Sage advice as Neil Warnock approaches milestone at Middlesbrough

Akin to arguably the greatest of them all in Sir Alex Ferguson, Warnock would give one piece of advice to any aspiring managers.

Namely ‘don’t pick your club, pick your chairman’. Fortunately, Warnock – looking fit and well after overcoming the Covid-19 virus and relishing a return to dug-out duties with Middlesbrough on Saturday – feels blessed in that regard.

Warnock said: “My advice would be the same since day one. The best thing young managers can do is get a good chairman. You need someone who will help and support you and not panic at the first few games you lose.

“When I have really done well, I have had a good man to work with. I look back at Simon Jordan, Mehmet (Dalman) and Steve (Gibson) here. You need someone you can trust.”

Regrets? In the words of Frank Sinatra, Warnock has had a few in his four decades in management.

Rejecting Sunderland in 1992 was his biggest, but he has plenty more to be grateful for in a decorated career featuring a record eight promotions.

Again quoting Ol’Blue Eyes himself in Sinatra, Warnock has definitely done it his way, love him or loathe him, and at his time of life he is not for changing.

The Yorkshireman, 71, added: “I have always said: ‘Be careful what you wish for’ when I have left some of these clubs and they have not always done really well.

“What I like is that even the opponents who give me stick – like Cardiff when I went there – the number of people who said: ‘If I am honest, I’ve never liked you and wanted you here. But I am glad you are here,’ I really appreciate that.”

Warnock can recall memories of his first game as a Football League manager as if it was yesterday – Scarborough’s 2-2 draw with Wolves on a crazy summer day in August, 1987.

Others that stick out are maybe not ones you might think.

On that first match, he said: “They put it on a Bank Holiday Saturday in August. Can you believe it... I remember the Wolves fans sleeping everywhere the night before. They were in every shop doorway and on the beaches. You name it.

“I remember the fan falling through the roof who was drunk and nearly killed himself. Fortunately, he was all right.

“I remember a game with Huddersfield (in 1994). We were 3-0 up from the first leg of a (Football League Trophy) cup game and I knew if we’d get to Wembley, all the fans would be appeased as the club hadn’t been to Wembley since the Thirties.

“Some had booked coach trips before we played the second leg and I found out and went bananas.

“They (Carlisle) scored two goals early and my captain Peter Jackson came off and I had to put a kid from university on, a part-timer in Jon Dyson.

“Then, we played 10 minutes injury time before we eventually won.

“It was a pivotal game in my career. If it had gone the other way, something else may have happened in management.”

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James Mitchinson