A Hollywood Ending For Huddersfield Town And Neil Warnock
Neil Warnock at his introductory press conference for Huddersfield Town. (Photo: Will Early/HTAFC)
Brady Frost, Feature Writer
Twitter: @brady0894
“Well it’s having a good manager, isn’t it really?” - Neil Warnock’s post-match interview, after Huddersfield Town secured a 3-2 victory at Watford, 7 April 2023.
Is it *really* just having a good manager that makes the difference? After The Terriers appointed two inexperienced managers in Danny Schofield and Mark Fotheringham, who collectively lost 17 of 31 league games in the 2022/23 campaign, Town fans would categorically say ‘yes’. It’s hard to disagree, especially when the curtain closes on the season and fans reflect on the impact Neil Warnock has made in such a short space of time.
When Town suffered a 3-0 away defeat to Stoke City on 15 February that left them joint bottom of the table on 28 points with Blackpool, compared to now after the season has finished, the turnaround wouldn’t look out of place in a feel-good drama.
All positivity for Huddersfield Town remaining in the Championship seemed to have drained out of supporters like a Capri-Sun pouch squeezed to within an inch of its life on a hot summer’s day. A crucial run against relegation rivals in Blackpool and Wigan saw a return of just one point, even when Town had been leading twice and had a man advantage in the away trip to Blackpool. That result cost Mark Fotheringham his job even when it’s fair to say most fans had already lost patience with the Scotsman.
Following that 3-0 defeat in Stoke, Huddersfield interim head coach Narcis Pelach who was in charge for that game, spoke to BBC Radio Leeds post-match and tried to lift spirits. He said: "Tomorrow starts a new adventure, Neil is going to help the team, he is an experienced man and we look forward to having him in the building."
Neil Warnock (left) and his assistant Ronnie Jepson celebrating Huddersfield Town’s victory over Cardiff. (Photo: HTAFC)
And what an adventure it was. In a world where football can feel like its drifting from its humble roots; with media attention primarily focused on the elite teams that are backed by wealthy states and billionaires, spending astronomical fees on players and lusting over silverware like greedy magpies, if you’re a supporter of a lower league team that rarely has any success to celebrate, it can be easy to feel disillusioned with the game so many of us fell head over heels with. Yet, when love for football can feel like a losing game - it catches you off guard with a story, a narrative, that reminds you why you invest so much emotionally into this sport.
The lights, camera and action came to Huddersfield Town when it was needed most for its supporters and in stepped a man who’s one of the game’s great characters. Whose soundbites and infamous quotes reach the far corners of the globe. Neil Warnock, coined a ‘football dinosaur’ by some of his detractors, was out of retirement 15 months after his last job at Middlesbrough and thrust into the spotlight, something he relishes, at his opening press conference.
When Elmer Bernstein, the famous late American composer created the iconic theme for the 1963 film, The Great Escape, he wouldn’t have imagined 60 years later that a Yorkshire football team would be blaring it out of its speaker system to mark their survival in the second tier of English football.
The celebrated tune probably wouldn’t be so legendary had it not been for something Neil Warnock is regularly praised for, great man management. Bernstein, when giving an interview to The Guardian in 2002, two years before his death, talked about his ‘great and inspiring relationship’ with John Sturges, the director of the American war adventure film. He said: “He wouldn’t let me read the script for The Great Escape. He took me into his office and he told me the story. He was a great storyteller. When you walked out of that office, you knew exactly what to do.”
The similarities between Sturges and Warnock seem almost too on the nose for a movie scriptwriter to devise. The 74-year-old arrived in mid-February at Huddersfield, exiting the glamour of a New York jazz club and arriving at a football club mired in the relegation zone, licking its wounds and feeling sorry for itself. Warnock himself is a great storyteller who makes the press hang on his every word but yet in the background, the looming shadow of an insurmountable task, one that even a well-decorated relegation survivalist of his stature would find difficult. But when he’s in his office having conversations with players, on the training ground giving instructions, or in a huddle in the changing room - like the director and his composer, the squad knew exactly what ‘the gaffer’ had asked them to do.
Neil Warnock’s second spell in charge of The Terriers saw him pick up seven wins and four draws in 15 matches, despite him playing 11 of the top 13 teams in the division during that time, amassing 25 points. If you worked out Warnock’s average points per game over the season, it would have comfortably secured a place in this year’s Championship Play-offs.
Jack Rudoni and Joseph Hungbo celebrating. (Photo: Will Early/HTAFC)
From fans giving up after losing in a crucial relegation six-pointer against Wigan, to securing safety against second-placed Sheffield United with a game to spare. Bringing an average of 1,116 more home fans to his games in charge, than the matches where it was another manager in the home dugout. Being 23rd in mid-February to finishing 18th in the table, nine points clear of safety.
You can point to statistics, the cold hard facts in the league table or the form guide - but it’s the immeasurables that Neil Warnock and Ronnie Jepson brought to the club. Getting performances from players who’d been cast aside, easing the pressure even after two back-to-back 4-0 defeats early doors in their tenure, which left them in a position where no second-tier side in a similar predicament had survived relegation in the past 30 years. Yet, there was Neil chuckling away in press conferences, complaining about referees and asking people rhetorically ‘Are you with me?’ Spoiler: they were.
For supporters, it was bringing the belief back, the smiles, and creating all the fun they had along the way. A beam of sunshine bursting through the clouds of a dark and stormy season. When Warnock and Jepson make it look so easy to achieve, it’s hard to figure out why other managers couldn’t do better when the stakes were lower.
A Hollywood ending for Huddersfield Town fans when all hope was lost, that’s why it’s being dubbed ‘The Great Escape’ by supporters, players and pundits alike. When everything that had previously occurred on and off the pitch would tell you that League One beckoned for the West Yorkshire side, Neil Warnock defied logic and delivered a script that earned rave reviews from even his harshest critics.
A leading man is nothing without a supporting cast and credit has to go to the players, staff and those behind the scenes for contributing to this stellar end-of-season performance too.
Now, whatever occurs in the coming months for The Terriers and the wise old manager, after achieving what Neil himself described as ‘the most difficult job he’s ever had in his career’, it’s probably best to let the credits roll on this season and appreciate his ride off into the sunset.
