What Ruben Amorim can learn from Man Utd’s last great rebuild ...Middle East

The moment Manchester United’s rebuild began – when the club started again at the lowest ebb of their last century – is widely considered to involve George Best, an FA Cup tie against Plymouth Argyle, and a loud knock on an Old Trafford door.

If you think this season has been bad for United, it compares little to 1973-74, when the club were relegated from the top flight for the first time in 37 years, only six years after winning the European Cup.

And yet, while the periods are half a century apart, the United malaise under Ruben Amorim shares many characteristics of that era – and there are lessons the current ownership would be wise to note in their revival.

United had been in steady decline since Sir Matt Busby’s side became the first English team to win the European Cup.

One of the first mistakes, it is believed, was Busby anointing his own successor. Wilf McGuinness was to him what David Moyes was to Sir Alex Ferguson. McGuinness lasted 18 months. Busby steadied the ship as caretaker for six months. Frank O’Farrell was given another 18 months.

But United were sinking towards relegation when in stepped Tommy Docherty. “The Doc” saved them that season, but the following one, when he began the painful process of rebuilding, was a disaster. At one stage goalkeeper Alex Stepney, on penalties, was top scorer. Yet while  Docherty may have taken United down, his five years there “lit the candle for the club to come back to it’s greatness”, as Gordon Hill, a key player in the resurrection, puts it.

Meanwhile, players of the period are convinced that had Docherty not been sacked in scandalous circumstances, which we will come to later, he would have presided over one of the most successful periods in United’s history.

Docherty had built his reputation as Chelsea and Scotland manager, a personality typical of the period – arriving full of confidence, ego, a sharp answer and main character energy.

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He took over a fractured dressing room overshadowed by brilliant but aging stars, in Bobby Charlton and Denis Law and, in Best’s case, troubled genius.

Docherty felt the big mistake of previous managers was sticking with the Busby heroes.

Charlton had told Docherty of his decision to retire, at 37, at the end of the season. But it was Docherty’s call to move on Law, Tony Dunne and David Sadler. Decisions he was heavily criticised for, by the media, fans, and the players themselves.

Docherty told United director Martin Edwards that he no longer wanted Best on New Year’s Day 1974, after a 3-0 defeat to Queens Park Rangers.

Best skipped training the next day, insisting he was ill – an excuse Docherty didn’t buy. But he had trained in the days before their next game, an FA Cup tie against Plymouth, and Docherty put him in the starting line-up.

Only Best didn’t show up for the pre-match lunch the players shared at noon. And when they congregated in the players’ lounge before kick-off to hear the team, Best still wasn’t there.

At 2.35pm there was a loud bang on the door. Docherty opened it. Accounts differ, but Docherty remembers Best standing there next to an attractive woman, his breath smelling of alcohol.

Best said he wanted to play. Docherty told him he could play, but not at United. Best got in his car and drove off. They never saw him again.

They were relegated on the final day, but there was no huge outcry to sack the manager. When Busby had first spoken to Docherty about the job, in a Crystal Palace lounge, he had told him it would be like trying to turn around an oil tanker, only bigger. And they felt he deserved more time.

In TNT Sports’ brilliant Too Good To Go Down documentary, there is a wonderful clip of Docherty, interviewed on the Old Trafford pitch after the relegation, being asked if the club was at risk of slipping into obscurity.

“No, there’s no danger,” he replies. “We could wash the jerseys here and hang them out to dry and you’d get 15,000 people standing watching them do so.”

Docherty had already started to reshape the side in his image – entertaining, attacking, direct, young. He had sold 13 players in his first summer, and kept going.

At a time without transfer windows, Jim McCalliog signed from Wolverhampton Wanderers for £60,000 towards the end of the relegation season. McCalliog was shocked by what he found: cliques and factions, no real defined leader.

Stuart Pearson was the main signing from Hull City in the summer they prepared for Division Two. Docherty sold the move as Pearson being the first part of the rebuild. The £200,000 fee was offset by selling Brian Kidd to Arsenal for £110,000.

Nobody had any idea what to expect when United started the season. Only three of the 12-man squad for the opening game against Leyton Orient remained from the team he had inherited.

Fans travelled in their thousands everywhere. And it is thought to be where the “Red Army” nickname came from.

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“There was a vibrancy about the team that I liked,” Docherty, who died in 2020, wrote in his 2006 autobiography, The Doc.

“Many teams were still playing defensive-minded football. That had never been my style. I placed the emphasis on attack and we played to a simple philosophy: when we had the ball we were all attackers, when the opposition had the ball, we were all defenders.

“Push and run, two touch football. Touch and run, touch and run.”

There were no airs and graces. It was direct. Stepney would look to go straight to Pearson if it was on, always the aim to get the ball into the opposition penalty area as swiftly as possible.

The players started to like each other. The bus was fun. The changing room was happy.

That said, for those misty-eyed about that season, it wasn’t all good. From Boxing Day to the end of February they won only two of seven league games, were knocked out of the FA Cup by third division Walsall and lost in the semi-finals of the League Cup to Norwich City.

Docherty was already planning for the following season and wanted thrilling wingers to complete his attack. Steve Coppell came in during that season, and when Hill joined the summer after promotion, for £60,000 from Millwall, some claimed United had replaced Best and Willie Morgan.

Docherty had dispatched scout Jimmy Murphy to watch Coppell play for Tranmere Rovers, midway through the second division season.

Murphy and Jack Crompton were two staff members from the Busby era who Docherty brought back in undefined rolls, just to help around the place and offer their experience and advice to younger players.

After watching Coppell for one half, Murphy called Docherty to tell him he was coming home.

Docherty asked if something was wrong. “Get over here as quickly as you can and sign him,” Murphy said. “He’s a star.” Docherty recalled: “His left foot was like a violin.”

United now had wingers who scored goals and terrified defenders. The team hummed. Pearson, the striker, and Lou Macari, playing behind him, were prolific, scoring 18 goals each in the second division.

They refused to overspend on players – the board denying Docherty the signing of Peter Shilton on the basis that he wanted £50 per week more than the highest-paid player. It was the complete cultural reset the club needed – and badly need now.

They were promoted as champions, then exceeded expectations. Out of the ashes of relegation, United were reborn.

The first home game of the 1975-76 season drew a crowd of 56,000 and they beat Sheffield United 5-1. The Manchester Evening News declared: “The glory days are back at Old Trafford again with all the clamour and excitement that the word associates with Manchester United.”

They finished third. And were runners-up in the FA Cup, back when the FA Cup was so prestigious the teams who lost the final used to have celebratory parades.

Outside the town hall in a speech to thousands of fans, Docherty said they would be back next year and bring the Cup with them. The players were taken aback by the audacity.

But they ended nine trophyless years beating Liverpool in the Cup final the following season, proving Docherty right. The average age of the Cup-winning squad was 24.

Twenty-four hours after the final, stories  of Docherty’s affair with the physio’s wife made tabloid front pages. And, despite trying to ride it out, he was subsequently sacked.

Many believe that had he stayed, United would have established one of their great eras. “We were going big time,” Docherty said.

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