‘It won’t be a little place for very long ... I know I am better than the 500 or so managers who have been sacked since the War. If they had known anything about the game, they wouldn’t have lost their jobs.’

On taking over 1965

‘Age doesn’t count. It’s what you know about football that matters.’

Dismissing his age as irrelevant 1965

‘I didn’t talk him into coming. I just showed him some pound notes. Two hundred, actually.’

On persuading Peter Taylor to join him 1990

‘He threatened to sack me at least 43 times a week.’

On his first chairman, Ernest Ord 1989

‘I got the sack at Hartlepool – and refused to go. The bloke who told me to clear off was called Ernest Ord ... we had more rows than Jack Duckworth and his missus in Coronation Street. I stayed – and got rid of him.’ 1989

‘He was the shortest fella I’ve ever met. So small that when he got behind the wheel of his Rolls Royce, you’d have thought no one was driving it.’

On Ord again 1989

‘I cut the grass and cleaned the drains and even mopped the dressing room floor ... We travelled jammed in our own private cars. Fifteen of us went to Barnsley once for £22 – petrol, meals, the lot.’

Life at Harlepool 1969