Neil Warnock’s Funniest Football Stories!

So, and I looked at the first game that we had in, and I always liked the lads to have a game between them when I went in. Put the pads on. I used to love to see the ones that pulled out of tackles or didn't head a ball and get a ground in. And I had a member of staff here beside me telling me who they were, you know. I said, who's that? So-and-so, so-and-so. Who's that? So-and-so, so-and-so. Who's that? And then he'd come to Adele, red hot day, red hot day to Arlington, black gloves on, red hot day. And I went, who's the one with the gloves on? And he went, you don't want to know him, Gaffer. I said, why? He said, that's Adele Terab, they call him. He's from Tottenham. He said, he'll get you the sack. What do you mean, he'll get you the sack? He's got the last manager's sack. Everybody, avoid him. And anyhow, I watched the game, and I don't know why, because Sam knows you have your own feelings about players. And I looked at him in the game. Some of the things he did was unbelievable. And we weren't scoring goals then. So, and I thought, we haven't got a bad back line here. We've got a decent defence. So, anyhow, at the end of the game, I shouted him over. Adele, Adele, come here a second. So I said, and I got rid of the guy outside of me. And I said, do you understand good English? Yes, yes. I said, well, they tell me you play for me, you get me the sack. I said, they tell me you get me the sack if I play you. No, no. No, he said, no. I said, well, on Saturday, Adele, we play West Brom. Yes, West Brom, top of the league. He hadn't played for about four or five weeks. And I said, West Brom? Yeah. He said, I said, I play you Saturday. Yeah. I said, oh. I said, then if you're shite on Saturday, do you understand what shite is? He said, yeah, yeah. I said, if you're shite on Saturday, I play you the next game. And if you're shite the next game, I play you the next game. And he's thinking, I'm going to fight. I'm going to be playing. I said, do you understand what I'm saying? I said, you are playing now. You will save us. And we look forward to working together. And that's how it happened. And he just made the goals, scored the goals. And we stayed up and we beat West Brom that day. And they were top of the league first game. And QPR, what a great place. Yeah. The fans. Good atmosphere there. Oh, it's unbelievable. For a manager. Yeah. Crystal Palace, how lucky. Crystal Palace and QPR. They were the best, the best two. You know, like, I always thought I could never manage in London. I used to think below Watford is the pits when I lived at Sheffield. You know, I'm never going to go below Watford. Honestly, such a great guy. He must have given you a rollicking now and again. Not me. Not me. No. No, I was known as the son of, you know, you know what they're like. You know, I've got many, many stories to him cutting my toenails. And what? Honestly. Oh, yeah, he does. He does a bit of that. He's a qualified Tropodist. He never let the Tropodist touch my feet. He'd be the one in his little coat and his glasses. But I've got a team talk for you that he done. We was playing Wolves. It was the game before we played Aston Villa, actually, in the FA Cup. It was Wolves and we got a draw away playing them at home. So we've come in, we've all sat down and he said, right, my wife Sharon, she's had a dream last night and no one really laughed because that was what he was like. He said she dreamt that my right back scores a winning goal today. And we said, OK, he said, so Danny Butterfield, you're playing up front. And he weren't even the right back at the time. He was a fringe player because Clyney was playing right back, Nathaniel Cline. We all started laughing then and he was like, no, I'm being serious. And I was taking centre with him. And even then I was looking over to the bench going, Gaffer, is this a joke? Put him back to right back. And I think about 12 minutes later, he had a perfect hat trick, Danny Butterfield. And we won the game 3-1. Left, right, header. Won the game 3-1. And honestly, every team talk we come in after that, all the fringe players were going, Gaffer, Sharon had a dream last night. Am I in the team? Am I going to score? The guy was insane. He was old school. I worked under Mick McCarthy as well and he's in the same ilk as him. And if it was raining, he'd bring his umbrella in and he'd pull me aside and I'd get to stand under the umbrella with him. So he's always the Gaffer's son. Always the Gaffer's son. This is a bit concerning here. He told me a story, well, he told a story about Adele Trapp. And it was similar to me that the first thing he said to me was that you're playing no matter what, you're taking penalties, free kicks, corners, everything. If you don't play well, you're playing the next game. If you're poor that game, you're playing the next game. And it was fantastic. I played every single game that season, 53 games. And I scored the most I've scored, 20 goals, 17 assists. And it was all thanks to him. We had a lot of people asking, just saying, who butchered your paddy? Oh, Millwall? What happened on that? Nobody's ever explained. So, you know what he was like, weren't he? He was a f***ing horrible f***er, wasn't he? And he'd smashed a couple of younger lads in the first half. He was a f***ing naughty. And we were going off at half-time and I just said, f***ing hell, Muzzy. I says, pick on someone your own f***ing size. Didn't expect out of it, turned around, just f***ing butchered me. Right? So your natural reaction is to have a go back, isn't it? So I f***ing go on. Next time I've gone to go for him, my goalie coach is behind me, Andy Leaning. Got hold of my arms like that, saying, I don't want you getting in trouble. I'm like, f*** it. So I'm kicking my legs out and everything and trying to have a go back. And then, remember Diccio, Danny Diccio? He wasn't even involved, he's got a suit on. He's hitting me overhead from behind with a f***ing plastic Luxe in a bottle like that. I'm like, what the f***, Andy, get the f*** off me. F*** me, I'm getting pelleted. So we all went off in tunnel. And then we goes in and in changing rooms. And Warnock's gone, what's going on, what's going on? Paddy's defended himself. We f***ing all waded in. We look, f***ing love all that, boys. Brilliant, fair play to you. We stick together. Paddy, f***ing don't take no s*** off him. Fair play to you, bloody like. Next thing, referee comes in. Neil Paddy, can you come in my room? So he goes in his room and there were Muscat and Dennis Wise, who were manager at Middlewell at the time, sit there. And he went, I'm afraid to say, I'm going to have to give you a red card. And you're a red card, you're both off. And we didn't have a sub. We were losing 1-0 at halftime. We didn't even have a sub keeper on bed in the morning. So he goes back in changing rooms. I sit down in my same spot. And Warnock looked at me and went, what are you f***ing doing? I went, what? He went, what are you f***ing doing? I went, sat here. He went, get out of my f***ing sight. You've just been sent off. I've just been buzzing. I've defended myself. And now it's time to get out of here. He made me sit in the shower. I'm sat in the f***ing shower like this. And then to top it all off, we come back at 1-2-1 with Jags in goal. And then at the end of the game, he's going, we don't need you no more, Paddy. You could have got Jags. Oh, thanks.