SPORT has hogged the headlines this week with Sir Alex Ferguson’s announcement that he’s going to retire at the end of this season after 26 seasons as manager of Manchester United.

His record of success is unprecedented in the top division and thousands of words and hundreds of column inches have paid homage to a man who has dominated UK football over the past three decades.

Fergie has been heralded as the greatest manager of all time – but that may be going a step too far.

His record says he is, but are trophies the only yardstick for that title?

When he took over the United reins in 1986 the Old Trafford club was already one of the biggest football organisations in the land and he was soon able to wheel and deal for the best players in the country.

Since then the canny Scot has been able to spend millions in keeping the Red Devils at the top of the English fooball ladder.

Rio Ferdinand (£29.3 million), Juan Sebastian Veron (£28.1m), Wayne Rooney (£27m), Robin van Persie (£24m), Anderson (£20.4m), Ruud van Nistelrooy (£19m), David de Gea (£18.9m), Michael Carrick (£18.6m) and numerous others in the double-figure millions bracket.

How much easier has it been for him to maintain a level of success with that amount of spending power?

The achievment of managers such as Roberto Martinez (Wigan) and Tony Pulis (Stoke) keeping much smaller clubs at the highest level over a number of seasons is also worthy of praise, while Ferguson’s successor, David Moyes, can also be included in that bracket at financially strapped Everton.

But if success is the yardstick, then the legendary Brian Clough would be pushing Ferguson as the ‘greatest’. Championships and European Cups with unfashionable Derby County and Nottingham Forest came in an era when cash was not the king it is today.