Some urchins asked me to train them... I wasn’t doing anything else
HOW IT ALL STARTED FOR NEIL
NEIL WARNOCK has revealed that his “addiction” to management started when “urchin” kids knocked on his door 50 years ago asking to be coached.
The 71-year-old agreed to be Middlesbrough’s new permanent manager last week, his 18th job in a 40-year career.
“I’ve got that desire still. I look at managers and say, ‘I am better than him’,” said Warnock yesterday. “I’ve got four games to go for my 1,500th, eight promotions. It is a great career.”
Warnock said that the coaching bug first bit him while he was on the Teesside coast at Seaton Carew in his early 20s when he was playing for Hartlepool.
He said: “These kids had nothing, looked like urchins. They knocked on my door and said, ‘Would you like to train us’. I thought, ‘Well, I’m not doing anything’.
“You know that film Kes? I felt like him, whistle around my neck. Today I am Bobby Charlton! We only had a green square where I lived in my digs. They got the knack and responded.
“So we joined a league. It was lovely to see a group of lads, under-13s, who’d had no coaching at all, organised. When we scored from a set-piece I ran up and down the line.And that’s what attracted me to it.”
An addiction? “I’d say so,” he said. “I don’t feel 71. I know I don’t look it. I’m a very good looking lad for my age.
“I feel good around people I can get something out of.
“Football must be addictive. I look after myself. I train on a daily basis. I have a heart man who looks after me every year.”
His fitness regime included cycling to work and Boro fans recently captured his commute on video. Warnock said: “I am getting camouflage. I have a new bike, too.
Oh yes, still an electric one.
“I don’t like going up hills. I do turn the power off a lot, and when I do 35-40k, you’ve put a shift in.”
His wife Sharon agreed to him taking the Boro job – time away for good behaviour. Warnock said: “I have plumped the cushions a bit more lately. I’ve even made my bed, but she remakes it. It was nice for Sharon to say, ‘Yeah I don’t mind’. She knows how many times I have said I’d love to show that owner what I can do.”
He added: “I am not a magician, so no guarantees.
“I look back at what I have done, QPR and Cardiff were similar, struggling. I do back myself.”