LET’S TAKE A GOOD LOOK AT OUR GAME
Warnock wants to see the fun in football again
NEIL WARNOCK has been inspired by the coronavirus to reassess his priorities – and believes football should too.
The self-styled Red Adair, below, of football management has nearly 1,500 games under his belt in a career that has seen him pull off eight promotions and suffer five relegations.
The 71-year-old could yet dip his toe into the water again.
But he fears that society has inadvertently created a culture of excess which means that youngsters are now more focused on technology than the game.
“I think we’re to blame for that as well,” he said.
“When we were kids, we took jumpers for goalposts and we wanted, when we grew up, for our kids to have more than we had.
“We wanted to give them a better chance. So when they said: ‘We want this,’ we bought it.
“First it’s a telephone then it’s an iPad, then it’s a computer, then it’s something else.
“Then you look back and say: ‘Why aren’t they playing in the parks anymore?
“We have supposedly made it a better society, but I don’t think we have. I think it’s convenient now. But I don’t think we’ve made better people.
“If anything, this virus has shown how it used to be at times really.
“You can get enjoyment without having the television on or a computer or a phone at the side of your ear.”
Over the course of his 53 years in the game, Warnock believes that football’s ability to laugh at itself has slowly ebbed away, and has now been replaced by the financial pressures of the high stakes and a distancing from the fans.
And all of this long before the coronavirus. Speaking to broadcaster Eamonn Holmes on his Eamonn and the Gaffers podcast, he added: “I think
that the humour has got to still be in football. When I get off the bus, I’d always have 10 minutes talking to the opposing fans and signing autographs.
“I’d always pick on a young lad and say: ‘Sorry you’re going to go away unhappy tonight!’ and he’d react, you know?
“The biggest thing that I don’t like at the moment is players getting off the bus with headphones and not talking. I think they’ve forgotten the fans.”
Whether Warnock’s skill at inspiring clubs to make the leap from the Championship to the Premier League is utilised again or not, he believes fans have enjoyed his status as football’s pantomime villain.
“I like to think that wherever I’ve been, when I’ve left they’ve been in a better position,” he said.
“When you look at my eight promotions, I bet you every one of those groups of lads still have get-togethers every 10 years or so – and I could go in as if it was tomorrow.
“Even the teams whose fans have given me stick over the years. Even they respect me deep down.
“I think I’ve given [them] something to talk about, and I’ve given them something to smile about as well, whether they like me or not.”
Warnock’s views on the need for the Premier League to help clubs lower down the food chain are well documented.
As is the way he would like to be remembered by football fans.
“I’ve always played to the crowds and I’ve always said: ‘When I pass away I don’t want to have me a minute’s applause – I want them to boo me for a minute!”