IN A life packed with triumph and tragedy, Derek Dooley has few regrets.
He lost his leg to the game and was badly scarred by his Christmas Eve sacking by Sheffield Wednesday - but never for a moment has he regretted being in football.
"I was
hurt by what happened at Wednesday but I don't regret being manager and working with players, bringing the youngsters through," he said.
"I would have regretted it if I had not done it. I would have regretted it if I had not played, despite what happened.
"I wasn't the greatest player but I was fast, could shoot and I was frightened of nothing. I could hit a ball hard with both feet but when I hit it with my left foot I wasn't sure where it would end up. I could be aiming for goal and kill three on the Kop.
"My proudest moment in football, I suppose, is holding the Wednesday scoring record for a season of 46 goals. I look back on that now and wonder how I did it.
"It's odd but, at the time, you just get on with it and take it in your stride, but when I look back now I think 'bloody hell, did I do that?'
"I just wish I hade been able to prove myself at international level.
"I had only been in the team for 18 months really and I had the club record, a Second Division championship medal and goals in the First Division. I would have loved to have had the chance to try and play against the best in the world, but it just didn't work out that way."
Like many other football men, he has spent much of his life involved in the game when men in other jobs might have been at home with their families.
"I look back and I realise that I hardly saw my kids grow up, I was always going off somewhere and I do have regrets aboout that," he admitted.
"They were well cared for but I missed a lot of time with them.
"Luckily, they had Sylvia, and now I have grandchildren who I see a lot of now I'm working part-time, rather than six days a week."
Still a big, burly man, Derek Dooley suffers with his knee and hip on his 'good' leg after years of compensating for the fact that the other was missing.
The stump left by amputation still gives him most pain - even after 50 years.
"I get phantom pains in my leg," he revealed. "It's as though someone has stuck a knife into it and is twisting it round. It sits me bolt upright and I can't do anything about it. Sometimes, it's for half an hour, sometimes it's all day and night.
"There's no knowing when it will come on, but it's bad when it does."
READ MORE OF OUR REPORTS ON DEREK DOOLEYSee tributes to Derek from our readers and add your own message in our book of condolenceHere's a song to unite both Blades and OwlsThanks for everything DerekFuneral address for city's great sonhref="http://www.thestar.co.uk/news/DOOLEY-A-world-apart-from.3879453.jp">A world apart from today's millionaire players
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