I’ve summed up the main talking points from tonight’s event.
Ronnie Jepson also appeared with Warnock this evening and he spoke about how Warnock had rung up and told him they were coming back to Town.
“The gaffer rung me when he was in New York and he said we were going back to Town. I’ve been to loads of places with the gaffer but going back to Huddersfield, where we’d had so many great memories, I was so excited, it was unbelievable. My wife was asking me what I was smiling for and I told her I was going back to Town.
“Neil sent me to go and watch them at Stoke, and after 30 minutes I was thinking ‘wow’! I’d seen Huddersfield at Blackpool a few weeks before where they’d drawn against 10 men . I was thinking that it wasn’t the Huddersfield that we know, so after the Stoke game I rang the gaffer and said, ‘are you sure about this?’ What I’d seen was unbelievable. Town could have been 5 or 6 down. But the gaffer said we were going for it. I was over the moon at being back”.
When asked what state the club was in when he arrived, Warnock said:
“The club was alright. Whenever I’ve gone somewhere and they’re not doing well, I’ve always started with people that others might not think are important, such as the kitman, the groundsman, the office staff. I always try and make people happy, and try and get them working together. It’s amazing what can happen when everyone is working together. I thought that was the least I could do.
“I said to Ron that we were going to have to work quickly and work out who we can trust and who we can’t trust, we needed to get in the trenches. And we did that sharpish, really”.
Jepson then continued: “The gaffer will find out who’s with us and who isn’t, he’ll look in their eyes and the likes of Hoggy and Wardy were proper warriors, we got them on board. And what the gaffer does is have his one-to-ones and he finds out who’s on board and who isn’t. And then once we’re on that training ground, his expectations are high but we have fun with it and it just went from there”.
Warnock singled out Michal Helik and Jack Rudoni and said they could both go far, Rudoni is “a super lad who could do whatever he wants in football if he carries on”. He felt that he had a good group, they were just misdirected and lacked passion. Felt we were a nice team but it wasn’t his kind of team.
“I told them there were two ways of going, you either get on board and die for me and you win tackles and headers you wouldn’t have won two weeks ago because if I’d listened to Ronnie, I wouldn’t fucking be here! So I told them we were going to have to prove Ronnie wrong. And that’s how we started”.
Jepson thought the biggest thing going for them here was that they already had a big affinity to Town. Warnock then joked, “I told Dean after the Stoke game that I’m not a bad manager but I’m not a fucking miracle worker!”
He added that the fans were unbelievable and Jepson said, “because they knew what we were about, it wasn’t about money and we’re not bullshitters. It wasn’t about us, it was about the Brookys, the office girls. It was about the football club and we were so desperate to keep the club up”. Warnock said, “I wanted to put smiles back on faces”.
Also spoke about Kian Harratt scoring at Watford; “It was a super goal and he’s a super lad. He’s had his problems but he’s a great lad. He’ll have a future [in the game], but I’m sure they’ll look after him as much as I would have looked after him”.
After watching a clip of his guard of honour against Sheffield United, he said that game was one of the best moments of his career and started welling up when he was talking about it. He praised the fans for sticking with them all the way through.
Talking about this season, Warnock said;
“It was a shame what’s happened. I got the bullet. I told them that I would stay until January at least and get them some points on the board and then if they wanted to bring a new manager in then brilliant. Then the next minute, Kevin goes on Twitter after we’d lost 4-0 to Norwich. And to be fair, Lee Nicholls threw a couple in that day! Within two minutes, Kevin was tweeting that it was a disgrace and disappointing and so on. So in the next press conference, I mentioned that I was quite disappointed as well that the two strikers I wanted to sign had both scored that weekend and the midfielder I wanted got Man of the Match. And he never spoke to me after that”.
And after that, Jepson said, “And that was the truth as well. No bullshit” to which Warnock responded, “I know it was the truth!”
