IT WAS at the League Managers Association meeting this week that Neil Warnock walked among his Barclays Premiership peers and luxuriated in the knowledge that he had finally joined the great and good of English football. Once the debates started, though, Sheffield United’s bellicose manager was soon out on his own again.
Divers will not be welcomed with open arms at Bramall Lane this season. “The World Cup’s been an absolute nightmare for gamesmanship,” Warnock said. “We should use technology [retrospectively] and on the clear-cut cases where there is no doubt whatsoever, they have to be banned for six weeks, minimum. That’s the only way. You cannot fine them £100,000 because that’s not even a week’s wages.
“We discussed what should be done if a player goes up to the referee and waves an imaginary card at him to try to get an opponent booked. I was the only manager who wanted them to be cautioned. Everybody else said it should be a telling-off. Then Paul Jewell said, ‘Yes, but you’ve got English lads.’ ”
Whether proclaiming, with echoes of the catchphrase from The Fall and Rise Of Reginald Perrin, the 1970s sitcom, “We’re not where we are today by throwing silly money around,” or amusing himself with the memory of quaintly rejecting the chance to manage Chelsea “because of loyalty”, there is something quintessentially homespun about Warnock.
The consolation to accepting a mere one-year contract this summer was that he was allowed to go shopping, Premiership-style. “I went to M&S,” he said, reaching down to show us the top of his silk boxers. “I got four new suits, so even if I get sacked, they’ll see me through the next 20 years.”
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He revels in the anecdote of how, as the last Englishman standing in a hotel bar full of Italians, he celebrated Liverpool’s Champions League triumph last year. “They say you always remember where you were when [President] Kennedy was shot. I certainly remember where I was when Liverpool were 3-0 down to AC Milan in the Champions League final. I was thinking, ‘should I go to bed’ because all the Italians were taking the pee out of me.
“But I thought I would stop there. I wanted to see how English teams could cope with that situation. I wanted to see if they were going to get beat five or six or whether they were going to come back. You could see as soon as they kicked off that they were changed. The Carraghers, the Gerrards . . . wow. Then the first goal. Did I cheer? I bloody did. I ran round the room. By the third goal, even the Italians were giving me high fives. I felt like going up and knocking on the doors of all the English lads who’d gone to bed.”
Once Warnock starts talking, he does not stop. Sometimes he cannot stop. Courtesy of a verbosity that last term strayed into excess to bring him three FA charges, he will start his first season as a Premiership manager at the back of the directors’ box when Liverpool visit Bramall Lane this lunchtime. His entire football life seems to have led him to this juncture. “It’s like a film script,” this son of Sheffield said. “To have stood at the back of the Kop and then gone on to manage the club and take them to the Premier League is straight out of Hollywood. Knowing it is my team gives me so much more pleasure.”
Warnock deserves to be in the Premiership because a career potted with promotions — from Scarborough through Plymouth Argyle to Sheffield United — has culminated in the most glamorous on offer, but he will stand out. Amid the anodyne procession of manufactured managers, here is one who will speak his mind regardless of any public relations damage. Rafael Benítez, the urbane Liverpool manager, may not have come across his ilk before.
Who else in the Premiership actually supports the club he manages? Warnock speaks like a fan. “You only have to stand at Bramall Lane and look at the new corners, the new away stand. You read about what we are doing with hotels, China, new property companies. This is probably the most progressive club in England at the moment in comparison to its size. We will be in the top 12 [average] crowds this season with 30,000-plus every home game. We have never had 21,000 season-ticket holders.
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“I think over the last few years, ordinary Joe Bloggs supporters have enjoyed Neil Warnock’s teams. Not some of the silly things I have done; my wife tells me I have let myself down on occasions. You are going to get that with the way that I am.
“But I want my teams to create excitement. There are enough people trying to stop games, not talking to the media. There’s enough bland people around. I get criticised because I keep giving people something to talk about. There is not enough of the old brigade left.”
It would be fascinating to be a fly on the wall when Warnock offers Benítez a pint of Marston’s Pedigree after today’s game. “Will more fans want to hear what I have to say than what Rafa has to say? I’m sure they will. I just wish I had his team,” he said, in jest. “I’d like the seven lads he leaves out his squad [today] on loan for a year. And I’d be very close to Europe.”
He did not suggest such a mass loan transfer at the LMA meeting in Blackburn this week. “It felt very good walking into that room, simply because the room was filled with the best,” he said. “To be treated on a par is a great feeling. I’ve earned that respect.”