‘The ball is your best friend. Love it, caress it.’

His advice to players 1987

‘I’d love all of us to play football the way Frank Sinatra sings ... all that richness in the sound and every word perfect.’ 1993

‘No one who hasn’t done it realises how lonely the job is.’

On management without an assistant 1985

‘Show me someone who is liked by everyone and I’ll show you someone who’s got it wrong.’

On the basics of management 1979

‘The best coaching lesson of all ... After 90 minutes listening to me yell at everyone, whoever it is knows me better than he’s ever done before.’

Why he liked players sitting next to him in the dug out 1989

‘If you sort out the small things, the big things won’t bother you.’

On why he was such a disciplinarian 1972

‘A pianist learns to play the piano by spending hours at the keyboard. A painter learns how to paint by standing at an easel. And a footballer learns how to become more skilful at his job by practising it.’

On the importance of coaching with the ball rather than using blackboard and chalk 1983

‘If a player is repeatedly getting booked, then the manager should be fined as well as him. We’d stop bookings overnight if that happened.’ 1987

‘You can split footballers into two categories. There were those who ‘can play’ and those who ‘can’t’. You’ll be surprised how many people can’t tell the difference. Some of them are managers.’ 1985

‘Eric Morecambe used to say to me that the art of all comedy is timing. The art of management is knowing your own players, and I’m not talking about whether someone has a better right foot than his left or can’t head the ball for toffee. I’m talking about really knowing them, knowing what sort of person you’ve got on your hands ... I can tell, from the moment I see someone in the dressing room, whether he’s off colour, had a row with his missus, kicked the cat or doesn’t fancy it that particular day. I know who needs lifting. I know who needs to have his arse kicked. I know who needs leaving alone to get on with it.’

On the psychology of coaching 1984

‘Players lose you games, not tactics. There’s so much crap talked about tactics by people who barely know how to win at dominoes.’ 2000

‘I’m on the same wavelength as players.’

The secret of his coaching 1980

‘I’d want them to tell me: Is it the birds, is it the booze or is it the betting? ’Cos most of us are susceptible to one of those things. If I find out that someone likes a bet, I can watch the size of his wallet. If I find out someone likes to chase women, I can see whether his fly is undone. If someone likes a beer, I’ll get close enough to smell his breath in the morning. Now that’s management ...’

On the first thing he would ask a new signing 1980

‘I’m a manager players generally like because I win them things. No one likes to go through their career without winning a medal.’

On his own abilities 1981

‘If a player can’t trap a ball and pass it by the time he’s in the team, he shouldn’t be there in the first place. I told Roy McFarland to go out and get his bloody hair cut. That’s coaching at top level.’ 1972

‘It only takes a minute to score a goal.’ 1969

‘I don’t know anything about art. But I do know that one artist influences another artist, persuades him to paint in the same style or use the same colours. I reckon if I can influence just one manager to look at what I did, and then try to do exactly the same himself, then I’ll take it as a compliment. I’ll know that I was half-decent at my job.’ 1987

‘Too many players think they can pull their boots off one day and put on a suit the next. They couldn’t be more wrong.’

On moving from the pitch into the manager’s office 1982

‘I don’t have many regrets in life, but if I do have one, it’s that I never managed a big club. Can you imagine what I could have done at Old Trafford?’ 1988

‘Time. Cash. A good chairman. The ability to handle players and being the boss when it’s necessary. The rest is all about talent.’

On how to be successful in management 1981

‘The only thing I’ve ever seen catch a ball on its nose from 14 feet in the air was a seal I watched as a kid at Blackpool Tower circus.’

On why he despised the long ball game 1990

‘My philosophy has always been that if you are going to be a manager – or anything else for that matter – that you might as well be the best one there is. In my book, that has always meant winning the League Championship.’ 1983

‘Football management means strains, pressures and heart attacks, but a real football man cannot resist it.’ 1977

‘I want first place. Anyone who would settle for less is crackers.’ 1969

‘Doing well in football is like childbirth – it doesn’t happen overnight.’ 1979

‘People get mixed up about themselves; they become bad judges of what they have to offer. I try to show them what they are really capable of and help them to give it.’ 1979

‘Never do what they expect you to do, otherwise they’ll take you for granted.’

On dealing with players 1985

‘The day I tell the chairman that I’m quitting, he’d better grab the keys of the company car, clear my office and take my name off the headed notepaper as soon as the words leave my mouth.’

His belief that people who say they want to quit a job should go – immediately 1986

‘One of the worst crimes you can commit, not just in football but in life, is to ask people to deliver something they haven’t got. That destroys them totally.’ 1979

‘You can take your League Cups, FA Cups and European Cups and put them all in a corner. To win our League Championship is incredible ...’

On the importance of the League Championship 1980

‘All great sides are based on clean sheets ... I built every side I ever managed on them.’ 1969

‘I lived by the rule that in the first three months of a manager’s life you are at your strongest. Get all the unpleasant stuff out of the way.’ 1990

‘Firing people isn’t hard.’ 1978

‘It’s a fact of life. It’s harder to hang on to success than to get it.’ 1990