At The Hospital, a coolmembers-only club in London's Covent Garden, there is a hint of The West Wing about proceedings. Attendants carry clipboards, whisper into walkie-talkies and look expectantly at mobile phones. Sir Alex Ferguson, the manager of Manchester United Football Club for the past 20 years, is about to enter the building.
Along with fellow knight and Old Trafford institution Sir Bobby Charlton, Ferguson is here to publicise the extraordinarily lavish Manchester United Opus, a history of the world's most famous club told in 400,000 words and 2,000 photographs that weighs in at a coffee-table crushing 37kg, and costs a whopping £3,000.
Together with the 57m Chinese people who own radios, I have been granted exclusive access to the private thoughts of Ferguson, but for now China can wait, as I am ushered into a room for my personal audience with the man who is United's most successful manager ever, ahead even of the revered Sir Matt Busby.
Circumnavigating a copy of the mighty Opus, I aim to break the ice with the legendarily fearsome Ferguson by handing him a copy of my own book Dawn Till Dusk (60,000 words, 950g). The subject is horseracing, one of the Scot's well-publicised passions and we briefly discuss Jimmy Scott, a mutual acquaintance fromstables at Newmarket, before moving on to matters Glaswegian. Mentioning the suburb of Milngavie where I was born, Ferguson, who is from the district of Govan (he later confirms that a "Nihil Sine Labor" sign - which is Govan's motto and reads: "nothing without work" - hung on the wall of his old office), displays amusement at the English pronunciation of the name. "It's Mill-Guy; they all say Mill-N-Gavy," he roars.
He is famously and fiercely proud of his roots in the city, where, before his footballer career took off, he served a toolmakers' apprenticeship in the shipyards on the River Clyde. "I went back to make a documentary some years ago," he says. "A young reporter and I stood on the Clyde talking. It was freezing. Being a tactician, I had my back to the wind, so this guy was standing there, shivering, asking me what part the place played in shaping my character. 'Feel that wind,' I said."
He draws similarities between Glasgow and Manchester, where he has spent the latter part of his professional life. "Relics of the industrial age," he reflects. "Both are cities in recovery from devastation; in Glasgow, the Clyde's shipyards, in Manchester, the city's cotton trade. Once industries start to die it has an effect on the place. There is no unity of architecture. I noticed that in Manchester when I arrived."
Gladly, he sees both cities thriving more and credits this to the determination that comes from industrial labour forces with a tradition for endurance. "Tough, hard working conditions. The dampness, which was why the cotton industry was in Manchester, is still there. I feel it every morning."
Glasgow was much the same, he recalls. Ferguson spent the best part of his playing career there, most significantly as an abrasive centre forward for Rangers before injury prompted him to move into management early, most notably with Aberdeen where he crafted a team good enough to beat Real Madrid in the European Cup Winners' Cup Final. He then won the same trophy with Manchester United in 1991, followed since by the European Cup (part of a unique treble in 1999) and a hat-full of other league and cup successes. Today, a week after he turned 65, the team is top of the league and this weekend embarks on a quest to win its sixth FA Cup under the Scot. "Now the squad has to win things," is his simple summary of the team's progress so far.
Both inside and outside football there have been fall-outs and feuds. Ferguson refuses to speak to the BBC and plenty of journalists have been known to receive "the hairdryer" - a term coined by former players to describe Ferguson's method of dressing down individuals. Perhaps it's our shared heritage - both of country and club (I am a supporter) - but the Ferguson I meet seems mellow, even warm. He shrugs that the press as a whole has "battered" him and Manchester United "from pillar to post" and says Busby advised him not to bother reading newspapers.
Like his most successful predecessor, famous for the extravagantly talented team of "Busby Babes" in the 1950s, Ferguson serves as a kind of strict parent when it comes to youthful footballing talent and takes immense pleasure when young players show ability enough for graduation to his first XI. His own golden generation of young stars - including Ryan Giggs, Gary Neville and Paul Scholes and the departed David Beckham - are now in their 30s but this season a new group, led by the Portugal winger Cristiano Ronaldo and England's Wayne Rooney, has revived Manchester United's fortunes.
"Young players give you hope, they let you dream," he says.
United's immense history presents Ferguson with something of a management dilemma. He has emphasised before that the club is like a bus that doesn't linger for those without ambitions. I ask where that leaves the past. In his early days there, arriving in 1986 at a club that had then not won domestic championship honours for two decades, he admits to being almost too preoccupied with what preceded him. "I read a lot of books about United and became very familiar with the history. Then I stopped. I realised that instead of concentrating on the future, I was dwelling too much on the past."
His current approach is more fundamental and youngsters joining the club escape any stroll down memory lane. "We try to emphasise what Manchester United is on the inside," Ferguson confides. "There is this idea that Manchester United is a showbiz club but that's all peripheral to what is the real meat of the place. The laundry girls, they have been with us for 45 years now. That tells you more. No profile, no side to them. Just good Manchester United people."
Today, he also delegates more and, save for key personnel appointments, has little daily involvement with,for example, the club's schoolboyacademy.
"I am older now, I need to use my energies better," he concedes. One thing has not changed though - he still relies heavily on instinct to make the right calls. "What you see is normally right," he says. "In making decisions, ask yourself, does a decision put doubt in the mind at all? If I've got doubt then there's no doubt [it is wrong]." Trust your gut, he urges.
Of course, icons from the past will always have motivational uses. Ferguson introduces all new players to Sir Bobby Charlton, who played more than 750 games for the club and epitomises for many fans like me, what the club is all about. "They stare, mouths open, eyes wide, blown away."
Ferguson himself seems slightly in awe of Charlton (I notice later that he waits until his senior is first seated before sitting himself). He recalls being invited to manage a charity team featuring Michael Schumacher when Charlton, then well into his 60s, was a substitute. Pestered throughout the game for a chance to play - "Bobby said, 'Boss, how can a racing driver be ahead of me?'" - Ferguson remembers that, given 20 minutes to perform, Charlton showed he retained the "balance of a ballet dancer".
As for Busby, Ferguson reminisces about his fellow Scot's "wonderful intelligence" and gift for remembering names. "More of an art," he suggests, recalling Busby's last years as club president which overlapped Ferguson's early Manchester days. Like Charlton, Busby was absolutely down to earth. "If Bobby came in now, he wouldn't come over. He would wait to be asked. A shy man. Sir Matt? The gift of saying very little, and at the same time saying everything."
For a while now, my arm has been grabbed periodically for emphasis. It occurs to me that, as Busby would often cosy up to a player before delivering the news that he was not playing on Saturday, this might be Ferguson's way of concluding our conversation. Instead, we delay further his broadcast to China, as he tells me that in leaving Aberdeen for Manchester 20 years ago he uprooted an otherwisesettled family because the challenge was too great to pass up. He pauses to consider the fate of his long-suffering wife Cathy, to whom he is devoted. "My wife has suffered," he admits. "I do my best. Been 40 years of purgatory for her."
On this note, delivered partly in jest, we rest. I am left to absorb the fact that, according to Ferguson, the family of my personal United favourite, Lou Macari, owns the best ice cream shop in Largs, on the west of Scotland. A holiday resort, Ferguson advises. Then, laughing, he corrects himself. "Somewhere to spend the holidays."
As I depart, it belatedly occurs to me that despite his recent milestone birthday, we had not touched on when Ferguson, who in 2002 famously reversed his decision to quit at 60, might actually retire. It's clear that history's still in the making for a while yet.