Nick Townsend: Warnock and the winding-up order

What is it about certain figures within the national game that provokes such hostility and contempt, completely out of proportion to their supposed flaws? The thought occurred during one of football's less palatable weeks (was that the sound of anger-management consultants scrambling for work?), as we surveyed photographs and film of that bendy-doll, scraggy-haired, daft-as-a-brush Robbie Savage being pilloried during and after Monday night's Chiller at the Villa, when he was manifestly the victim.

It was a poisonous campaign, for which Birmingham managing director Karren Brady's eulogy about the Welsh midfielder's charity work and his never-been-sent-off record has been only a partial antidote. And then a similar thought about the nature of irrational antagonism prompted itself on Friday as Neil Warnock, manager of Sheffield United, previewed his team's brunch-time crunch with Leeds this morning, a contest scheduled so early that if you're one of those Lionel Richie "Easy Like Sunday Morning" types, the game could be half-over by the time you crawl out of bed, now that football has become hostage to TV, the hooligan element and police diktat.

Rightly or wrongly, both Savage and Warnock are perceived as provocateurs; more capable of a wind-up than a kid with a balsa-wood propeller aeroplane. Away from the game, their advocates say, both are decent guys. Not sure about the former, but Warnock is clearly in touch with his feminine side. He writes poetry for his wife on Valentine's Day. He cries at the cinema. "Yes, at soppy films, sentimental stuff with children," he reveals.

Perhaps he is a trifle vain and a little too smart in a game where overt arrogance is regarded with suspicion; there is something about him that raises the hackles which goes beyond typical football badinage. His Burnley counterpart, Stan Ternent, for example, "can't abide the man". The thoughts of Liverpool's Gérard Houllier and Phil Thompson can be readily inferred from recent events. One of his former strikers was rather less constrained: "I hate Neil Warnock," he said. "He is a prick."

Then you consult the internet, a wonderful liberator of ideas but which also provides access for those with a dark side to indulge their crude obsessions. Savage has discovered as much after his cheek played punchbag to Dion Dublin's forehead. His own website elicited such a threatening response that he is, according to Birmingham manager Steve Bruce, "petrified and in fear of his life".

One of the more benign, still weird, websites is named 1,000 People More Annoying Than Mick Hucknall. The satisfaction here, apparently, comes from freedom to abuse any celebrity you dislike, a kind of cyberspace version of Harry Enfield's creation The Self-Righteous Brothers ("If that Damon Hill came down my road doing 200mph, I'd say, 'Oi, you, Hill...'"). It bestows power to condemn and mock without any responsibility.

Anyway, somewhere between Neil Morrissey and Nicole Kidman we discover one Neil Warnock. One participant accuses him of the following crimes against humanity: "Boring a whole generation of fans with his dirty hoofball tactics; the West Brom dibacle [sic] last year – how did he survive? – slating every club in the country; having a very appropriate anagram, beginning with Colin..."

Ignoring the dubious verity of such statements, it still must be asked: what is it with Warnock, a man who not only manages the Blades but attracts them? You gain the impression that, apart from a belief that his surname is actually Warlock, he thrives in a climate of confrontation. The diplomatic option would be for him to declare that he loves nothing better than hobnobbing with his managerial adversaries once the game has concluded. A glass of wine as the results come though. But no. "There are two or three managers I can't stand," says Warnock. "I detest them and they know that. But they spout about things and I keep things to myself, like why I don't like them."

He plans one day to redress this imbalance with a tome that sounds ominously similar to Jack Charlton's "little black book". Warnock adds: "I would like to tell everyone why I dislike these people, and I will at the right time. The story will come out one day, when I'm on my tractor."

Tractor? "It's an old tractor, about 53 years old. Not a big one. We have a little bit of land in Cornwall. It's a different world down there. Single-track lanes, a bit like Greece. It's always tomorrow."

But for a football manager, that kind of tomorrow never comes, does it? "I don't want to work for much longer," says the 54-year-old Warnock. "I reckon I've got a couple of years to try to get us in the Premiership, then I'm packing it in. I want to see my kids grow up. You can't keep the intensity up, not the way I go off. I thought Bobby Robson's [television] programme was fantastic, but he's made a lot of sacrifices to be the manager he is. He's not seen his lads grow up or had any time with his family to be a success, but I don't class that as a success. Not in my opinion."

And it's those opinions that largely provoke the antipathy from certain managers. His peers would contend that Warnock, who once sold fruit and veg in a Sheffield market, concentrates rather too much on value for money. His own, compared with theirs. It clearly grates with Warnock, who was once offered but rejected the Chelsea job, that he hasn't the access to the resources of the élite, and such observations regarding Liverpool were partly the catalyst of the fall-out with the Anfield club before, during and after this season's Worthington Cup tie.

Thus, when Warnock is asked whether he is confident of his promotion-chasing side repeating their Worthington Cup defeat of Leeds in November, he retorts: "With our seven-hundred-quid players? Definitely. I've got a lot of time for Terry [Venables]. I think he's a bit like me – a lovable rogue. But I wouldn't mind swapping dressing rooms with him, or Arsène Wenger, for a while."

He adds: "We haven't got enough credit for what we've achieved this season. The football we've played on a wage bill of under £3 million is absolutely unbelievable. To get to a quarter-final and semi-final of the Cup, it's put a lot of good clubs to shame really, hasn't it? I look at some of the appointments [in the Premiership] and I think they are an absolute disgrace. They must like throwing their money away. I'm convinced I could have done wonders with a club that's got money."

Warnock is absolutely correct about his achievements, and who can doubt his potential on the élite stage. But does it need to be articulated? When he's on that tractor, pondering life's vagaries, he might consider Sir Bobby Robson once more, a man who picks up plaudits aplenty. Only he doesn't have to bludgeon people into accepting the fact.