Ron Greenwood (1921-2006) on Football

"At its best, the game is a joy," he wrote, "a battle of wit and muscle and character. It involves and inspires. It is always different and endlessly fascinating." Then the frustration. "That is the way football should be but sadly, shamefully, our professional game is slowly being ruined. It is being mutilated as a spectacle by impatient directors, accountants with acid in their pens, frightened managers, poor coaches and dull theorists."

"The spirit is wrong and it hurts me. I spent my whole career as a manager trying to stop this devaluation of the game. I cared more about the purity and finer values of football than I did about winning for winning's sake - and if that is a sin then I am a sinner. Football should be about taking risks."