Neil Warnock has spent decades cultivating a reputation for confrontation.
The record-breaking manager has been involved in some of English football’s most colourful touchline battles, developed a knack for winding up opposing supporters and built a public persona that has made him one of the most recognisable characters in the game.
But Geoff Twentyman believes there is another side to Warnock that rarely gets the same attention.
The former professional footballer and long-serving BBC broadcaster has known Warnock for more than four decades, first meeting him when Twentyman was playing semi-professionally for Chorley.
And his verdict on his old friend is unequivocal.
“Neil is a bit of a pantomime villain on a match day,” Twentyman told Football Presse. “He likes to upset the crowd. He plays to the image that he's got.
“But believe you me, he's a very sensitive, likable man.”
Twentyman first encountered Warnock in his early 20s, before he had made the professional game.
He was playing for Chorley in the Northern Premier League when they faced Burton Albion, then managed by Warnock.
“I didn't know him from Adam, but I was playing quite well, and I scored a goal against his side to beat them,” Twentyman recalled.
“We just bumped into each other after the game, and there was a bit of a connection. Sometimes you just meet someone and you get on really well.
“And so that's over 40 years ago. And we've kept in touch ever since.”
That relationship has survived numerous changes of club, plenty of footballing battles and the transformation of Warnock from a lower-league manager into one of the most experienced bosses in English football.
Warnock has now managed more than 1,600 professional matches and, in March 2026, made another remarkable return to the dugout at the age of 77 when he took temporary charge of Torquay United in the National League South.
It was his 21st managerial role and came 33 years after he had first managed Torquay. His caretaker spell lasted just 18 days and four matches before Jimmy Ball was appointed permanent manager.
But for Twentyman, the public image has never told the whole story.
He remembers one occasion particularly clearly.
Twentyman was presenting on BBC Radio Bristol when Bristol City were preparing to face Cardiff City, with Warnock managing Cardiff.
“I rang him up,” Twentyman said. “I thought it'd be nice to get him on my show the night before the game, get an alternative view.
“And I rang him up in the afternoon and said, ‘Neil, have you got 10 minutes for me? Could you come on the show later and do a chat with me ahead of the match tomorrow?’
“And he went, ‘Geoff, I'd love to, but I'm just on my way, gonna pick my wife up. She's had a mastectomy, so she'd had a breast removed for like part of a cancer treatment.’
“But he said, ‘If you can do it now, I'll be more than happy to record it.’
“So he did it.”
For Twentyman, it was an extraordinary demonstration of friendship.
“He could quite easily have just said, ‘Sorry, Geoff, I'm on my way to get my wife. Next time, maybe.’
“And we did the chat, and it was brilliant.
“So to me, that was just an amazing act of friendship in many ways.”
There was another occasion when Warnock's willingness to help his old friend left an impression.
When Warnock was managing Rotherham, Twentyman tried to get him on his Monday night Bristol City programme ahead of a match at Ashton Gate.
The press team told him Warnock had the day off and they could not get hold of him.
Then, while Twentyman was presenting a rugby programme the following evening, his mobile phone rang.
“I can see it's Neil Warnock,” he said.
“He was literally on the team coach on his way to Ashton Gate for the game, and he was happy to come on the show, which, you know, I can't think there are many opposing football managers go on the local radio station.”
Twentyman also remembers Warnock's behaviour after one of the biggest games in Bristol City's recent history.
City defeated Crystal Palace in the Championship play-off semi-final at Ashton Gate, knocking out Warnock's side and advancing to Wembley.
Warnock could easily have walked away in frustration.
Instead, Twentyman says, he went into the Bristol City dressing room.
“Bristol City beat Crystal Palace in a really important playoff semi-final,” Twentyman recalled.
“Hull City beat Bristol City in 2008, and I know for a fact Neil Warnock, despite the real disappointment of losing that game at Ashton Gate, which meant they were out of the playoffs and City were through to the final, he went into the home dressing room and shook hands with every Bristol City player and wished them every success in the final.
“So these are stories people don't hear about, but they will now.”
It is that side of Warnock that Twentyman believes is frequently overlooked.
“There’s a lot more to Neil Warnock than people think,” he said.
“He's a compassionate, sensitive, intelligent man, but he does like the drama of the heads-to-heads, and he does like to upset people.
“And he knows how to trigger people. He really does.”
There is also a competitive edge that Twentyman believes explains much of Warnock's extraordinary longevity.
“I've never played for him, but I think he's forthright. I think he's pretty honest. I think he plays in a very simplistic way.
“I don't think his football is kind of, you know, it's not overly difficult. But I think as a player, he's not Guardiola.”
Twentyman's assessment is rooted in a question he used to ask himself whenever he encountered a manager during his broadcasting career.
“As a player, and I met like dozens of managers doing the broadcasting, one of the things I would always assess them is, ‘Would I like to play for this manager?’” he said.
“And I'd like to play for Neil Warnock because to me he was a winner. He was competitive.
“I guess he was unpredictable at times. I mean, you've seen some videos of him on YouTube and he's very, very unpredictable at times, but I think there'd be a lot of gains from playing for the likes of Neil Warnock.”
Warnock's latest return to management only reinforces that assessment.
At 77, after already announcing his retirement, he answered Torquay's call when Paul Wotton was dismissed. He had been working with the club as an adviser before stepping temporarily back into the dugout.
For someone who has known him since the early 1980s, Twentyman is not surprised that football continues to pull Warnock back.
“Yeah, amazing guy, amazing guy,” he said.
“And, you know, they're still talking of him coming back to do one more job.”
That prediction has already come true.
And whether Warnock manages another match or not, Twentyman believes the most revealing part of his friend's story is not the arguments, touchline theatrics or controversy.
It is the human being underneath them.
“I've known him, yeah, a long time, 40-odd years.”
Geoff Twentyman is author of "Top Man: The Geoff Twentyman Story" from Pitch Publishing - which is available here.
