Stamp Out Drinking Like Sir Alex Did At United

Stamp out drinking like Sir Alex did at United

- Chris Stocks

ENGLAND great Geoffrey Boycott insists the current team’s drinking culture needs to be tackled as aggressively as the one Sir Alex Ferguson rooted out during his early days at Manchester United.

In a chapter of his autobiography titled Drinking to Failure, Ferguson admitted that when he took over at Old Trafford in 1986 he inherited “almost as much of a social club as a football club”.

However, the Scot put a stop to the boozing among his players, shipping out the worst offenders and laying the foundations for the most successful period in the club’s history during the 1990s and early 2000s.

Boycott sees parallels with what is happening in the current England cricket team, with coach Trevor Bayliss privately warning the two or three players who are persistent offenders that they may well be dropped following an Ashes tour that has been blighted by off-field problems.

The latest came this week when Lions batsman Ben Duckett was reprimanded for pouring a drink over James Anderson’s head during a night out at Perth’s Avenue Bar.

That is the same venue where at the start of the tour Jonny Bairstow introduced himself to Australia opener Cameron Bancroft with a ‘headbutt’.

Despite a midnight curfew being imposed when that incident came to light during the end of the opening Test in Brisbane, the latest incident occurred last Thursday on the first night when it was relaxed.