Warnock then elaborated a bit and said, “It was hard to get people signed but we moved on. I know this sounds daft, but we thought we were going to get near the play-offs, didn’t we?” to which Jepson said, “Play-offs all day long, but I was so happy to stay at the club for another 12 months. It’s my club, I love it, and I was so happy to stay. I know the gaffer was too and the type of man that he is, if the CEO Jake Edwards had come to him and January and said they’d found a manager. The gaffer would have incorporated him and helped him, it wouldn’t have been a problem. But to finish after seven games, I can’t believe it”.
“My father always said don’t cut your nose off to spite your face” said Warnock. “Even if the chairman hated me, you keep someone who can do the job until you wanna get rid of him, not get rid of him because he said something. It never made sense to me”.
“I wasn’t sure it was the chairman” said Jepson. “I think he was influenced by other people”, to which someone shouted “MARK CARTWRIGHT!”. Jepson simply said, “no comment”.
Warnock then elaborated further and said, “Jake Edwards came to see me and he told me that Kevin wanted to go in a different direction and we think the time is right now. And I said, ‘I thought we were thinking more around Christmas?’ but Jake said, ‘No, Kevin is going to bring a manager in that plays attacking football’. I told him that I thought he was making a mistake, but it was his club and I wished him all the best and that’s how I left. Then the next day, Mark Cartwright moved into my office!”
Jepson then continued, “I thought the decision making at the club was surreal because of how much we cared for the football club. Sometimes you wanna earn money, but sometimes you go to a football club and you have an affinity to a football club, and to leave that club. The decision making was just bizarre. They gave us a 12 month contract, we kept them up, and I really don’t know how we did it, but we did, but then we were willing to take the club to the next level. It wasn’t as if we were wanting a two or three year deal, and then to finish us after seven games and still give us 12 months money. It was bizarre”.
“It didn’t make football sense, did it?” said Warnock. “But owners have to make decisions and stand by them, it’s their prerogative”.
Jepson spoke about how he had a chat with Jake Edwards before the Stoke game in the tunnel and said, “Jake, you’ll regret this decision like you wouldn’t believe. And he was a bit, ‘well you know’ and I said, seriously Jake, you’ll regret this. And those were my last words at Huddersfield Town”.
Warnock said that it didn’t make sense to him, but was complimentary to Darren Moore and said he was a nice lad. However, he had no such words for Andre Breitenreter.
“Then they brought this buffoon in. You must have heard about why they went down? [the host then quoted AB and mentioned how he’d said about the team being unfit, going to the pub, playing golf and so on]. I’ve never commented, but when we played Leicester, we should have got something, but the keeper threw one in that day as well! But Jamie Vardy came off and told me we were the hardest team he’d played against in years. The stats guy told me that the players had run more in that game than they’d run in any games in the last three years. So that’s how unfit they were.
“So this buffoon starts talking about them being unfit, going to the pub and playing golf, in a way, for the last 10 or 12 games he was in charge, besides throwing everyone under the bus, the thing he missed out on, he should have taken them more to the fucking pub and played golf!”
Jepson actually said he felt a bit sorry for Breitenreiter as his results were poor and he’d lost the dressing room. He specifically mentioned him taking Rudoni off at Ipswich. Warnock said he would have bollocked him for the mistake and then told him to go and score one at the other end, and actually rang him up during the game and left him a message saying that. And said, “that’s the difference between me and the buffoon”.
He then added, “the lads kept ringing us. They said towards the end of the season, they didn’t do any set-pieces in training and then he comes out with all this about pubs and golf. The guy hasn’t a clue. It’s a good job he’s gone as he’d be getting them relegated even further, because he’d lost the dressing room”.
He then had a final word about it and said, “it’s alright calling me a dinosaur but different people have different ways. We went to Cornwall for pre-season and went to the pub after a day’s training, we had three non-league games, and you get some saying that we only played non-league teams but what they don’t know is that we trained morning and afternoon and then played a game in the evening. The game was the third training session, and if you ask any manager what teams they don’t want to play and my team will be in the top two, so you do get affected when people say that”.
