David Pleat on prostate cancer, Elton John, VAR and THAT jig celebrating Luton's great escape

Arguably the best manager never to coach England or win a major trophy - although he came mighty close with Tottenham - David Pleat is one of football's elder statesmen and always worth a listen

David Pleat accepts he may be remembered for that freestyle shambling jig across the Maine Road pitch in his beige suit.

But the best manager never to win a major trophy or take charge of England still smiles at the memory of that traumatic afternoon when Raddy Antic’s last-gasp goal saved Luton Town from relegation and sent Manchester City down. In the footsteps of every prancing celebration there are heartaches of which we know nothing and, more than 40 years later, Pleat’s account of the drama is compelling.

“I hope my teams brought a lot of pleasure to a lot of supporters playing what I call Danny Blanchflower football. He said the game is about glory, and he was right,” he said.

“Sadly, the main memory for a lot of people will be of me galloping around like a silly fool when my emotions got the better of me. One of the most wonderful things in football is to score a last-minute winner, and when it saves you from relegation it’s very special.

“My wife’s father had passed away the previous day, which was devastating for the whole family, and in a football sense it would have been a tragedy if we had gone down that afternoon. But it was also a bit scary because some Manchester City supporters came on the pitch, our players were getting shoved around and intimidated, and we needed a police escort with two vans to get out of Moss Side and on to the motorway.

“We had five or six police officers sitting on the back row of our coach. Every time our bus was pelted with missiles, it was their job to jump out of the emergency exit and scatter the people throwing rocks, or coins or whatever. By the time we dropped them off, they were in high spirits after sharing our celebratory bottles of beer because some of them were Manchester United supporters and they loved it.

“But we were happy to have them on board because at times we were surrounded by hordes of angry young men."

Antic, who died in 2020 aged 71, went on to manage Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid and Barcelona. Pleat recalled: “He was one of the best passers of the ball I ever saw, and when he wasn’t in the team he used to knock on my door and ask, ‘Why is it not me? I always pass a goal or make a goal.’

And I would tell him, ‘That’s true, and I’m grateful for that, but I can’t change a winning side at the moment.’ He would go out, shut the door and then come back in to add, ‘But I wish the team all the very best tomorrow.’ He was a gentleman and a star.”

After a lifetime in football, most recently as Tottenham ’s director of football, caretaker manager, senior scout and consultant, with chairman Daniel Levy’s trust warmly appreciated in all four roles, Pleat has finally published his memoirs. Half of any proceeds will go to Motor Neurone Disease charities in memory of his late wife, Maureen, who was taken by the illness.

“It’s a terrible thing. Those affected can’t eat, they can’t speak, they can’t communicate and to see someone I had relied on for so long, in so many ways, slip away like that was awful,” said Pleat, now 79. “When I saw all the publicity about Rob Burrow’s fight with MND, and the way Kevin Sinfield stood up for him, it was very powerful.”

Never one to make a song and dance about his own misfortunes, Pleat has been fighting a long battle against an insidious enemy of his own. In his book*, Pleat merely says he has been “under surveillance” for prostate cancer - but in reality, since 2012 it has been more than a watching brief.

“I only found out there might be a problem after a medical screening through the League Managers Association, who have a lot of unsung initiatives to help managers past and present. For seven years I was having tests every three months until, one day, the consultant looked at me and said, ‘You have to make a decision.’

“That led to me having radiotherapy. It made me a bit tired but it wasn’t brutal, it wasn’t painful. The surgeon warned me, ‘You’re never clear, you’ll have a test every six months,’ and in 2025 it will be five years since my treatment started. Touch wood, if my results remain on an even keel, I will have a 90 per cent chance of surviving it.

“I would say to everyone who is diagnosed: Don’t fear it, you’re not alone.”

Bravely, Pleat tackles another arduous episode in his life - superficial allegations of kerb-crawling, which undermined his reign as Spurs manager - just five months after he led his stylish team to the FA Cup final.

“It was a difficult period, and it was hard to collate every fine detail about it, but I know I felt helpless at the time and it affected my self-esteem,” he said.

“At times like that you find out who your friends are. Elton John sent me flowers and a note saying, ‘Don’t let the b******s grind you down.’ It was a marvellous gesture from the chairman of a club Luton regard as the ‘enemy’. The first time I met Elton was at a reserve game at Kenilworth Road, back in the mid-1970s when he had just taken over at Watford. He was wearing those huge platform shoes and he sat in the stand eating fish and chips.”

Pleat still reveres football, despite some of the modern game’s pitfalls, although the jobsworths who hang their hats on the profanity that is VAR would do well to absorb an elder statesman’s wisdom.

He said: “I have to say, when Coventry City scored that goal against Manchester United at Wembley in the semi-final last season, and it was eventually disallowed after an exhaustive VAR check, my heart sank.

“We were denied one of the greatest Cup stories of all by an offside decision which was impossible to call. The game is about glory, the game is about scoring goals, and yet we have a system which seems geared towards finding reasons to prevent them instead of reasons to allow them. Where is the joy in that?”

*Just One More Goal, by David Pleat with Tim Rich, published by Biteback, 50 per cent of proceeds to Motor Neurone Disease charities

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