How the construction industry helped inspire Sir Alex Ferguson's young Manchester United team in 1992, including David Beckham, to become the greatest footballers of their day.
Ironically, given its apparent reluctance to inspire young people, it was to the construction industry that sports psychologist Bill Beswick turned when working with Sir Alex Ferguson’s young Manchester United team in 1992, among them David Beckham.
Beswick asked the players to imagine three bricklayers, each with a different attitude. When asked what they were doing, the first said: 'Laying bricks'; The second replied: 'Earning £10 per hour', while the third said: 'I’m building a cathedral and one day I will bring my kids here and tell them that their dad contributed to this magnificent building.'
He then asked them to think about which attitude they would apply to the training session they were about to start. Would they be 'just practising', 'earning £1,000 an hour' or 'helping to build the best team ever so that they would be proud to tell their grandchildren that they had been part of it'.
When Beckham scored during the session, he celebrated with outstretched arms, shouting 'Cathedral 1 – Bricklayers 0'.
Just think what the analogy could do if applied to the industry it was borrowed from. Robert Mallett
Editor, Construction Journal and Building
Conservation Journal
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