Ferguson reveals 2018 brain hemorrhage that nearly cost him his life

Sir Alex Ferguson came close to death on May 5, 2018, when he suffered a brain hemorrhage at his home. The former Manchester United manager is recounting for the first time a detailed account of this episode in his new book, Games of my life, from which The Times has published several excerpts.

Ferguson describes a brutal awakening around 7 a.m. « Everything started to go dark. That’s when I got up, struck by a terrible headache that had kept me from sleeping almost all night, and I immediately collapsed against a shoe rack. I didn’t see the light again until 24 hours later, when I woke up at Salford Royal Hospital, » he writes. He now understands the severity of what happened to him, noting that « 75 to 85% of people over 60 who suffer an incident like mine die from it ».

His survival came down to a series of circumstances. His wife Cathy was downstairs when she heard the shoes cascading from the shoe rack onto the floor upstairs. « If she hadn’t been there, the Referee in the Sky might have blown the final whistle on me, » Ferguson confides, crediting her directly with saving his life.

After several months of recovery, the Scot returned to Old Trafford on September 22, 2018. He describes the crowd’s reception as the strongest moment of his entire career, ahead of the titles won at Aberdeen or the championship parades with Manchester United. « I felt like I was being welcomed back from the dead, » he writes, calling this moment an « extraordinary moment » shared with Cathy.