Sir Alex Ferguson never was very good at concealing his feelings towards referees and the Football Association. The Manchester United manager usually said what he thought on those subjects, and when that happened Graham Bean would be sat at home in Barnsley realising his week had just got a little busier.
The FA's first compliance officer had by now swapped sides, taking on his former paymasters as Ferguson's go-to man on disciplinary cases. It was a job that kept him in gainful employment given how often the Scot would find himself up in front of another disciplinary panel.
By that stage, Bean relished taking down the FA and he had some successes with United and Ferguson, who he believes was unfairly targeted as the outspoken manager of one of the country's biggest clubs.
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In his new book, Bean There... Done That, the former South Yorkshire police detective details his work for the FA and his role with Ferguson, as well as representing Rafa Benitez, David Moyes and Duncan Ferguson and working for Leeds United and Chesterfield during times of crisis.
Bean is a Liverpool season-ticket holder who ended up representing their fiercest rivals, including defending Gary Neville after he was charged for kissing the badge in front of the Liverpool fans at Old Trafford following Rio Ferdinand's late-winner in January 2006. But he is in no doubt United were being targeted.
"There’s no doubt in my mind the FA were keen to get his [Ferguson's] scalp, any chance they had," Bean told the Manchester Evening News .
"He was the most dominant figure in the game and the game revolved around him, anything he said which was anti-FA or anti-referees made headline news.
"My view was that the FA were doing their utmost to get him. I think he felt that as well. What we did was we used to put together a strategy to frustrate the FA, we did things to try and muddy the waters, complain about harassment and how they were continually chasing after him. T he reality was that never in a million years would we have made that claim of harassment, but it just muddied the waters to cause some sort of issue."
One success that Bean remembers fondly is when Ferguson and his assistant Carlos Queiroz were both charged after an FA Cup quarter-final defeat to Portsmouth in 2007/08. Ferguson had turned his ire on referee Martin Atkinson and his boss Keith Hackett after Cristiano Ronaldo was denied an early penalty in a 1-0 defeat.
"The FA were sure they were going to nail both of them and I got them cleared of it, it was like an atomic bomb going off inside the FA, to the point they even took legal advice as to whether they could pursue an appeal," said Bean.
"The verdict was so damning against the FA that their lawyers even advised them not to appeal."
Bean became accustomed to realising when he would be required. " If I saw any comments in the newspaper or on the TV I’d know straight away there would be a letter coming from the FA," he said.
He was eventually summoned to help Neville in 2006 after the defender had initially represented himself, being found guilty and earning a £5,000 fine.
"We submitted the appeal document to the FA and the FA had 21 days to respond to the appeal document to put their point of view as to why the appeal should be rejected. But they forgot to do it," he said.
"We waited three or four days and then made a submission saying you’ve not complied without your own rules, so, therefore, we said to the panel they shouldn't be allowed to put anything in and it should be overturned. The panel backed the FA and said it was a minor administrative error. It was one of the biggest disciplinary cases of the season.
"What they also did, in the original hearing we submitted a series of videos of players kissing the badge in front of the away fans where no action was taken by the FA. The panel said it was all done in front of the home fans.
"The appeal panel agreed with us that the original panel had got that wrong and it was in front of away fans. But I felt that was a stitch-up from the FA on the back of the respect campaign, they felt they had to do something.
"Even though the FA hadn’t followed their own rules, Gary lost their appeal, which shows the workings of the FA.
"The police put a report in as well and that didn’t help his case, three was some disorder outside the ground after the game but there always is after United versus Liverpool. They were trying to attach that to his badge-kissing in the last minute of the game and I don’t think there was any relation. It was one of those cases where I thought we were stitched up."
Bean dealt with United from the other side of the fence when David Beckham was charged for making an obscene gesture towards fans while on England duty in 2002, and when Rio Ferdinand walked into the dressing room before taking a mandatory drug test after a draw at Newcastle.
That could have been particularly problematic given Ferdinand's previous ban for missing three out-of-competition tests, but the FA took into account his frustration at the performance and the fact he only briefly entered the dressing room before going to the doping control room.
But Bean's best memories are from his time representing Ferguson and it wasn't a relationship defined just by legal jargon and disciplinary loopholes.
When United played Barnsley at Oakwell in the League Cup in October 2009 the two were set to meet at the team hotel on the afternoon of the game, only for Ferguson to send an SOS to Bean. He had forgotten his shirt and needed his disciplinary adviser to pop to Marks & Spencer to pick up a plain white shirt.
"I went into M&S, they hadn’t got the size we needed. Go across to Next, they haven't got one, into Burton’s, they haven’t got one, by now I’m getting desperate. I go into TK Maxx and they haven’t got one," remembers Bean.
"I’m left with one option, so I go into Primark, get him the shirt for £4.99, take it to my mother-in-law and get her to iron it. I took it to the team hotel that afternoon and he pulled out a wad of £20 notes to pay me. I said ‘no, it’s alright, I got it from elsewhere, just sort me a couple of tickets for tonight’."
A week later Bean travelled to Manchester to see Ferguson on the day of a Champions League game against CSKA Moscow and took with him a white shirt from Marks & Spencer, just in case. He then sent a shirt to Ferguson every year on his birthday.
"I must be your best-dressed client," quipped the United manager. He was the one that kept Bean busiest as well.
- Bean There... Done That from Empire Publications is out in October 2022.
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