Dave Sexton

Mm-hmm.

Um, and then e- even Dave Sexton before, um, before the season starts, he's saying, "No, we made great strides in the, um, in the division last season." He was really talking-

Yeah

... up the fact that they finished second, so-

But I mean, that's the way that the Gary Birtles signing is put into context.

Um, he signed for 1.25 million pound from Nottingham Forest.

The quote from Dave Sexton upon his signing is, "He's a goer, he's a trier."

Yeah.

I can't- it was the end of the season, wasn't it? That's right, yeah.

Dave Sexton days.

Yes.

Yeah.

But, but anyway, you, you played under some huge names when you finally did get playing professionally.

Uh, I don't know whether you were still an amateur, but Ron Yeats, Tommy Docherty, Dave Sexton, Ron Atkinson, Don Revie, and Ron Greenwood.

Who would have the biggest impact on your career, do you think?

Well, I always say, uh, Tommy Docherty, because I played a year for Tranmere as an amateur.

Mark Bright is the only person, we beat, we beat, um, Birmingham away once, 6-nil.

We were away from home, beat them 6-nil.

Dave Sexton always used to talk about the perfect game, 3-nil at half time, 6-nil.

[laughs]

So, Paddy, we were talking about the 1979 Cup final last time round.

Dave Sexton, magnanimous in defeat.

This is a strange season for United.

Do you think that they're going to build on that? It looked at one point like Sexton was rocky, like he was going to be in a very difficult situation moving into the summer, but the Cup run kind of saved him, even though United lost on the day.

You would not expect, possibly, I mean, everyone will remember Greenhoff and Thomas scoring against Liverpool, particularly Thomas, because it was great for him to score in that game after the criticism and the sort of pressure he'd been under.

But...

the game i always remember it most for um i remember the game most for um this ridiculous um this passage of play which is the worst um now if you're a student of football and you like total football you will have studied the origins of total football and you would have watched the 1974 world cup you would have watched the holland team hunting impacts and you would have looked at that and you said this is not total football somebody's having me on and then you would have watched it over the years evolve and become the sophisticated thing that it is today when you watch um what passes for dave sexton's offside trap in this game you would think it is not you'd take it back under the trades description because i i don't really know how to describe it um but you watched it before

um basically what happens is that hansen brings the ball out of defense now i i was a great admirer of alan hansen i thought he could i know he was a great player but i thought he could have been you know i thought he could have been beckenbauer because he had this amazing ability on the ball uh but rather like Rio Ferdinand in later years, he seemed to be programmed not to go that final, you know, not to keep going as one or two of the liberals of, you know, in Denmark and even Italy were allowed to do.

Today, Paddy, we are going to be t- talking about the 1978/1979 season for United.

Um, Dave Sexton, he's had a year in charge of the club.

He now really needed to kick off in style.

Um, more like his team needed to do that as well.

... deserves all the credit for it.

So this is the...

I mean, you can bl- blame Dave Sexton's pragmatism, or you can look at the, um, defining moments and, and the very fine lines that you get in sport, and this was one of those really because there are a couple of decisions here.

Sammy, one of the things that he blames himself on is that he takes a, a time celebrating.

He was very popular, but it didn't happen for him.

Dave, there's a great story about Sergei Redroff, which you mention in your book.

We've discussed it before, and if you're happy to share it now, that's his obsession with Morse code and the difficulties he got in with some of his neighbours in Loughton.

Yes, he was a very intelligent boy.

You can't judge him on one performance or two performances.

They need a run.

I remember many, many years ago when Peter Osgood came into the Chelsea team and whoever it was who was the manager at the time, I don't know if it was Dave Sexton or Doherty, they said, whatever happens, he'll get six games.

And of course, he continued and had a wonderful career.

You've all already heard.

It's just the conclusion of the Complete History audio series with Paddy Barclay as we go through the Dave Sexton era.

Those episodes are, like I said, they're going to be on... at the start and end of every week for the next couple of weeks.

Yeah, so transfer rumours.

So this opportunity came up for him.

Talk us through Dave Sexton's reputation at United.

Yeah, well, his reputation was very good.

He was... generally regarded as someone who had made the transition from coach to manager.

Um, yes, he was very much, uh, the coming thing.

He was, um, you know, hugely respected as a coach and it's without giving too much away.

I think it, you know, we're talking now in 2022 and I think, you know, his legacy, if you were to say, you know, remembering Dave Sexton, you would say, well, along with Don Howe, one of the great English coaches, um, the inspiration to the likes of, uh, Roy Hodgson and, and, and, um, and so on, you know, the next generation.

But yes, it looked as if he was the kind of guy who could make the transition to management, which I think, I suppose, you know, we're talking about Don Howe, didn't make, Hodgson did.

One of my other heroes from this era was quite a learned man for a manager.

He was called Dave Sexton.

Yeah?

Yes.

And Sexton very successfully managed Chelsea.

I think they won the European Cup Winners' Cup.

And then he went to Manchester United and he had five or six good years there.

Well, I assume he must have seen something, despite what the phrase says, he must have seen something at either Chelsea or Man United.

Well, of course, as soon as Ron arrived, he wanted Remy Moses and Brian Robson.

and I think we split it 1.5 for Brian and 500,000 for Remy, but of course we then go and take his two best players, which they were in a good position in the driving seat as far as the price was concerned, because obviously they were both under contract, so it was too many, and it was a lot of money at the time, but you know, I was a new chairman, I hadn't been there very long, Ron was a a new manager, he'd replaced Dave Sexton.

And I think we just felt that if we don't push the boat out now, then we never will.

So I think it was one of those things.