PATRICK JOHN wants a little less conversation and a little more action on Saturday nights…

Mike Phelan

I’LL hold my hands up to a share of the blame here. For donkey’s years I worked on newspaper sports desks, demanding the manager’s reaction after a game.
And for another donkey’s years before that, I reported on league football up and down the country and faithfully recorded the post-match quotes in my shaky shorthand.
Why? How often did they actually say anything that enlightened anybody?
Yet we carried on recording their banal guff and publishing i...