GET the table reserved, the baize brushed and a few decent bottles of red behind the bar.

Sir Alex Ferguson has something serious to talk about with his old friend, Alan McRae, and the time-honoured tradition in those circumstances has been to let it play out over a leisurely game of snooker.

When Ferguson was clinging on to the Manchester United job by the fingertips of his cue hand in the period prior to winning the 1990 FA Cup, just three-and-a-half years into his extraordinary 26-year reign, the new president of the Scottish Football Association would regularly travel south to provide a listening ear and a compliant opponent over a few stress-releasing frames.

They still enjoy potting balls together, though it is McRae, of the two, seeking the greater assistance these days.

The 66-year-old is on a self-confessed high after seeing a life spent within football rewarded with a prestigious post as the leader of the SFA board. It is as much of a personal triumph for him as those two Champions League trophies or 13 league titles were to Sir Alex when things had picked up a little at Old Trafford.

McRae is not for resting on his laurels, though. He wants to leave a legacy at Hampden and is keen to tap into Ferguson's expertise, bringing him into the association as someone to help plot a path forward for a sport not without its share of challenges in these parts.

The role for Sir Alex has not quite been set in stone. The most telling conversations on the matter have yet to take place, but the relationship that exists between him and McRae suggests there is a better-than-average chance of the Scottish game's most prominent figure taking an active role in the shaping of its future.

"Being an administrator is a different thing to what Alex has done as a manager and a coach," said McRae, who has invited Ferguson to the official pre-match dinner ahead of September's Euro 2016 qualifying match with Germany at Hampden.

"He might do ambassadorial stuff for us, but I would like to think we could maybe get him involved a bit more than that.

"We have spoken about having him and others involved in the Scottish FA to give it a wee bit more of a wow factor.

"He is pleased that I have achieved something I wanted to achieve [by becoming president]. In my terms, I put it on a par with what he has done in football.

"He has achieved so much, but I still think I am on a par with him. I tell him that while I'm beating him at snooker.

"I remember, in the early years in England, he was heading for the White Cliffs of Dover and it was only my phone calls that stopped him going over that cliff.

"I supported him when he was struggling a bit down in England. I'd go down for midweek Manchester United games.

"After he'd got beat at football, I'd let him beat me at snooker.

"We used to go for drinks after midweek games up in Aberdeen when he was managing there and I'd go with the team to European games.

"I actually didn't see him on too many Saturdays because I had work to do with my own club, Cove [Rangers], but I started to get some young players off him and the relationship grew from there."

McRae's rise to the top of the Hampden power structure certainly started pretty close to football's bottom rung. He joined Cove Rangers as a player in 1979, went on to become chairman five years later and led the club from amateur level through the Juniors and into the Highland League.

He also built up a successful construction company in Aberdeen and has been involved in the often labyrinthine politics of the national association for 23 years now.

"I could probably have been a Stewart Milne [Aberdeen chairman and construction tycoon] had I not spent my years involved in the SFA," he smiled. "I haven't quite made it where he was.

"Apart from anything else at the SFA, though, you have got to be prepared to commit yourself and spend time. That means you sacrifice your family or business.

"I've been so fortunate to go from being a fan to SFA president, but I've always been heavily involved in the game and I've spent a lot of my own money on Scottish football."

McRae has even found himself in trouble with the game's governing body in the past. He is sure it was in November 1987 that he found himself up in front of the disciplinary committee for blowing a gasket over a controversial decision during one of Cove's earliest campaigns in the Highland League.

"Our secretary was unavailable, so I was asked to accompany one of my players into the referee's room as he was going to be cautioned," recalled McRae. "I thought the ref had made a wrong decision and I told him that. I used one or two swear words and I shouldn't have, so I got fined for it.

"I thought I pleaded my case and presented it well, but I got fined £100, which was a lot of money in those days. I suppose it just proves that I'm human and I'm passionate."

McRae's humanity was evident on the day he took over from Campbell Ogilvie at the SFA last month. He spoke of his desire to see Scotland reach the European Championship finals as a tribute to the late SFA chief executive David Taylor, who died, aged 60, in June of last year after being taken ill while on holiday with his family in Turkey.

"For the Champions League final in Lisbon last year, I was staying in Cascais with three of my pals," he said. "I invited David and his wife Cathy for lunch and we had a laugh. He'd just had his MOT and a single bypass.

"Some months later, I'd be getting a triple heart bypass and a mechanical valve, so we were joking that we were both part of the Zimmer Club.

"It was a lovely day and there was good food and wine. That's the last time I saw David.

"If we qualify for the Euros next summer, I'm sure he'll be up there watching, as proud as anyone."