Defiant Sebastian Coe flies flag for London Olympics with a murky legacy

On the eve of the 10th anniversary of the London Olympics, Sebastian Coe is reminiscing about the one that got away. “We got so close to giving Sir Alex Ferguson the job to coach the football team,” he says, sighing, and his mind is catapulted back to the time he asked Sir Bobby Charlton to discreetly sound out the Manchester United manager.

“I came up with the idea because we were having a bit of fragility around our Celtic cousins,” says Lord Coe, the London 2012 organising committee chairman. “It was ostensibly an English team, although there was a smattering of Welsh players. But it suddenly occurred to me that the one unifying influence would be having a not necessarily English coach. And I couldn’t imagine any club having a problem with their Under-23 players having a four, five or six-week tutelage – a masterclass – from Alex Ferguson on the training ground.

“Weeks went by. I was in a Tesco in Cobham on a Friday night, filling baskets full of food for my kids, and I got a call. It was a ‘No ID’ and I was at the butter and fats counter and he said: ‘Seb, it’s Alex here.’ I threw a load of cash at one of my daughters to keep filling the trolley and I said: ‘This is the stuff for a long conversation, I’m in the supermarket.’

“I explained my theory because Bob hadn’t actually told him; he’d just asked him to give me a call. So Alex rang and said: ‘Oh, I thought you were looking for tickets.’ I put him through the idea and he said: ‘Well, I don’t know.’ Then there was a gap and then he went: ‘Oh Jesus, I’m already picking the team in my head.’”

Coe says he didn’t mention it to a living soul, but when he saw Ferguson at the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year awards, Ferguson looked at him and said “the answer’s yes”.