Arthur showed real Christmas spirit Arthur Cox was a wise old owl who assembled for a cash-strapped club such gems as Peter Beardsley, Kevin Keegan, Terry McDermott, David McCreery and Glenn Roeder. So when he brought in Roeder from QPR as a Christmas present to the fans in 1983 the way he sold the club was colourful to say the least. "When you win on a Saturday you mow the front lawn the following morning," he explained. "But when you lose you mow the back lawn." Just in case that didn't quite paint the picture of fanaticism and hero worship on Tyneside Cox went on: "For the Geordie bloke Newcastle United are No 1, a pint No 2 and a bet No 3. Women are a poor fourth." Roeder says: "I quickly found out he wasn't far wrong." Roeder also found out on his Boxing Day debut at home to Blackburn Rovers that Cox, crop-haired with the intense looks of an SAS guy, expected men to be men. "When we were about to go out I spotted Arthur standing by the door with a bottle of whisky in his hand," smiled Roeder. "I thought `Oh no, surely he doesn't expect us to have a swig of that'. But he did. Everyone had a mouthful bar Peter Beardsley, who wouldn't even touch champagne if the championship was won. "I knew my turn was coming and being a Cockney I thought about the Southern Softies bit. Mind you, that's wrong. If you said that to Billy Bonds at West Ham he'd have chewed your head off. "However, I thought on my first day I'd better play safe so I took a huge gulp and somehow swallowed it. When we were kicking in I felt as though I was tipsy - but I managed to get through the game. The funny thing was that before every match after that I'd rinse out my mouth with whisky. It burned and just gave you that kick. However, I didn't swallow the stuff, I spit it out." Roeder played 219 games for Newcastle and, when Keegan retired upon winning promotion, new manager Jack Charlton made Glenn skipper. "I played seven times for England B - an honour I cherish - but skippering Newcastle in the thick end of 200 games is the highlight of my playing career. "To do that when I was a Cockney was quite something." Glenn's famous Magpie double Glenn Roeder became famous on Tyneside for two things - his double shuffle and being Gazza's minder! The shuffle, which brought whoops of joy from the Magpie hordes as Roeder broke from defence, came about on the insistence of dad. "He saw the famous Di Stefano repeatedly do it when Real Madrid beat Eintracht Frankfurt 7-3 in one of the most amazing European Cup finals ever and he had me out in the park practising it time after time after time until I could do it perfectly," explained Glenn. "The highlights of that 1960 final at Hampden Park were shown on Pathe News in the cinemas. I didn't actually see it myself until about 10 years ago. "The game was stretched in those days but sure enough there was Di Stefano making a fool of everyone." Roeder was the fatherly figure who guided a young Gazza during his early days with United and may well have gone over to Rome on a two-year contract to do the same thing when Paul joined Lazio, but turned it down. "I hate the word minder," admitted Roeder. "It sounds like a big heavy employed to work someone over if need be. I looked after Paul in Newcastle because we became great friends despite the fact that we were complete opposites - he was an extrovert and I was an introvert. "It's also true that I was to go over to Rome with him full-time. I actually spent 10 days over there when we went out to see Lazio officials after Gazza had got badly injured in the FA Cup final. "I was out of work at the time and felt I could learn so much about coaching. I watched Dino Zoff work the Lazio squad but I honestly didn't see anything that Terry Venables hadn't done with us at QPR." Page 3: The fact is I did not fail at West Ham | 
