On the wall hangs a signed photograph of Jimmy Greaves, bearing the message, “Be Lucky!” There’s a holiday snap of the kids, a printout of reserve team fixtures and videos with blockbusting titles such as “Grimsby”, “Torquay”, “Chester”, “Rotherham”. Whose office? The bottles of wine on top of a mini-fridge are a clue. A good vintage? “God knows,” says their owner, smiling. “I don’t drink it much, but everybody knows it’s customary for managers to come in after matches for a glass of red.”

Darren Ferguson is his father’s son and his own man. It’s possible to be both, as anybody who meets him soon learns. Little more than a year since taking his first job in management with Peterborough United, he has risen to the top of League Two and floated just as effortlessly above the familial comparisons that would have weighed down a less strong personality. Nigel Clough stayed with Burton Albion rather than take bigger posts and go too far down the path of his famous dad, but Darren Ferguson has no inhibitions about trying to follow Sir Alex. The fearlessness, and clarity of thought with which he discusses the issue are two of the many qualities junior and senior share.

“Listen,” says Darren. “Because he’s been so successful, it’s virtually impossible to compare not just me but any manager to him, so why should I worry? He’s my father and I’m proud of him and nobody’s going to get anywhere near what he’s done. The way I look at it is if you win enough games as a manager, you’ll be okay. If you lose. you’ll get sacked. Don’t matter who you are. It’s the expectations of your club and your chairman that count.”

In his case the expectations are steep. Saturday could bring promotion and see Peterborough escape the bottom division for the first time in three seasons, but Darragh MacAnthony, the 32-year-old property magnate who owns the club, talks about Premier League football by 2013. Darren, 36, doesn’t mind, saying that he and MacAnthony are “two young men in a hurry”.

“Before I came he had a lot of questions to ask me, but I had a lot to ask him,” he says. “I had to make sure my first job was the right one. That might sound arrogant, but it’s not. I’m ambitious and I had to make sure his ambitions matched mine.”

Perhaps I should declare an interest: I played boys’ football against Ferguson. He was a lovely passer who wanted to play with a lot more expression than the wind-whipped playing fields of Aberdeen allowed, but wasn’t especially assertive on the pitch. Now, sitting at the other end of a sofa in his little office at London Road, he talks with the same flair for the game that was always obvious, but is a lot more steely than the silky opponent I remembered.

He gets a tackle in first. “The media side’s been no problem,” he says with a certain look. “I did a lot of that in the football management course at Warwick University. As part of it, you did a 10-minute interview, and the guy who interviewed me . . . every single question was about my father. I said, ‘Why did you do that?’ He said, ‘Because that’s what you’re going to get’. And he was right in many ways.

“I understand the attention because my father’s the most successful manager, but I’m very focused. I leave it for other people to talk about. As a player it was the same. You’re always ‘Fergie’s son’. I’m never going to change my name, this ain’t going to go away.

“My advantage is that I’ve got a man with extreme knowledge and experience who I can ask for advice, but I’ve got to do it my way. I made a decision straight away that I wouldn’t be going to Manchester United for any players, which I could easily have done. As time goes on, I might, but I decided not to for now and wanted to get my own identity.”

He is certainly forging that at London Road. When Darren arrived in January 2007 with assistant Kevin Russell, a former teammate at Wrexham, Peterborough had lost seven straight league games and scored just three times in two months. His first signing was Craig Mackail-Smith, a 24-year-old striker whose goal-laden partnership with the prolific Aaron McLean has seen the club become Britain’s highest league scorers this season. There is also room in Peterborough’s expansive system for another young forward, the exciting George Boyd. Charlie Lee, 21, has excelled in midfield since signing from Tottenham, as has goalkeeper Joe Lewis, also 21, a club transfer record arrival from Norwich. Peterborough have been transfused with pace, youth, adventure and belief.

“The first thing was to get the lads enjoying themselves again, so we changed the tempo of training and worked on fitness and diet,” says Darren. “The home form was shocking and we needed to make other teams who came here fearful. And we started playing football. A lot of people think you can’t go up playing football in this division, but we did it when I was at Wrexham. We use 4-4-2 and work hard on Boydy being as free as possible within it. The lad’s a special talent and would be in the Premier League if he had more pace. He can still get to the highest level. So can Lewis. Most of our players can at least play in the division above.”

He praises Barry Fry, his director of football, for his ability to seal transfer deals, but it is Darren’s charisma that attracted players such as Lee, who turned down 16 clubs, some Championship, to sign. “To players, I’ve said, ‘Look, you couldn’t be joining at a better time. I don’t want to be in this league, I want to be working at the top level, and our chairman’s the same’.” The parts of football management away from team-talks and tactics, those that first-timers often struggle with, appear to have come naturally.

To make room for Lewis, Darren had to ditch the popular Mark Tyler, a first-team regular for a decade. He did so unflinchingly. “I can make decisions and I’ll make the right ones for the team, regardless of what it means to the individual. I don’t mind that at all,” he says. “Mark was a servant to the club, good lad, great pro, but you’ve got to go with what you believe is going to make you better. If I hold back from that, it could cost me my job. I can’t afford that to happen.”

He has committed himself to Peterborough, moving from Cheshire to nearby Stamford, and although evenings are often spent scouting for undiscovered playing gems in the Conference or Premier Reserve League, he doesn’t mind the hours. “It’s one thing that I learnt off my dad. Sometimes he was at The Cliff Manchester United’s former training ground] at 7am, opening the doors himself. His success is no coincidence, he’s worked hard for it.”

Darren is keen to point out that he is the son of two parents, though. “My dad would admit that there’s no way he’d have been as successful without my mother. She’s got great determination, and my brothers and I probably got that off her as much as from our dad.”

On Thursday, Peterborough’s boss was named League Two manager of the month. On Wednesday he was runner-up for the League Managers’ Association quarterly award to another guy called Ferguson. “I don’t know how they mark these things,” he says, mock-indignant. “I mean, we’ve had a hell of a run . . .

“To be fair, they [Manchester United] are doing all right as well. If we won our league and they won theirs, that would be a nice touch.”