Ian Greaves

[Cavalry Trouser Tips]

has died aged 76

Before my time, I'll admit, but we were his first gig as manager and he was the last one to take us into the top division in the early 70s.

We had a minutes applause before our match against Oldham (who he briefly had a spell with as a player).



RIP

[E10 Rifle]

Ian Greaves

RIP indeed.

Mind you, all I can remember of him as a manager is the ruthlessly joyless route-one Mansfield Town side he took up from division four in 1985-86.

[Commodore]

Ian Greaves

Funnily enough, he featured briefly on ITV4's Big Match Revisited on New Year's Day (actually a recording of the Kick Off Match with the classic game featuring Man Utd vs a Lawrie Cunningham inspired WBA) where Gerald Sinstadt looked back on 1978 and there was Greaves holding a paper cup looking like he'd just suffered some kind of bereavement on the day that his Bolton side clinched promotion back to Div 1.

Don't remember him being a barrel of laughs, so CTT's pic may be something of a collector's item. Still, he was one of the few managers to have success with more than one team so it's right and proper that his passing should be acknowledged.