After Matt Lawton of the Daily Mail interviewed Dave Hockaday at Thorp Arch following his baffling appointment as Leeds United’s head coach, he shook his hand as they parted ways. Hockaday, who refused to reveal exactly how he had come into Massimo Cellino’s sphere of interest, claiming it was “irrelevant”, demanded they repeat the handshake, insisting that Lawton had not made “proper eye contact” during their first attempt.

It was this kind of bare-faced bravado that rendered Hockaday’s short tenure at Elland Road more annoying than it was pitiful. In reality, he should have been a heroic underdog, fighting for unrecognised coaches everywhere; handed the reins of a huge club with nothing but his A-levels and a fortuitous relegation escape at Forest Green Rovers to fall back on. Instead, he refused to accept any kind of suggestion that he didn’t belong at the top table, claiming that his twice-near-relegated Forest Green had played “the best football ever seen” in the Conference, and lavished as much praise as he could on the chairman who had hired him — the man with the vision to return Leeds to the promised land.

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