Neil Warnock lifts the lid on how he became a manager, his time at Hartlepool United and almost joining Sunderland

The 71-year-old Yorkshireman has plied his trade all over the country after first taking charge of Northern Premier League side Gainsborough Trinity in 1981.

Since then, Warnock has won eight promotions, managed at Premier League level with three separate clubs and is now just four league games away from reaching the 1,500 milestone.

That feat will be reached with Middlesbrough in the coming months after it was confirmed the straight-talking Yorkshireman will stay at the Riverside for the 2020/21 campaign.

And despite his age, Warnock's passion for management still burns as strong as it ever has.

“I just love making players better,” said the Boro boss when asked where his desire still comes from. "I like making bad players average and average players good and good players great.”

In an insightful and entertaining video press conference which lasted nearly an hour on Zoom, Warnock was also asked if it was realistic to be challenging for promotion next season after narrowly avoiding relegation.

“I think it would be a miracle if I’m honest,” he replied. “With the squad and recruitment to do something like that, but I look back at where I’ve been and what I’ve done, QPR and Cardiff were very similar and struggling one season.

“I do back myself against anybody, I don’t look at teams and think that club’s a big club and that club’s a big club. I look at managers and think am I better than them.

"That’s my league table and I think we’ve got a good chance of being higher up.”

Ironically, that hunger for management started just down the road from Middlesbrough during Warnock’s playing days at Hartlepool, between 1971 and 1973, when he was talked into coaching some local kids.

“I was staying in digs at Seaton Carew, and we had a little green square in front of the house,” Warnock said. “The kids had nothing, nothing at all, they looked like urchins really.

“But they knocked on my door and asked, ‘Would you like to train us?'. I thought, ‘Well, I’m not doing anything at night, I’ll give it a go’.

“It was either the Under-12s or the Under-13s. It was like that film Kes. I felt like him with a whistle round his neck... ‘today lads, I am Bobby Charlton’.

“I went on the green and took them, and it was brilliant when they responded to what I was doing.

“Eventually, we joined a league, and it was lovely to see a group of lads that had had no coaching at all, all of a sudden being organised as a team.

“I remember in one game, when we scored from a set-piece, I ran up and down that line like you’ve never seen.

“It was brilliant, and that was what really attracted me to the coaching side of things.

“I ended up playing at Gainsborough Trinity and got my first managerial job, and I’ve really enjoyed it all from there.”

The time Warnock spent at Victoria Park provided significant, particularly the guidance and lessons he received from manager Len Ashurst.

“I used to play for some managers where I used to dread getting out of bed,” Warnock admitted. “I used to think, ‘Oh my God, what have we got today?’.

“My best manager was Len Ashurst when I was at Hartlepool. That was a difficult place to be, but I learned more from Len Ashurst than I learned from any other manager.

“He had the fewest things to work with, did Len, but I learned more about man management from him than from anybody else.

“ And Hartlepool was a great two years for me because I was happy. I ended up getting the Player of the Year and that was the only thing I ever won as a player. That was because I was happy and I used to love going into training because I knew I was learning all the time from him.

“Some managers, I thought were a waste of time. All they wanted to do was show off and nutmeg people in training. I used to think, ‘Why do you nutmeg somebody, lose the ball, and you’re happy?’ Surely you’re better off putting the ball alongside somebody and keeping it?”

Since taking the job at Boro Warnock has implied he’s always had a soft spot for the North East, and also revealed he was close to taking the Sunderland job before the 1992 FA Cup final.

The Black Cats surprisingly reached the showpiece fixture at Wembley under caretaker boss Malcolm Crosby before they were beaten 2-0 by Liverpool.

Warnock had delayed his decision to take charge on Wearside due Sunderland’s involvement in the competition, a decision he still regrets.

“I was very close to managing Sunderland and I should have taken over there really,” said Warnock.

“I agreed to take over at Sunderland when Bob Murray was chairman, and I like Bob, but I played with Malcolm Crosby at Aldershot and he was a lovely lad.

“They wanted me to take over straight away and they had an FA Cup game coming up. Of course, I said to them, ‘I like Malcolm, Bob, can we wait until they get knocked out of the Cup?’.

“And the rest is history. I was in Spain when they played in the final. I thought, ‘Well bloody hell, that’s another job gone’.

At last, though, Warnock has arrived in the North East. His determination to succeed hasn’t changed.

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