The sleep-deprived 74-year-old’s 65-minute set was streamed in front of a live press room audience. If you did not like a punchline, there would soon be another.

Late to build the anticipation, he bounded in with all the energy of a man half his age muttering, "Bloody hell, some right rogues in here!"

He started strongly.

"I watched the last couple of games, Stoke and Wigan," he said, "and I think we're asking a lot to get in the play-offs!”

"Look at the fixtures and you must be a bloody idiot to want to come here,” he added. “Fortunately I am."

"There's no pictures of me up at the training ground, there's pictures of everybody else. I said if I keep them up there'll be a bloody statue!"

He gives a full Sid James cackle as he mentions his first away game.

ENTERTAINER: Neil Warnock was in fine form during his Huddersfield Town press conference

"We could train all week and get battered five or six at Burnley,” he says. “I'll have to say Ronnie (Jepson, his assistant) took it!"

All the greatest hits got an airing – an Andy Booth story from his one-man show, an extract from his autobiography, turning Chelsea down as Notts County manager.

"I should’ve come here when I went to Leeds but I thought I could conquer Ken Bates," he says. "I've not signed anything yet."

Warnock Bingo players get a "we are short at the moment", "I got relegated at Cardiff with an offside goal" and his catchphrase "Are you with me?"

There was also some topical material.

"I'll have to have a word with Paul (Heckingbottom, Sheffield United’s manager) about his temper (sent off on Wednesday),” he says, “you can't be doing that."

There is even audience participation when introduced to the Huddersfield Examiner's successor to Mel Booth, who Warnock waxed lyrical about after his time at Huddersfield in the 1990s.

"Sorry about Mel Booth – I did like him, I don't know you," he tells Steven Chicken.

He laughs off his age.

"I was taken aback when I came for the Sheffield United game – Sheffield United? QPR? Stoke?" he asks. "74, you forget things!

"I'm sure at the ground there'll be the same couple of lads who asked for my autographs all them years ago – they'll probably have white sticks now!"

Although he says he will be taking the blood pressure pills, he is here for laughs, not stress, joking: "If it isn't football every sort of occasion I go to is probably a funeral.

"If they get relegated I'm not going to get blamed, it's a piece of cake!"

"No disrespect to you son," he tells a bald reporter, rubbing his hair, "but there's no stress in this job."

It all has a serious side, letting opposition managers know he is ready for the 15-game battle to come.

"I like to do my dinosaur thing," he says. "It's amazing what you can bring to the table with experience."

It will be a short tour – "I'm getting a decorator in so it could work out" – before returning to his other stage.

"The shows are still going ahead in May and June and they'll be a bit longer now," he says.

Finally he signs off, leaving them wanting more: "Thanks for coming."

Neil Warnock Huddersfield Town's great entertainer, makes his point on return