' TOUGHEST JOB / THREE YEARS '

Toughest job?


NEIL WARNOCK:

Yeah. Overall, with everything to deal with, not just football. The toughest by far. I’ve come through it by only reading fans’ forums when we’ve won a game!

As a manager you have beliefs and through adversity you get tested on whether you’re doing the right thing.

The only time since I’ve been at the club since I’ve doubted where we were going is probably five minutes to go at Reading this season. I looked round and it wasn’t one of my teams and I wondered if there would be a response and there was. A wonderful response from the next game.

Morrison came to see me, because he knew I was a bit down, on behalf of one of the players. Who does talk to the manager? Who motivates the manager? Mehmet’s been brilliant but at times the lads must have thought at the time it might have been in my mind.

I wouldn’t have wanted to stand on the touchline with performances like that, with the crowd unhappy.

One of the pleasing things for me is making the crowd happy.

I remember I got the Sheffield United job and I told the people when I was a kid I used to go in through the turnstiles, sneak in under my dad’s legs and going to the top of the Kop. Watching the oohs and the ahhs and the shots. Then when we got a result, going home with my dad was unbelievable for me at six or seven years of age. And that’s what I want kids to remember here. I want them to remember the Warnock times, how they went home after a game and thinking ‘wow’.

You’re always going to get critics, you get that everywhere. I think the kids and tomorrow’s fans have enjoyed my era. I think there is still some to come.

Neil Warnock








Three years since you joined...


NEIL WARNOCK:

"I didn’t realise that. I thought you’d tell me we’d not beaten West Brom for 25 years or something. It’s flown by, full of incidents, ups and downs, but overall I’m really proud of how the club is now to how it was when I arrived. I take enormous pride in how we are, especially every time we listen to the fans."

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What was it like when you got here?


NEIL WARNOCK:

" There were fragments everywhere. It was a fragmented club. Nobody really pulling it together and that was my biggest job, not just the team but off the field and upstairs with the owners etc. It’s been a really big effort to put the club in a situation where we are today. Everybody’s pulled round, Vincent has been fabulous, so has Mehmet and Ken."

"The fans have been amazing, office staff, they’ve all mucked in. It’s even been good for the local press because there’s more interest in the club again. "