Sir Alex Ferguson tried to quit as Man Utd manager before 1999 Treble

Sir Alex Ferguson offered to resign as Manchester United boss on the eve of the club’s historic Treble-winning campaign.

The Red Devils famously became the first ever English club to win the Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League in the same season. They completed the set in the most epic fashion imaginable thanks to a pair of injury-time goals against Bayern Munich at the Nou Camp.

That historic season has been chronicled in an upcoming documentary series called 99 on Prime Video. The series also details the troubled build-up to the campaign.

With Arsenal winning the double under Arsene Wenger in 1997/98, Ferguson was under pressure, with some club officials feeling he had taken his eye off the ball. The Scot, furious at the accusation, offered to quit as a result.

“We felt that he’d got a little bit more interested in his outside interests than he should have done and that needed readdressing,” said then-chairman Martin Edwards in the first episode of the series.

“He was obviously becoming a celebrity and was interested in his racing and all the rest of it. It’s your job to know your staff. It was just a correction, so I put it in writing. I knew he wouldn’t be happy about it, and he wasn’t. He offered his resignation.”

News of the resignation offer clearly didn’t reach the players, with Gary Neville, who also appears in the documentary, taken by surprise by the revelation. He said: “I would not like to have had that conversation with him. I didn’t even know that until today.”

Meanwhile, United supporter Andy Walsh, whom Ferguson confided in at the time, revealed the hurt Edwards’ letter had caused him.

“He said, ‘I’ve had enough of it, I can’t trust these people anymore, I’ve reached the end of my tether’,” recalled Walsh. “He was clearly hurt, as well as angry. I said, ‘are you sure [about resigning]?’

“ Alex Ferguson values loyalty greatly because he had come up the hard way as a working-class lad from Govan. And people from working-class stock are constantly told by those with money and power in society that we’re replaceable. I think he would have seen that as a challenge to respond to.”

In the end, of course, Ferguson stayed on. Edwards added: “Later that afternoon, he rang me to withdraw his resignation and it was never mentioned again after that.”

99is available exclusively on Prime Video on 17th May when all three parts will drop globally