Wisdom and wisecracks at court of Big Ron

'You talk about drinking. I went away with Liverpool once, to Israel, and they made our lads look like amateurs'

Anyone can play football, says Big Ron Atkinson. "Anyone except that Jason in Footballers' Wives. He looks less like a footballer than anyone I've ever seen. They could have put Julian Clary in it. Even the way he goes round pulling. He doesn't even pull like a footballer. But I'll still be watching tonight."

How we laugh. We are sitting in Big Ron's handsome conservatory, which to be fair, as Big Ron would say, would not look out of place itself in Footballers' Wives. Even the swags and tails have swags and tails. And the predominant shade is tan, which if Big Ron and Mrs Big Ron, the lovely Maggie, ever chase each other naked through the house, could make them difficult to spot.

Big Ron lives in the stockbroker belt – or perhaps the footballers' wives belt – just south of Birmingham. I drive up hoping to find electronic wrought-iron gates that glide open after some communication through an entryphone, and I am not disappointed. Big Ron greets me at the front door. He is not, in truth, all that big. But charisma fairly drips from him.

I ask him about the Leeds United fiasco. After all, he must have thought he'd seen everything in all his years in football, but has he seen anything quite like the implosion at Elland Road? "Not quite like that, no. My only experience of working with a plc was at Nottingham Forest. But that was a mini-Leeds situation. Players were sold with no money made available to buy.

"I think that one of the biggest mistakes Leeds and some other clubs have made, is that in putting so much emphasis on the Champions' League, they've neglected other competitions a bit. That's a mistake because when you get some silverware on the shelf you get into the habit of winning. I've had a feeling all along this season that Manchester United would do well in the Worthington Cup, because Alex wants to get something on the shelf."

Football, it occurs to me, as I listen to the great man Rontificating, could do worse than appointing him as a kind of grand vizier, with sweeping powers. I put the notion to him and he chuckles. "An ombudsman?" Yeah, an ombudsman. What would he do if he could do anything? "I would like to see closer links between Premiership clubs and smaller clubs," he says, "even to the extent of the bigger clubs taking them over as nurseries. For instance, Barnsley had a problem the other week, with debts of £3m or £4m. By today's standards that shouldn't break a club.

"I'd like to have seen a big club, like Man U, saying: 'We will run you as a separate entity, you can even have some of our players'.

"I'd also like to see the FA Cup winners given the last spot in the Champions' League, which would give the FA Cup the perfect boost. If I was a fan, I'd sooner my team won the FA Cup than finish fourth in the league.

"And I'd like every club outside the Premiership to play a minimum of seven British players. People say there are no British players coming through the lower divisions. There are, but we need more. You wouldn't get away with a rule like that in the Premiership. If you're an Arsenal fan going to see Vieira, Pires, Henry, you don't care if they're from France or Islington, you get such value and excitement out of them."

It is time to put Big Ron on the spot. Who does he think will win the Premiership, and who the Champions' League? "I think the Premiership is going to have the most exciting finish in years. Man U, to use golfing parlance, are in the zone. Arsenal when they're flying are fabulous to watch. And I don't know what to make of Newcastle. They might just be daft enough to burst through the lot of them. I just hope they don't get frightened of it, of being in contention.

"I have a feeling United will beat Arsenal in the [FA] Cup, which could work in Arsenal's favour in the Premiership. In the Champions' League, Man U know how to win in the final stages, and I'm not sure Arsenal do. The great scenario will be if they meet in the semi-final, then we'd have three great games for television."

Speaking of television, I yield to nobody in my admiration for Big Ron the broadcaster. As a pundit on ITV's The Premiership he is much better than his predecessor, Terry Venables, and he's the sharpest co-commentator around.

For my money – which looking at Big Ron's (mostly tan) trappings is nowhere near as abundant as his – he and his ITV colleague Clive Tyldesley are the Lineker and Beardsley of the commentary game. And speaking of Lineker, Big Ron wishes that young Michael Owen would try to emulate his England predecessor.

