SIR ALEX Ferguson stopped just short of declaring, as his Jonathan Watson caricature on Only an Excuse would doubtless have done, himself to be “vewy pwoud” at Glasgow being chosen as one of 13 host cities for the Euro 2020 finals yesterday.

Yet, the honour that Govan’s most famous son felt as he helped to launch the city’s preparations for the finals by unveiling their official logo in the Science Centre on the River Clyde just a few miles from where he grew up was clear.

Hampden will stage three group games and a last 16 match at Euro 2020 and Sir Alex, who has a special place in his heart for the stadium despite the myriad successes he has enjoyed around the world over the years, is in no doubt it will prove an outstanding venue.

The legendary Aberdeen and Manchester United manager was one of the 127,621 spectators inside the Mount Florida ground at the historic European Cup final between Real Madrid and Eintracht Frankfurt in 1960 and has attended the majority of the showpiece matches there since so knows what they can expect.

“Glasgow has always been a great place for any big game,” he said. “I’ve seen all the finals here, apart from one, the last Europa League final when Sevilla played. But I’ve seen Liverpool, Borussia Moenchengladbach, Fiorentina, Atletico Madrid, St Etienne and Bayern Munich.

“I was in the schoolboy enclosure the night that Real Madrid won 7-3. In the semi-final, strangely enough, Eintracht beat Rangers 12-4 on aggregate. We were thinking they were Gods. Any Rangers fan at that time thought that the Eintracht Frankfurt team were unbelievable.”

The 74-year-old also graced the hallowed Hampden turf on more than one occasion as a player. He got his football career underway there when he joined amateur club Queen’s Park aged 16 in 1957.

“I played my first game at Hampden Park when I was 13 in the Scottish Schools final against St Patrick’s Dumbarton,” he said. “It was 0-0 with ten minutes to go and our goalkeeper got carried off injured and we ended up losing 4-0. My last game there as a player was the 1969 Cup final (with Rangers against Celtic) when we lost 4-0.

“I played there a few times, making my debut for Queen’s Park as a 16 year old. It was a fantastic football club to start at. I had two years there and probably left too early, actually. But there were great people there.

“I’ll always remember a player called Junior Omand who walked me to the bus stop every night after training to make sure I got on my bus to get back to Govan. It was a great club with some great characters.”

Sir Alex was helping SFA chief executive Stewart Regan, president Alan McRae, Glasgow City Council leader Frank McAveety, Secretary for Culture, Tourism and External Affairs Fiona Hyslop and UEFA legal affairs director Alasdair Bell to launch the official host city branding and logo. Nobody, though, was complaining when he started to reminisce about his time as a player at Hampden.

“It was fantastic playing at Hampden with Queen’s Park at the time," he said. "The biggest crowd we got was when we played Hamilton Accies, who won promotion that year. We got 18,000 at Queen’s Park. We lost 1-0. They had some good players.”

That was certainly true when he was in charge at Aberdeen. “We won four Scottish Cup finals there,” he said. “We won the League Cup there against Hibs. We never lost a goal in the competition. I had great experiences of taking teams there.”

Having claimed just about every major honour in the game during his spells as manager at Pittodrie and Old Trafford, Sir Alex has few regrets in the game. But one failure that continues to rankle with him was the defeat Manchester United suffered in the Champions League semi-final back in 2002. That loss to Bayer Leverkusen meant he was unable to lead his team out in the final at Hampden.

“The whole build-up was about taking Manchester United back to the final in Glasgow, but we lost to Bayer in the semi-final,” he said. “We were a wee bit unlucky – we ran out of time! The referee couldn’t understand my time and his time!”

“I always guard against complacency. It’s a disease. But in the build-up to Hampden that season David Gill (the then United chief executive) says ‘I think you should go up to Glasgow and check out hotels because you know the area better than any of us’.

“So I went and checked out some hotels and was at one between East Kilbride and Strathaven. It would have been ideal for us. It was the perfect hotel. On the drive back down to Glasgow I said: ‘I don’t like this. I should never have done this’. We lost the semi-final. But that’s life.”

The days when attendances at Hampden set records – the 149,415 crowd which crammed into the ground for the Scotland v England international match 1937 is a European record – are long gone. Ferguson, though, believes the 52,000 all-seated arena still has a mystique. The Euro 2020 ambassador also knows that his home city will also embrace the finals with open arms.

“It is a great football stadium, Hampden Park,” he said. “It is not the same size as it was, but the atmosphere is retained and it has still got that aura about it. It is a great venue for a cup final and the European Championship will be fantastic here. We have got four games and it will be great.

“It is a warm city Glasgow, there is no question about that, it is a really warm city. The people have always made it that way. Anyone coming here, whether it is from France or Germany or wherever they will be well looked after and warmly received. It will be great for Scotland as well. I am looking forward to it.”