Sacked in the Morning's Xmas tales: Holloway's teddy bear XI, Sir Alex's blow-up guitar & legless Warnock
- Published
Have you ever wondered what it is like to be involved in football during the hectic Christmas period?
From teddy bear XIs to a Scottish icon playing a blow-up guitar, here are a few winter tales we bet you haven't heard - from Sacked in the Morning's Christmas special.
Holloway's teddy bear XI
Ex-Scotland midfielder Charlie Adam recalls the time former Blackpool manager Ian Holloway used Christmas presents to reveal his Boxing Day XI...
We were away at Derby on Boxing Day. We got Christmas off, so we had to meet pre-match at a hotel. [Holloway] hadn't said anything, so we knew nothing about the team.
He comes in and tells us when we finish our pre-match lunch we've to go into a room full of teddy bears. His wife had bought them. If your name was under one, you were playing. If it wasn't, you were a sub.
There was no analysis, nothing. We all walked into Derby's stadium with teddy bears in our hands and ended up winning 2-0. He just gave us the freedom to play and it was a great game.
Fergie's blow-up guitar
Former Manchester United coach Rene Meulensteen remembers a Christmas party that ended with a certain iconic Scottish manager showing off his guitar skills...
One Christmas party particularly springs to my mind. It was a dinner that turned out to be a really fun night. I still remember Sir Alex Ferguson later on standing on a chair with a blow-up guitar with a few other staff members miming some song.
I also remember that particular Boxing Day we played Newcastle. We won it 4-3, what a game that was. Javier Hernandez scored the winner in the final minute. Very typical, a 'Fergie-time' Christmas winner.
It just all rolled into one. A great Christmas party then a fantastic game on Boxing Day.
McLean's gruelling winter training
In true Jim McLean fashion, Paul Sturrock recalls when the legendary ex-Dundee United boss put his players through a gruelling day of winter training...
It was one winter's day, it was frosty and snowy and we had been playing pretty poorly. [McLean] put a practice match on with the reserves. You know what it's like, the reserves hype up their game. We lost.
So he said we'd to come back in the afternoon. There was a referee and two linesman there now. We played another 90 minutes. We lost.
Then he phoned up the radio and told all the supporters the gates were open and Dundee United, the first team, would be playing the reserves in an hour's time. So now we had a crowd.
That was like 270 minutes of football in one day on snow and ice. Unheard of.
Getting the opposition drunk
And a bit of advice from Neil Warnock, who explains why you should never drink with the opposition the night before a game...
I don't think I remember losing on Boxing Day as a manager, I've always done well. The only bad thing I remember about Christmas is when I played, I was about 19 years of age.
I had left Chesterfield, went to Rotherham and we were actually playing Chesterfield on Boxing Day. Some of the Chesterfield lads I used to play with asked me to go and just have a quick drink.
But they must have spiked my drinks over there because I went home legless. I'll never forget their smiles on Boxing Day when they saw the state I was in.