It took a brave player to take on Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United during the Scot’s 27-year Old Trafford dynasty.
While the vast majority of Fergie’s charges were wise enough to fall into line, there would be the odd occasion when some of the Red Devils’ bigger personalities would clash with the boss - and it usually had a predictable ending.
Former Manchester United midfielder Nicky Butt spent 12 years in Ferguson’s first team at the club, winning six Premier League titles, three FA Cups and one Champions League, but when he saw his playing time diminish during the 2003/04 season, he knew he had to confront his boss.
Nicky Butt on his explosive row with Sir Alex Ferguson
“Before, I always knew I’d played 30 or 35 games every season,” Butt tells FourFourTwo. “For some reason, the manager always put me in the big games, but then I got to a point where I wasn’t playing and it started to piss me off – I accepted it if Keany and Scholesy were playing instead of me, because I knew they were better than me at the time.
“Then I felt people were playing instead of me who weren’t as good as me – I’m an honest person, I didn’t think that Eric Djemba-Djemba, Kleberson and a few others were as good as me.
“I get why the manager did it, he’d brought them in and had to give them an opportunity to play, but it didn’t help me. I spoke to the manager and said, “I want to go.”
“I’ll tell you what happened. My daughter was born in the January when we were going away to a warm-weather training camp. We were flying out on the Sunday, but my missus was booked in for a caesarean on the Monday.
“I went in and said, “Boss, can I stay here for that, then catch up with you?” I thought he was going to go, “Yeah, no problem.”
“I must have caught him on a bad day. He went, “You young’uns now, you do anything your missus wants.” I said, “She’s booked in for a caesarean? I’ll pay for my own flight out there.” And he just replied, “Do what you want!”
“It got my back up, then the worst thing I did was say, “And while I’m here, why am I not f**king playing?” That was when it went off… I was there for 45 minutes and after it all calmed down, he said, “I get where you’re coming from, if it works for you and the club you can go – but it’s got to work for both of us, it’s not going to look good for the club selling you, and it’s not going to look good for you wanting to leave.”
“A move ended up happening in the summer. I was really happy to go to Newcastle, but I’d been in Chicago with United for pre-season, I got on the plane back from Chicago on my own and it hit home that “f**k, I’m going somewhere else”.
“All I’d ever known was playing for Manchester United from the age of 11.”
Butt would spend six seasons at St James’ Park before the final stop of his 19-year playing career which was a short stint with Hong Kong side South China.
The Good, The Bad & The Football with Scholes, Butt and McGuinness is a new weekly video podcast, available on all major podcast platforms and YouTube
