Editorial

As an Aston Villa fan, I have nothing but pent-up anger towards Manchester United.

The majority of my childhood was ruined by last minute winners from The Red Devils and the subsequent taunting from the United fans that surrounded me at school. (This was inevitable, I lived in the West Midlands.) And more than anyone, it was one man who made my childhood such a misery – Sir Alex Ferguson. Sir Alex recently retired as the most successful manager in British footballing history. A man who consistently got the best from his group of players, a man who wasn’t afraid of change, or letting players go, or of adjusting tactics that had worked for years.

Central to understanding what made the last 26 years at Old Trafford so special is the acknowledgement of how slow a start Fergie had. It took him almost four years to win his first trophy and close to seven for his first league title. Over those years, pressure built, on him to find success and, from some quarters, on the club to get rid of him. But neither relented; both club and manager had a long-term vision, and the knowledge that while it may be painful in the short-term, the long-term gains would be worth it. So he stuck around, and the club grew around him, perhaps most relevantly, he constantly invested in young people. An entire generation of football in this country has been defined by Fergie’s commitment to bringing through and giving opportunities to young people. David Beckham, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Gary Neville – you need only a fleeting interest in football to appreciate the way that the football landscape of this country is defined by him. Even those young people who were never going to make it for United were looked after. Countless footballers who failed to make the grade at Old Trafford tell of how Ferguson spent hours searching for the right place for them to continue their development.

The key thing that Ferguson realised is that he wasn’t bigger than the club. What was best for the club, what was best for his players, came first. And this was characterised in the way he left and his successor took over. Within 24 hours of his decision to retire being made public, his successor was in the place. In his first public appearance after letting go, he emphasised the importance of getting behind the man who came next – ‘Don’t ever call me the boss again.’

After all of that it barely seems necessary to point out what this means for our youth work; the importance of keeping a long-term vision, the commitment to investing in young people, the dedication to one place. In the time that Ferguson has been in charge at Old Trafford, Chelsea have gone through 18 managers. Those managers have been sacked at the drop of a hat; if it looked like short-term success wasn’t going to be achieved they were gone. And what success they had was built solely on big financial investment, there was no commitment to youth, no looking to the future - success was demanded now, and no excuses were accepted.

There was one other key facet to Fergie’s success: his constant adaptation. He grew as a leader, he strived to become better, he adapted to trends. This month’s magazine features opportunities for us to do the same. Our society is constantly changing and increasingly multicultural, and we need to develop new ways to engage with our local communities; Tim Fawsett’s helps us to do this in Faith to Faith (p. 38). We need to equip ourselves to do the best job possible; on page 14 we explore the world of postgraduate training, chances for youth workers to continue to professionally develop in their calling.

I never thought I’d say this, but the Church needs to be more like Manchester United, and less like Chelsea. We need youth workers who are prepared to commit to the same group of young people for the long term, seeing them grow from raw teenagers to adults who are going to change the world. We need churches with a big vision rather than chasing the latest fad for short-term success. We need youth groups which believe in young people, which give them opportunities to succeed and fail, where they can grow into the people they were created to be. We need youth workers to grow, to develop, and to avoid stagnation. We need youth workers who realise that the work they are doing is bigger than them. And if they step aside, a good succession is far more important than a moment of glory.