Sir Alex Ferguson: Manchester United great came close to joining Tottenham

Former Spurs chairman Irving Scholar says he had an agreement in principle with the Scot to take him to White Hart Lane two years before he swapped Aberdeen for Old Trafford.

In the new book ‘White Hart Lane - The Spurs Glory Years,’ which is being serialised by the Sun, author Martin Lipton explains how Scholar had negotiated every fine detail of the contract to take Ferguson to London, and secured it with a “concrete handshake.”

However, Ferguson apparently went back on his word before moving to United where he guided them to 38 honours over a 27-year spell.

“The truth was that I had been talking to and negotiating with Alex Ferguson about a deal,” Scholar revealed. “He and I had had very long and detailed discussions.

“I told him that I was a very old-fashioned type of chap and that the most important thing was that once you agree something, once you shake someone’s hand, it’s in concrete.

“Once you do that, then you do not — under any circumstances whatsoever — you do not go back on it. It’s over

“I told him that, when I first met him. So we had this big thing about the handshake.”

Scholar had arranged to meet Ferguson to shake on the agreement in Paris.

But the former Spurs chairman, who took charge of the club in 1982, is still furious his trust was betrayed after building up to the big day.

And the two clubs could not have had more contrasting fortunes since, with Tottenham seeing 15 managers pass through in the time Ferguson cemented his place at the greatest manager of all time.

“He agreed and I said I’d like him to meet someone else on the board, Paul Bobroff," Scholar added. "We arranged to meet in Paris on a Sunday morning, just by the airport.

“The idea was this was the moment, the seminal moment of the handshake.