How Torquay tempted Warnock out of retirement

“You can’t just retire and get the chicken eggs in and walk the dog, you’ve got to have something,” chuckles Neil Warnock as he embarks on his latest football odyssey.

After 43 years Warnock, who has led teams to a record eight promotions and managed more games in the English professional football than anyone else, still cannot quite ‘retire’ – despite saying he would pretty much every year since 2019.

He has been lured back to help one of his former clubs out of one of the darkest periods in their history.

Torquay United’s new owners have persuaded the 75-year-old to join their board of directors as a football advisor as the former EFL side try and get out of National League South.

“When I go back to when I first came to Torquay it was only for a few months, but it actually turned my whole career around and I’ll never forget,” Warnock tells BBC Sport.

The man that would go on to manage the likes of Sheffield United, Queens Park Rangers, Cardiff City, Crystal Palace and Leeds United helped the Gulls stave off relegation from what is now League Two in 1993.

It ended up getting him the Huddersfield Town job, promotion two years later and the start of an unparalleled career in English football.

But why? Warnock has carved out a career as a television and radio pundit and has been touring venues with his one-man show reflecting on his career in football.

It all comes down to a chance meeting on a train with Michael Westcott, one of the men who were trying to help Torquay out of administration.

“‘Excuse me,’ he said, ‘Could I just have five minutes of your time please?’ That’s how it started,” Warnock explains.

“It’s not very often Sharon [Warnock’s wife] likes people like that in football, but she just said straight away, ‘I like him,’ and we’ve always liked Torquay.

“It’s nice to put something back in really. As a manager you’re always under pressure, you’re always doing this, that or the other. Yes, there’ll be pressure times, but I’m not getting paid so I’m not expecting to get stick off anybody,” he adds with a twinkle in his eye.

‘It’s Neil Warnock, go and speak to him’

Torquay’s 2024 has been tough.

In February, now former owner Clarke Osborne announced plans for the club to go into administration, a move which formally followed in April.

It led to a 10-point deduction and fans rallied together to try and save the club both from relegation and liquidation.

On the field they limped home in 18th place in National League South – their lowest position for more than a century.

Off the field Torquay were in peril as Osborne – who took over the club in late 2016 with the aim of building a new stadium and selling Plainmoor off for housing – was unwilling to fund the annual losses of more than £1m any more.

But a group of local businessmen decided to come to the rescue.

Calling themselves the Bryn Consortium – after the police dog that bit Gulls skipper Jim McNichol during the final match of the 1986-87 season when the club staved off relegation thanks to a goal scored in the stoppage time caused by the incident – they aim to return the club to their former glories.

“This is the guy on talkSPORT, it’s the guy who’s on Sky Sports,” co-chairman Mark Bowes-Cavanagh tells BBC Sport.

“This is a guy that when my family first asked me to look at the data room at Torquay and I was talking to friends I was saying, ‘The guy I’d like to get is somebody like Neil Warnock’.

“Michael phoned me up and said, ‘You’ll never guess who’s just got on the train,’ and I went, ‘It’s Neil Warnock, go and speak to him’.

“The next minute they’re exchanging numbers, and this was on a Thursday, and on a Saturday he came to watch the game against Weston-Super-Mare.”

‘His experience and knowledge is unquestionable’

Weeks later Warnock has been unveiled alongside Torquay’s new manager Paul Wotton as the men to bring the good times back to Plainmoor.

Having been a fixture in the lower two levels of the EFL since 1927 the club were relegated in 2014.

Various financial issues followed and the club have twice dropped to the sixth tier, where they remain today.

“It’s a long way off, but I always thought when I was here when we avoided relegation to non-league from Division Four in those days, I always thought this club could be a Division Three side, or League One as it is now,” says Warnock.

“The club crowd-wise could hold it and fill the ground every week.

“So there’s no reason why it can’t going forward, but you don’t start saying silly things like that, I think the first thing is get back up another league and try their best.

“I know Paul will be trying to do that this year and I’ll be trying to help him, but there’s no divine right in football.”

But those at Torquay will hope Warnock’s influence can help the Gulls bounce back as he supports Wotton for the new season under new owners.

While Wotton will be in charge of team affairs, Warnock will be there to lend a helping hand, offer some sage advice, and no doubt persuade people that the seaside Devon town is best for their footballing career.

“He’s someone who’s always been there for me throughout my whole career,” says Wotton, who after a successful time as a player captaining Plymouth Argyle, as well as spells at Southampton and Yeovil Town, has left Torquay’s sixth-tier rivals Truro City to join the club.

“I was a young player at Plymouth Argyle and he was the manager and I played under him a good few times, which was great.

“Throughout my career, even as a player and then when I got into management, he’s always been on the end of the phone.

“If I’ve been having a not great spell he’s always been there for advice, and also if I’ve been on a good spell he’s always sent a message saying, ‘Keep it going’.

“His experience and knowledge is unquestionable, and it’d be foolish for me not to tap into that.”

So for the time being Warnock’s ‘retirement’ to his home in the Cornish countryside has been put on hold once again, and perhaps there will be one or two more promotions to add to his resumé before he finally retires.