It didn’t take long for Neil Warnock to give the referee a piece of his mind. Barely five minutes had ticked by when Kai Morgan blew his whistle and thrust his arm in the direction of an Ebbsfleet free-kick.
Warnock, it’s safe to say, did not agree. Torquay United’s caretaker manager, out of retirement at the age of 77, drew a circle in the air with his hands and bellowed across the pitch: ‘He got the f***ing ball, ref!’
When Torquay midfielder Matt Worthington was shown a straight red card in the second half for a nasty challenge on Jake Hessenthaler, Warnock remonstrated with the fourth official before asking, at the top of his voice, ‘who’s running the f***ing game’.
‘I was asking who had actually got the whistle because I thought it was red shirts that had it,’ said Warnock after the game.
Time catches up with all of us, apparently, but no one appears to have let Warnock know. Watching the old timer on the touchline in his black Adidas boots, taking charge of his second game in temporary charge of Torquay, the 1,628th match of a managerial career spanning 46 years, it was like he’d never been away.
Neil Warnock has come out of retirement again at the age of 77 to take caretaker chare of Torquay
He barked his orders throughout a 3-0 defeat to Torquay’s play-off rivals and headed imaginary footballs any time the real one went high in the sky. He was chuntering towards his opposite number Josh Wright in the Ebbsfleet dugout inside the first two minutes.
It did not matter one jot that two years ago he was managing Aberdeen in the Scottish Premiership or keeping Huddersfield in the Championship a year before that and yet here he was in the National League South, the sixth tier of English football, overseeing a scrappy defeat at Ebbsfleet. Warnock was back where he feels most at home. The sound of fans behind the dugout calling him a ‘w*****’ made sure of that.
Those who know him well always thought he’d keep managing until the day he drops dead. To be fair, everyone else who doesn’t know him thought the same too. When he left Aberdeen, though, there was a rare sense of Warnock feeling down about it all. A few wondered whether he might have reached the end of the road.
Not a bit of it, if this was anything to go by. ‘When I was thinking about the system this morning at 4am – when you get to my age you have to go to the toilet quite a few times – I thought what are you doing?’
The beauty of a ground the size of Kuflink Stadium, which held 1,467 supporters on Saturday afternoon, is you can hear every word.
Warnock was back where he belongs on the touchline but saw his Torquay side suffer a 3-0 defeat to National League South play-off rivals Ebbsfleet on Saturday
The veteran manager admits questioning why he decided to return to the dugout, having decided to step in after serving as an advisor to Torquay’s owners for the past two years
‘Be careful when they’re attacking the halfway line that you don’t give him too much space,’ he shouted early on. He spent much of the first half barking instructions at forward Jordan Young. ‘I think he heard you,’ muttered one home fan behind the dugout.
Warnock had been working as an advisor to Torquay’s owners since they saved the club from administration two years ago but took over temporary charge last week, 33 years after he last managed the club, after Paul Wotton was sacked following a run of five games without a win, as the team that missed out on automatic promotion last season on goal difference, dropped from first to fourth.
Warnock is yet to find a first win with an injury-ravaged side, having drawn his first game at home to Farnborough in midweek. Torquay offered little going forward here too. Sony Blu Lo-Everton fired wide and Jay Foulston forced a rare save from Matt Hall. Sonny Fish looked to be through on goal only for the referee to blow for a foul. That didn’t go down well with Warnock either.
Dom Samuel made it 1-0 after half an hour before Kwesi Appiah doubled the lead just before the hour. After substitute Marcus Wyllie made it three with 10 minutes to go, the home fans kept asking Warnock if he could let them know the score.
He might be nearly 80, and his Torquay side might only be in the sixth tier of English football, but the man still attracts the spotlight like few others. He still courts it too.
When Daily Mail Sport called the Ebbsfleet office during the week to inquire whether it might be possible to pop along to the game this weekend, the kind lady at the other end of the line replied instantly: ‘is this because of the Neil Warnock stuff?’
We weren’t the first, clearly, to get in touch. Just before she put the phone down after confirming that would be no problem, she had one last question: ‘Just to confirm, if Torquay hire a new manager before Saturday, shall I take it that you won’t be coming?’
Warnock was still barking orders at his players and disagreeing with decisions made by the officials
Warnock, who insists he will likely have only two more games as caretaker boss, still has a passion that burns and commands the spotlight like few others in the game
On the walk from Ebbsfleet International train station to the Kuflink Stadium, one Torquay fan remarked how he’s now getting attention at work now that Warnock’s in charge.
Warnock shared a word with fellow veteran Peter Taylor, the former England caretaker manager, before kick-off, who was here to do some scouting for Dagenham.
‘He thinks he’ll only be here until the end of the week but I told him not to count it out just yet,’ said Taylor, taking his seat beside the press box.
After the match, Warnock insisted he likely has two games left before the club appoint the new manager, starting against Salisbury on Tuesday night. When you see – and hear – the passion that still burns you cannot see it being his last. When he walks around his hometown in Cornwall, shopkeepers are always asking him to take over at their club.
‘You’ll see me in Torquay’s dugout on Tuesday but you just never know,’ said Warnock. ‘They should have taken me to Tottenham, shouldn’t they? That’ll give you your headlines.’