Management off-Pat

In Pat Nevin's excellent memoir The Accidental Footballer — as good on 1980s music as it is on football — there's a great anecdote about his time with Celtic Boys' Under-14 side. After scoring twice against two rugged centre backs who then start to kick him, the 13-year-old Nevin ducks out a tackle. 

At half-time he is accosted by the ginger centre back from Celtic's Under-16 team, who had come along to watch, who tells him: "Don't ever do that again, you might have scored a few goals and we might be winning but now they think you're scared of them. You have just given them a massive psychological lift. It might not help much today but they will always see that as a weakness in you in future especially if you shirk another tackle in the second half, so never do that again!"

It turns out the 16-year old with piercing blue eyes was David Moyes. Nevin writes: "You could have stamped MGR on his forehead when he was 16 and it wouldn't have made it more obvious than it was; he was born for for the job of being a top football manager."