I've been looking forward to going back to Huddersfield. I was manager when the club moved from Leeds Road to the new stadium and it contributed to us getting promotion.

Personally I have not encountered racism at matches, or in clubs I have worked in, for many years.

When you're younger, you worry about the sack and getting abuse and things, but when you get to my age, you become less bothered about those things. It becomes more like a hobby and less like life or death.

Oh, I love Cornwall, it's so special. We bought the house when I was with Plymouth Argyle and we've just kept that on and kept modernising things.

But referees have to remember there is a reason managers are being nice to them - we're hoping that it just might make the difference when there is a borderline decision.

I would like to apologise to anyone who has put a bet on me becoming the next Scotland manager.

I remember when I was younger I used to sing that Beatles song, 'When I'm 64', and think that's light years away for me - I was 18 when it came out. Now here I am.

I do like reading autobiographies, if I'm honest.

My son William and my daughter Amy are both really into their hockey now and I can enjoy watching that.

The report I remember most vividly from school is the one I destroyed before I got home, telling my parents I'd lost it. Three words stood out, and still do: 'Must try harder'.

People just do not realise what a football life can be. Since 1968 I've never had more than a few weeks out of work, when I left Sheffield United and I have not had a Christmas.

If you are a manager with a new owner who has more ideas than knowledge, all you can do is get your head down and do your best, which is what Malky Mackay did at Cardiff.

If there is one thing worse for a manager than having an interfering owner it is uncertainty over the ownership.

It's good to see Graham Alexander back in the game. He was such a tremendous professional as a player so I know he'll give management his best shot.

You do understand when you get into management that you will get the sack at some stage, but that never puts people off trying again.

I love poetry and I've kept everything I've written.

My three-course meal would be: smoked salmon with capers and a few prawns on there as well. Then it would be a dover sole grilled on the bone with a portion of green beans. And if I wasn't dieting or looking after myself, my favourite pudding would be bread and butter pudding with custard, ice cream and clotted cream all together!

It's the last question mark against me in my career. Why couldn't I keep a team in the Premier League.

Ask anyone in the game: if you want a player from France or a French player, 99 per cent of the time, you will have to deal with Willie McKay or someone like him. If you want to get the job done, then you need the Willie McKays of this world.

But the art of management has not changed. The art of it is still 80 to 90 per cent man-management. It is just a matter of getting the best out of what you have got.

Sometimes when I'm watching managers on television and I see all that anxiety I realise that I don't miss the job as much as I thought.

Everyone says teams should work harder when they are losing but sometimes that makes it worse.

I had a player once whose wife had twins and one of them was in and out of hospital for a year. You just have to give people as much time as they need.

I tried to download a jazz album this week and ended up getting some tracks four times, some once, some three times; in total I ended up with 50 tracks. I don't know how I did it.

Once, I used to have the local reporter on the team bus and I'd tell him everything, so when he wrote about the club he was informed, even if he couldn't print some things. Those days are long gone.

As a manager I always trusted my players on Christmas Day. I did not see any point in dragging them into the training ground - a three-hour round-trip for some of them on icy roads - when they could relax with their families instead.

I'm glad to see goal-line technology working; we should have had it for years. I do believe we will soon see managers being allowed one, or two, challenges.

Working at Palace was one of the happiest episodes of my football career, even though the ending was one of the most upsetting and traumatic.

A few eyebrows have been raised at Adel Taarabt joining Milan. Having worked with Adel for two years, I am not as surprised as most people seem to be. He is a player of immense ability and, if he is handled right, and motivated himself, he can win games at any level.

In the intervening 48 Christmases I have always either been a player, having to watch what I eat and drink, or a manager, worrying about what my players are eating and drinking, plus who is going to cry off tomorrow, who is suspended, who is carrying an injury, and the million-and-one other questions that fill a manager's every waking moment.

It is a fine line between communicating and being too chummy. My players, when I've been promoted, have been upset by top-flight refs being mates with opposition players.

Most of the clubs I have had, they have been in a precarious situation when I have taken over and I have had to change it, even going back to Scarborough and all that.

That's what you want to do as a manager, finish the game, get in your bath and think about the kids going home, the young kids going home.

The chairman, Mehmet Dalman, he was brilliant for me. He helped me left, right and centre, he lives aboard now but he was my shoulder.

I was fined £20,000 for TV interview where I barely said anything. The FA brought an outside barrister in to do me. A big place like the FA, they don't have their own in-house lawyer?

It's difficult to motivate yourself to do the workouts when you get older but I train hard.

It's easier to sit at your desk and have a bun, but I've been really disciplined because I feel like I have to give myself a chance. You can't let yourself down on that. You have to be mentally sharp in this Premier League.

My teams have never been supposed to be able to do the things that they do.

There's got to be a role for an experienced football person helping the manager; not being a threat to the manager, but helping and sorting out a lot of the hassle he has, you know? Letting him concentrate on managing the football side.

If you look at my past in the Premier League, without going into too many details, I don't think I had much of a chance at any of them, for different reasons.

Everyone wants to be loved and liked - but you can't be as a manager.

As a manager, you know you're going to take the brickbats from other clubs and their fans. But I do enjoy making my own fans happy.

There's two or three managers I can't stand. I detest them and they know that.

I like soppy films, sentimental stuff with children.

When people say things about me, I'd love to come back and give my version, but I'd rather let others spout off until the time is right.

No disrespect to Cardiff but they probably needed me more than I needed them, when I was appointed.

When you're younger, you have three or four bad results and you worry about everything. You worry about injuries, because they always seem to be your best players.

I've played for managers who said one thing and did another and players find you out like that. You've got to trust them and they've got to trust you.

Trust is a big word for a manager. You expect certain standards and attitudes and they know if they lower those standards, I'll jump on them.

Neil Etheridge in goal and Nathaniel Mendez-Laing, they've both come from lower league clubs and done brilliantly.