Sheffied United's legendary bosses have similar traits but there are plenty of differences too

If you want to see emotion in a manager, raw passion, a heart always visible on sleeve, it’s the link that connects Sheffield United’s highest-achieving bosses of modern times. Dave Bassett to Neil Warnock to Chris Wilder, with Paul Heckingbottom also in that mighty mix. But there is one more reason that, having known all four at close quarters, is at least as big a factor behind their success.

Let’s go first to last. For such emotional characters, Bassett and Wilder have shown themselves to be brutally unsentimental when it comes to making big decisions. Having just completed a riveting read of the new book “Bassett’s Blades”, I wonder if that was Wilder’s biggest learning experience from Bassett in mirroring the latter’s double promotion from third tier to first. After all, Chris the player was on the end of it himself, dispatched by “Harry” from his beloved Blades at the peak of that climb.

It’s a point worth making for three reasons. Despite that painful parting, the pair have become mentor and protege in the years since. And didn’t Wilder show similar ruthlessness only last summer in disbanding the successful team he himself had put together?

As a third reason, the pair have many differences, making this common trait stand out. It’s brought into sharp focus amid the colourful chronicling by Danny Hall and Nathan Hemmingham of the Bassett glory years of the late 1980s and early 1990s. There was no messing and yet no little messing about behind the scenes. Some managerial trick, that, and it takes a special kind of leader to pull it off.

Shades of that in the rumbustious vigour with which Wilder celebrated his two promotions as “one of the lads” with his players. But as legendary hard man Billy Whitehurst points out in the book (and well done, by the way, for tracking him down to talk!), Bassett and Wilder are not exactly two peas from the same pod.

“There are some similarities but they are completely different in the way they play football,” says Whitehurst, a player used by Bassett to “go out and cause some bollocks” as and when required.

“Harry was more direct … Chris is how he was as a player. He could play but he wasn’t necessarily a Harry-type player. Chris wanted to play football whereas Harry wanted to play more direct. But today’s football suits how Chris wanted to play.”

At the risk of a visit from Billy, it’s worth adding that Bassett adapted his style later in his career (what was wrong with it anyway?), and with some success, while Wilder insists flexibility is essential for a coach - as he has proved this season. But Whitehurst makes a killer point with this: “It’s testament to both Chris and Harry that they’re still close all these years on. Chris has always kept in touch with Harry and always picked his brain, because he knows what he’s on about.”

Indeed, that relationship led not indirectly to the Blades hot seat when, at the end of the Kevin McCabe era, the then co-chairman finally acted on Harry’s exhortations to give the job to Chris.

For what it’s worth, Bassett remains my top pick of Blades bosses I’ve worked with, closely followed by Wilder, Warnock and Hecky. What Harry achieved from the meagre resources he had was nothing short of phenomenal. It’s even more startling looking back.

An absolute delight to recall those days, including some cracking tales seeing the light of day for the first time. Whether you were there, and even more so if you were not, a must-read for football fans, dare I say not just Blades!

* “Bassett’s Blades”, Danny Hall with Nathan Hemmingham, is out now via Vertical Editions.