A riveting image of Sir Alex Ferguson, published at the introduction to a book which applied intellectual theories to his management techniques, depicts him in shirt-sleeves in a Harvard lecture room, in front of a flow chart of his methods on a blackboard.
His meticulously neat workings include arrows, curly brackets, exclamation marks and two ominous words chalked up, which clearly relate to his players: SELECT AND FIRE.
Harvard and the world of business had a great time extemporising, with Ferguson's help, on what his success was built on after his retirement — 10 years ago next spring — and perhaps it was that intellectualisation which kept something as prosaic and visceral as 'fear' out of the narrative.