ALEX FERGUSON. BLOODY HELL. I mean, how do you write a proper, balanced account of a man whom you know despises you both generically and specifically? Not that we have ever had personal dealings: the closest I have got to him was when a mutual acquaintance reported that Ferguson had referred to me in conversation as “F***ing Simon Barnes”.

The honour! Bagheera has noticed us, as the monkey-people boast in The Jungle Book. So how, then, can I come up with a fair appraisal of f***ing Alex Ferguson? Sorry, that should of course be f***ing Sir Alex Ferguson. Knighted, you see, on account of his greatness. Well, fair enough. Whether I want him to be or not, Ferguson is unquestionably one of the greatest football managers that England has seen. Ramsey, Clough, Shankly, Paisley, Busby, Fergie.

The problem is that Ferguson has never once come across as an even remotely likeable human being. Actually, that’s a lie. I can think of many occasions when I almost wanted to like him.

Well, two, anyway. The first was when he summed up a night of madness in 1999: when Manchester United had just completed their immortal treble by winning the Champions League. They trailed 1-0 at 90 minutes and scored two goals in time added on, even as the massed hordes in the press-box were filing their stories of United’s defeat. As an added bonus to his greatest hour, Ferguson also managed to bugger up the entire press corps.

The routine television microphone was thrust in his face for the usual witless “how does it feel?” question. And Ferguson did actually tell us how he felt: “Football. Bloody hell.” What a great, what an absolutely perfect thing to say: a tribute not to himself, and not to his players, but to the mad and capricious godlings who run the sport; a remark that spoke of balance, perspective, irony, humour, and the glorious humanity of football and football people. It was a moment when the veil of awfulness slipped.

The second time I almost wanted to like him is right now. Longevity is a rare thing in sport. And there comes a point with any enduring person in sport, no matter how awful, when his very longevity begins to command not only acceptance but admiration; not only admiration, but affection. It’s a trait most often seen at Wimbledon: John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, Billie Jean King, Martina Navratilova, by merely going on and on, each made a transition from hatred to love.

There is a sense in which Ferguson has pulled off the same trick: so that, after 20 years today as manager of United, his irascibility, his hates, his feuds, his intemperate nature, his habitual snarling resentment seem little more than the charming eccentricities of a senior figure in sport; the jokes about hairdryers, flying teacups and flying boots no more than chuckle-worthy anecdotes about an enduring, endearing figure in our lives.

How he’d hate that. How he’d absolutely loathe the idea of being sentimentalised in the press and in the minds of his opponents.

That would be almost as bad as criticising him, picking holes in his record, suggesting that Ferguson and United had occasionally failed. Would he add someone who sentimentalised him to his never-ending feud list? Or, I wonder, would his sly and subtle streak of vanity secretly approve? Ferguson would be a more agreeable man without his intemperate taste for feuding — but then he’d be somebody else. Like the outlaw Josey Wales, Ferguson lives by the feud. United is an empire built on the feud. Ferguson has always preached his belief that the outsiders are out to get us, so we must stick together and fight. That was the vibe that brought him success at Aberdeen and, absurdly, did the same thing at England’s biggest and richest club.

Ferguson’s achievement, Ferguson’s method have been based on the feud. Feuds against whom? All the press, for a start: he won’t do press conferences because we’s are all ****ing eejits. The BBC: he won’t speak to the BBC because they questioned his son’s role as an agent. Arsène Wenger, because he manages a club that, on occasions, outplayed his own. John Magnier, because of a horse.

Shall I go on? Paul Ince, Jaap Stam, Roy Keane, David Beckham, Ruud van Nistelrooy: all players he fell out with and got rid of. This in contradiction of the first aim of management: which is to combine the talents of all the various individuals in your charge. And yet feuding is his strength as well as his weakness. Feuding has led to enduring success.

Time and again, United and Ferguson have found strength in the feud: most notably against Arsenal. In 1999, their victory over Arsenal in the FA Cup semi-final tipped the balance from imminent triple-disaster to immortal treble: Schmeichel’s save, Giggs’s goal. And the infamous battle-of-the-buffet match ended Arsenal’s period of domination as if it had never been.

So we must celebrate 20 years of extraordinary achievement from Manchester United and Sir Alex Ferguson, and it shows ill-grace in anyone who must grit his teeth while doing so. Sure, Ferguson is awful, but to leave it there is to miss the point. Awfulness is an inextricable part of his method.

His greatness is to be found in his awfulness. Or to put things in less pejorative terms, Ferguson’s strength is to be found in the same place as Ferguson’s weakness: his failures in the same place as his successes.

He is a man of flawed greatness, like all men of greatness, but Ferguson has always worn his flaws as a dandy wears his clothes: flaunting, flouting, provoking. Being disliked is an essential part of his method and like every other aspect of his method, it has succeeded awfully well. And if there is a homeopathic dose of affection somehow sneaking in alongside my admiration, we’ll both of us have to live with that.