I trotted off after Turner says Warnock

Neil Warnock has recently released his auto-biography called Made in Sheffield and in it he writes about his first game as a manager with Scarborough in the (then) Fourth Division.

"The fixture computer gave us Wolves and they brought thousands with them. It was a bank holiday so they'd all been on the beach all morning drinking and having a laugh.

"It was a great atmosphere when the game started but it always felt like it had the capacity to get a bit tasty and, sure enough, when half time came around, it all kicked off.

"We had gone ahead but they equalised and Steve Bull put them in front.

"During the interval, the Wolves fans set about destroying new toilets we had put in for the away supporters. They were smashing the hell out of them. One bloke climbed up onto the corrugated iron roof of the stand and started jumping up and down.

"Next thing you know, the idiot's fallen straight through it. An ambulance crew took him off to hospital. He discharged himself later, which amazed me.

"Because he was so pissed, the medical people said his body was relaxed when he hit the floor and it limited the damage.

"The ref was talking about abandoning the game because of the crowd trouble so before the teams came out for the second half, they asked me and the Wolves boss, Graham Turner, to walk over to the away fans to pacify them.

"As I was walking over towards them, I could tell that a lot of them were pretty smashed.

"We got to within about thirty yards of where they were standing and suddenly this Coca-Cola can came flying through the air out of nowhere and just missed my head. I picked it up and it was full of sand. It was like a piece of concrete.

"I said to Graham, 'Feel that.'

"He was a bit timid, Graham, and he looked aghast."

"I think we'd better leave them to it," he said.

"He turned on his heels and trotted off.

"He was one of the nicest people you could ever wish to meet in football so I trotted off after him.

"They let the game continue eventually. It finished 2-2."

Later in the book he writes about playing Hereford in the Autumn of 1995. At that stage in his career he was with Plymouth who had just been relegated to the Fourth Division. His memory isn't quite as it should be as regards the facts.

"We were ninety-second out of ninety-two league clubs, having spent £500,000 on players (including a goalkeeper Nicky Hammond from Swindon.)

"By the fouth game I knew Hammond had gone. His confidence was absolutely shot.

"We played Hereford United at Home Park at a time when they couldn't buy a goal either. (not strictly true, seven goals in three games - ed)

"They were right down in the mire (not really they were 9th - ed) with us and that match should have been a home banker (never - ed).

"We played well enough. Going forward, we were fine, but I was nervous every time they got near our goal. Not as nervous as Nicky Hammond, unfortunately.

"Late in the game Hereford got a long throw and Nicky told the defence he was going to claim it, come what may. You can't do that. Not before you know where it is going. Anyway, he came for it, got nowhere near it, someone flicked it on and a lad called Steve White scored the winner.

"So there we were: four games, four defeats, no points."

Neil Warnock - Made in Sheffield - is published by Hodder and Stoughton.

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