We’ve come to expect the unexpected with Neil Warnock, but considering that he’s retired at least three times by now, his appointment as Aberdeen manager earlier this week rather came from out of the blue.
The 75-year-old has legendary status amongst fans, thanks to both his achievements on the pitch as well as his antics off it. A promotion specialist, Warnock has achieved eight of them during his career and his role at Aberdeen is his 20th managerial appointment at his 17th different club.
Neil Warnock Returns To Management And Joins Aberdeen
He joins a side who have achieved European qualification in nine of their last 10 seasons, but sit ninth in the Scottish Premiership at the time of writing. They are still in the Scottish Cup however and face League Two Bonyrigg Rose in Warnock’s first home game on Saturday.
The veteran manager has yet to win a trophy, but there is plenty to unpack from his near 45-year career in the dugout. From great escapes to fly-on-the-wall outbursts, we’ve picked out some of the most eventful moments from Warnock’s hugely successful career so far.
Neil Warnock At Sheffield United (1999-2007)
Warnock is arguably best known for his near eight-year stint as manager of boyhood club Sheffield United, where his unique character hit a national audience.
The popular culture references from his time at the Blades are bordering on endless. Things got off to a strong start, when he took his squad bowling during pre-season and encouraged everyone to put £20 in the pot for whoever got the highest score. It all seemed like harmless fun, until Warnock arrived with his own shoes, gloves and bowling ball and promptly blew everyone away.
There was also a television documentary titled “Warnock”, a fly-on-the-wall account of the 2004-05 campaign. A poor run at the end of the season would see United ultimately slip out of play-off contention in the Championship, but the dressing room rants were priceless.
“By all means enjoy it, but enjoy it by being f***ing disciplined.”
One of those team talks must have worked too well in March 2002, when a home match with West Brom had to be abandoned due to United having a shortage of players, going down to six men after suffering three red cards and two injuries. Warnock came under strong criticism for his role in the carnage, leading to him claiming that he had been branded “the Osama Bin Laden of football”.
There were plenty of highs however and Warnock turned United into a force to be reckoned with in the second tier, reaching the semi-finals of both the FA Cup and the League Cup in 2002-03. They were ultimately defeated in the Championship play-off final at the end of that campaign, but he would go on to deliver automatic promotion to the Premier League in 2006.
United’s stay in the top flight would last just one season but it was anything but dull, taking the scalps of Arsenal and Tottenham before ultimately losing out in a final day scrap with Wigan Athletic and West Ham United.
Warnock resigned in the aftermath but the drama wouldn’t end there, as the Blades took West Ham to court over the legitimacy of deals to sign Javier Mascherano and Carlos Tevez, ultimately being awarded £20 million in damages in 2009.
Neil Warnock At Queens Park Rangers (2010-2012)
With previous club Crystal Palace suffering from financial problems, Warnock made the jump to London rivals Queens Park Rangers in March 2010. Rangers were embroiled in a relegation scrap at the time, but Warnock quickly guided them to safety before masterminding a Championship title-winning campaign the following season.
Warnock describes the latter as one of his greatest achievements in the dugout and it revolved around him getting a tune out of the enigmatic Adel Taarabt, something he was arguably the only manager to achieve. Taarabt was highly talented but regularly accused of being lazy, rather making him the antithesis of everything that Warnock’s sides are about.
However, Warnock surprised everyone by building his team around the midfielder, making him captain and banning him from coming into his own half during matches. Taarabt was threatened with a £50 fine if he did so, with his teammates facing the same fate if they passed to him inside their own half. The method worked a treat, with Rangers finishing top and Taarabt hitting the net 19 times.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZn4wubDRvo
Neil Warnock At Rotherham United (2016)
One of the greatest feats of Warnock’s career arguably came from one of his shortest stints, when taking charge at seemingly doomed Championship side Rotherham United in February 2016.
Warnock took over with the Millers sat in the bottom three and looking certain for the drop having lost eight of their past 12 league games. Things would start slowly for their new manager, picking up just one point from his first three games, but his side soon turned a corner.
Summoning the energy of a prime Barcelona side, the Millers embarked on a scarcely believable 11-game unbeaten run that would steer them away from trouble, taking scalps which included subsequent play-off finalists Sheffield Wednesday as well as automatically promoted Middlesbrough.
Despite the miraculous recovery, Warnock bowed out at the end of the season, leading to plenty speculating that this job would be his last. However, he was far from finished and would soon be back in the dugout over the border in Wales.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIbdf5l5r1w
Neil Warnock At Cardiff City (2016-2019)
Having turned down the opportunity to manage Rotherham permanently, Warnock was back as Cardiff City manager in October 2016. The Bluebirds had made a poor start to the season in the Championship, sitting second bottom of the table, but Warnock’s appointment was the beginning of a remarkable 18 months or so.
A strong second half of the season would see Cardiff secure a mid-table finish in the 2016-17 campaign, before kicking on and securing automatic promotion behind Wolves the following year.
They ultimately fell just short of winning the league, but there were plenty of golden moments in a memorable Championship title race, including a bust up between Warnock and Wolves boss Nuno Espírito Santo after their title showdown in April 2018.
Nuno didn’t immediately make himself available for the traditional post-match handshake between the two managers – instead celebrating after Cardiff had missed two injury time penalties – leading to Warnock telling him to “fuck off” in no uncertain terms on the halfway line, right in front of the Sky Sports cameras.
It wasn’t Warnock’s only antics on television at Cardiff, either, as he pulled out his best Liam Gallagher impression before a game with Crystal Palace, before claiming he didn’t know who he was!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlXG42XJt4k
Neil Warnock At Huddersfield Town (2023)
After parting company with Cardiff in November 2019, Warnock came out of retirement to guide Middlesbrough to safety in 2020, before agreeing to another short stint at struggling Huddersfield Town in February 2023.
That appointment meant he had come out of retirement once again and he was quick to poke fun at himself, tweeting a picture of himself in front of a dinosaur.
It proved to be an inspired move by Town, however, who were four points from safety when Warnock took over. They would go on to win six of their final nine matches to finish comfortably away from trouble, showing there was life in the fossil just yet.
Warnock was relatively well behaved during his time in West Yorkshire, aside from claiming that he only took the job “as a favour”, though he surprised plenty when agreeing to continue as manager for the 2023-24 campaign.
The Terriers made a solid start to the season, but Warnock announced that he would be stepping down from the post in mid-September to finally retire from management at the third time of asking, bowing out with a 2-2 draw with Stoke City.
Or so we thought.
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