This was of course of not being given an opportunity to become the manager of a Football Club, and how close I was on a couple of occasions. The first was quite funny as I was enjoying an afternoon at Chester races with an old friend Michael Carter and after an entertaining day with the chairman of Blackpool Football Cub he offered me the job as Player|Manager of his club. It was the worst possible time because I was enjoying my football so very much under Tony Waddington and would not have left him for all the tea in China. Plus, I was only 23-years-of-age and was really only rediscovering myself as a player after a desperate ending to my Chelsea career, which Tony resurrected in incredible fashion. The only other time was when I put in for the Stoke City job when Frank Edwards was chairman and after he had read my letter of interest in the post he approached me in the function room at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London one Friday evening. I was actually sitting enjoying the evening with George Byatt and Waddington himself when Mr. Edwards came over and introduced himself, for strangely although he was my chairman I had never met him. He was an absolutely smashing man so unlike other of those who sit on the board at football clubs.

Although I was rejected, it was nothing new to me as I had been experienced that with England on many occasions, but I still to this day know that I would have become a top manager, and when I look at some ho have had big jobs and earned fortunes I shudder at the thought that I could not do better. I played under Tommy Docherty as a Youth player, Dave Sexton, Tony Waddington, Alf Ramsey and Don Revie with England and England Under 23, Terry Neil, Jimmy Gabriel (Harry Redknapp as his assistant) Alan Hinton, Bill Asprey and finally Mick Mills and know if I took all of the good, bad and ugly from those and added my own theories, which are simple, knowhow and personal experiences I, through using that as my jigsaw, know that I could have done the job standing on my head. There are several of those mentioned who would have been better doing it standing on their heads, and finish by saying that Waddington was the greatest I have ever played under and even more important, come across.

Although I was rejected, it was nothing new to me as I had been experienced that with England on many occasions, but I still to this day know that I would have become a top manager, and when I look at some ho have had big jobs and earned fortunes I shudder at the thought that I could not do better. I played under Tommy Docherty as a Youth player, Dave Sexton, Tony Waddington, Alf Ramsey and Don Revie with England and England Under 23, Terry Neil, Jimmy Gabriel (Harry Redknapp as his assistant) Alan Hinton, Bill Asprey and finally Mick Mills and know if I took all of the good, bad and ugly from those and added my own theories, which are simple, knowhow and personal experiences I, through using that as my jigsaw, know that I could have done the job standing on my head. There are several of those mentioned who would have been better doing it standing on their heads, and finish by saying that Waddington was the greatest I have ever played under and even more important, come across.

That regret still eats at me, but like so many other injustices it is something we have to grin and bear, which is something I have become a master at.

Unlike today, not only would I have had the understanding and the trust and backing of my players I would have built the best Youth policy by bringing in those who know a player when they see one.

I would also have had the same ingredients as I did as a player and that was consistency and standards, and it was only whilst at Highbury those drops because of a serious abdominal injury and that can be believed because I never feigned an injury, just ask Mr. David Goodier FRCS (Consultant Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgeon).