Lord Coe has only two notable regrets about the Olympics he delivered to London 10 years ago today — one is that school sport became neglected and the other is how close he came to recruiting Sir Alex Ferguson to lead the British football team.
It is loosely known that Coe attempted to lure the former Manchester United manager to Team GB, but he reveals on this milestone anniversary of the Games that Ferguson had gone as far as accepting the post.
Those efforts were eventually muffled by the United hierarchy, with Stuart Pearce coaching the British side to the quarter-finals, and Coe, who was the head of the 2012 organising committee, continues to live with the thought of the one that got away.