"For me, Owen is the most predictable runner I've ever seen among top strikers. I said at the World Cup that he should spend time working with Dave Sexton on his movement, learning to do what Lineker did. Lineker was cunning. He'd pretend not to be interested, then dart. Owen goes: 'I'm going to run there, stick it there', and he's not as blistering as he was, not since he's had the hammies."

Big Ron himself, as a player, was by all accounts not terribly blistering even when untroubled by his hammies. He was on the books at Aston Villa (still his favourite club), but played most of his career at Oxford United before becoming player-manager at Kettering Town.

He was flash even then, the only player-manager Kettering ever had who drove a Jag. From Kettering he moved, doubtless in the Jag, to Cambridge United.

But, as flash as he was, he was eager to learn. "Sometimes Billy Nicholson, who was scouting for Tottenham at the time, used to come to Cambridge, and I'd always try to get him chatting. I used to ring Bill Shankly up, and he'd just talk and talk, and I'd come off the phone thinking we could take bloody anyone on. I used to phone John Bond at Norwich, a terrific coach, and say: 'Can I come and watch you work?'

"Young managers now should go and watch Wenger, Alex Ferguson, Terry Venables. Sometimes all you see is that they're doing what you're doing, but that gives you confidence. I watch Glenn Roeder, and he always seems to be out on a limb, stood there looking like a lost soul. He should have been able to bring in someone experienced to bounce ideas off, someone like George Graham, or Peter Shreeves, or even Billy Bonds."

Even when Big Ron became manager at Manchester United, in 1981, he still sought advice from Shankly. "He was in my office only about a fortnight before he died. We'd been trying to get Bryan Robson, but it looked as though it might not come off. And Shanks said: 'Pay whatever it takes, but get him'. Which confirmed what I'd been thinking."

Robson had played for Big Ron at West Bromwich Albion, halcyon years at The Hawthorns. West Brom qualified for Europe in two out of the three years Big Ron was there, becoming, with Cyrille Regis, Laurie Cunningham and Brendon Batson, the first team to have a strong nucleus of black players.

I ask Big Ron whether he thinks of himself as a pioneer of racial equality? He roars with laughter, squeezing his blue eyes tight, which somehow makes his magnificently bulbous nose look even more magnificently bulbous.

"Hey, I'm not taking the stick for those asylum seekers," he says. "No, it was a great time, that. Actually, I think there's more racial prejudice now than there was then, though we used to make them sit on the back of the bus going to away games." Another mighty roar.

"We all used to laugh and joke about it. Cyrille would say: 'If you don't stop giving me stick I'm going to buy a house next door to you'. And when we played at West Ham and places, and they've thrown bananas, the lads have picked up the bananas and started eating them. On one occasion a lad stuck one down his shorts. No, I've never thought it was as bad as people say."

Mmm. Maybe the jury should stay out on that one. But Big Ron takes the same view when folk talk about the heavy drinking culture prevalent in football in those days, that it was not as deleterious as is commonly thought. Maybe that's because, in Bryan Robson, Paul McGrath and Norman Whiteside, he had several of the players whose alcohol beverage intake reportedly verged on the epic.

Did he encourage it, I wonder? Disdain clouds his tan. "It's blown out of all proportion. Paul McGrath [bought by Big Ron for a bargain £30,000] is still the best centre-half Man U have ever had, that's for sure, and Norman's problems started after he was injured, when I'd left.

"You talk about drinking. I went away with Liverpool once, to Israel, and I couldn't believe it. They made our lads look like amateurs. Yet that was the best club side I've ever seen. And there's never been a fitter footballer than Bryan Robson, ever. Vieira is my favourite midfield player in the world now, I love Vieira, but I'll tell you what, he wouldn't have outrun Robson. I would back Robbo to get the better of Vieira, every time. Yes, he liked a few drinks, but not the night before a game, and he'd always say: 'Gaffer, I'm going out with the boys tonight'.

