Sport

Minted! Sir Alex Ferguson’s Chewing Gum Sells For £390k

A piece of chewing gum, said to be the last used by Sir Alex Ferguson during his illustrious career as Manchester United manager, has sold for £390k on eBay.

The gum was picked up by a fan at the Hawthorns after Ferguson’s final match in charge of the Red Devils, a 5-5 draw with West Brom on the 19^th May 2013 which was his 1500^th in charge of the club.

In what proved to be a thrilling farewell, Ferguson’s side led 5-2 after 81 minutes, only to be undone by goals from future United striker Romelu Lukaku, who netted a hat-trick on the day.

The United legend won an incredible 13 Premier Leagues, 2 Champions Leagues, 1 Cup Winners Cup, 5 FA Cups, 4 League Cups and 10 Community Shields during his tenure in the Old Trafford hotseat.

He was victorious in 895 of the 1500 matches that he took charge of and was awarded the Premier League Manager of the Month trophy on 27 occasions, in addition to Manager of the Year 11 times.

However, Sir Alex was frequently seen chewing gum on the sidelines during stressful situations which presumably helped avoid a dry mouth when preparing to dish out one of his famous ‘hairdryer treatments’ to underperforming players at half time.

By our calculations, the staggering sum paid would have been sufficient to buy an estimated 1,026,315 packets of unchewed gum and is around £40k more than the weekly wage of United’s highest current earner, Alexis Sanchez.

At this point the identity of the buyer is unknown but the gum will surely be a breath of fresh air to the memorabilia collection of any Fergie fan.

The money raised is set to go to the Manchester United Foundation, a community charity who use football to ‘engage and inspire young people to build a better life for themselves’, where it will hopefully make a big difference.