I LOVED A WAR OF WORDS WITH NEIL
Kenny: We had furious bust-ups.. but he still signed me five times
PADDY KENNY used to have regular blazing rows Neil Warnock – but his mentor still signed him five times.
Former Sheffield United and Leeds keeper Kenny spent the majority of his 21-year career with Warnock as his manager, starting at Bury in 1998 – but their relationship was not always a bed of roses.
Now 42 and retired, Kenny has written his autobiography, The Gloves Are Off, in which he recalls the fireworks that frequently ignited between them.
He said: “Neil is a tough character. We used to go at it like cat and dog until we were blue in the face. He always came out on top because he was the gaffer, but I wasn’t one to back down.
“Players didn’t last very long if they got on the wrong side of him.
“Danny Cullip was one. He clashed with the boss and was only at Sheffield United a few months.
“When I went to Leeds and he signed me for a fourth time, people asked,
‘ Why does he keep on signing you?’
“Well, he knows I could be a bit of trouble off the pitch but he also knew what he was going to get on the pitch.
“Neil is misunderstood. He’s seen as a bit of a dinosaur but he’s been a success wherever he has gone.”
Now 71 and in charge at Middlesbrough, Warnock first spotted Kenny while the keeper was playing for non-league Bradford Park Avenue. He took him to Bury, and would go on to sign him for Sheffield United, Queens
Park Rangers, Leeds and Rotherham. On being told Warnock called Kenny “chubby” when he first laid eyes on him, the keeper joked: “I like to think of myself as big-boned and cuddly.
“He helped me achieve what I achieved. When Neil first signed me I would never have imagined we would have gone all the way to the Premier League together.
“I needed a lot of work done and Neil was the guy who always got the best out of me.”
Kenny, who also played seven times for the Republic of Ireland, enjoyed the most successful spell of his career at Bramall Lane. He played for the Blades for eight years, including that ill-fated season in the Premier League when they was relegated in con t r o v e r s i a l circumstances in the season finale in 2007. The club complained West Ham should have gone down in their place thanks to the impact of Carlos Tevez, with the Blades claiming the Argentine’s third-party registration meant they should be reprieved.
Kenny thinks the saga played a role in his bitter exit from Bramall Lane after he was handed a ninemonth drug ban in 2009.
He tested positive for ephedrine, a banned substance contained in over-the-counter cough medicine ChestEze.
He said: “Nine months was a very long time. It’s not like I was trying to enhance my performance.
“My view is I was punished because the club sued over Carlos Tevez. People still ask if I was ‘off my t**s’ – but I wasn’t a drug cheat.”