Column: RIP Frank Burrows - the first man I saw boss Portsmouth

Well, the same applies to managers and Frank Burrows was in the manager’s seat at Fratton when I first became a fan 40 years ago.

So it was with great sadness a few days that I learned he’d died – just a couple of weeks, of course, after Joe Laidlaw, a player who’d helped Frank’s team of 79-80 to a division four promotion spot that’s still celebrated today.

That was Frank’s most successful year at Pompey and it was a couple of years before I was going.

But I remember Frank’s team of 1981-82 so well – even if they achieved only a lower mid-table spot that got him the sack before the campaign was out.

I also vividly remember his return to the job in January 1990.

We’d been ground down by a forgettable year or so under the management of John Gregory, and Frank’s first game back – away to Stoke – brought a constant chorus of Frankie Burrows’ blue and white army, wonderful to be part of.

Sadly his Pompey powers were not as they had been a decade earlier and he too was dispensed with in March 1991.

I was in my early days as a contributor to the matchday programme in Frank’s second spell and was tasked one day with interviewing him in the Fratton Park changing room after training.

I remember two things – he was quite scary... yet he was also very charming and polite.

I can imagine many of the players who played for him remember both those sides to his character too.

I’m so pleased Frank was able to return to Fratton a couple of years ago, when he got the great reception he deserved. RIP Frankie.