"So I don't get carried away with all this. It's about players. At the end of the day, it's about players. Everyone says: 'Look at Italy, they don't drink much, they're all eating pasta'. But there are plenty of crap teams in Italy who do that."

It is my turn to roar with laughter. Big Ron's arguments might not always be watertight, but you can't fault him for presentation. He has a habit of picking just the right words to make a point, even if they are words in an entirely unfamiliar context. However, he seems almost offended when I credit him with adding phrases to the language, such as the classic 'early doors'.

"I'd heard that millions of times before," he says. Shame. I've long enjoyed thinking of Big Ron as a kind of latterday Dr Johnson.

Still, I can at least paraphrase Dr Johnson, to assert that when you are tired of Big Ron you are tired of football. There are those who mock him, but nobody – not even Bobby Robson – has quite his breadth of experience as a club manager, embracing non-League, the lower divisions, the top tier, and even La Liga. In a brief but eventful spell in charge of Atletico Madrid, he steered them from second-bottom to second-top before being sacked by the club president, the idiosyncratic, not to say barmy, Jesus Gil.

Only when it comes to international management is there a hole in Big Ron's CV, although Jimmy Armfield sounded him out about whether he fancied the England job in succession to Graham Taylor. He was also offered the Northern Ireland job, and indeed, shortly after the 1998 World Cup, the South African job.

"If it had been based in Cape Town I might have taken it, but it was in Jo'burg. Gary Bailey [the former Man Utd goalkeeper] came to see me. He's like South Africa's version of Des [Lynam]. He said: 'I've got the best job in South Africa, and even I'm trying to get out'. It was a shame in some ways. I was going to take Peter Shreeves with me, and our first match was in Mauritius. I said to Shreevesy: 'We'll go out six weeks early to acclimatise'. The second match was in Angola. I said: 'I'll be scouting that week, you can go to that one'."

Big Ron's laughter follows me out of the front door, through the electronic wrought-iron gates, and past an elaborate sign displaying the name of the house. It is not, alas, Early Doors.

Ron Atkinson: The life and times

Born: Liverpool, 1939

Career highlights

1959: Makes his debut for Oxford United after being released by Aston Villa. Remains a fixture in the side, making 426 appearances, until his final game in 1971.

1974: Appointed manager of Cambridge United, having begun his managerial career with Kettering Town. Takes Cambridge to the Fourth Division championship in 1977.

1978: Becomes manager of West Bromwich Albion. Although he does not win any honours, the club thrives under his leadership.

1980: Succeeds Dave Sexton as manager of Manchester United. Wins the FA Cup in 1983 and 1985 and never finishes lower than fourth in the league. However, the all-important championship eludes him and he is replaced by Sir Alex Ferguson. Returns briefly to manage West Bromwich Albion and follows this with an even briefer spell at Atletico Madrid.

1989: Returns to England to manage Sheffield Wednesday. In a topsy-turvy reign he keeps them up in 1989, sees them relegated in 1990, bounces back in 1991 and wins the League Cup, beating Manchester United in the final. Controversially resigns within weeks of the League Cup final to take over at Aston Villa.

1994: Sacked by Aston Villa.

1995: Takes over from Phil Neal at Coventry. The season ends with a last day of the campaign escape.

1996: Season starts in a similar vein to previous campaign and Atkinson moves upstairs. Dips into management again with Sheffield Wednesday and Nottingham Forest, keeping the former up in 1998 and seeing the latter relegated in 1999.

1999: Leaves football management to concentrate fully on career as a TV pundit.

He says

"There's nobody fitter at his age, except maybe Raquel Welch." (Speaking about Gordon Strachan, aged 39).

'Well, Clive, it's all about the two Ms ­ movement and positioning'.

They say

"He was never the best player in the world. What he was was the best captain I ever played with in terms of motivation, passion for the game and wanting to be a winner." Oxford United goalkeeper Jim Barron.