, Ferguson and Scottish is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “scottish association football manager and former player (born 1941)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q44980. VIAF identifies the subject as 116984290. The Library of Congress control number is nb91358803. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1941, 1986, 2013 and 1965.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Alex Ferguson”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Alex Ferguson primary sources, Alex Ferguson archive and Alex research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Alex Ferguson”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Alex Ferguson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.