O'Neill revealed as more than just a stellar manager

TV View: The former Nottingham Forest manager Brian Clough was asked what the current Celtic manager, Martin O'Neill, was like to work with as a young player. Clough, who sometimes doesn't allow accuracy to get in the way of a good story, delivered with all the sincerity of a politician on the election trail.

"Martin was talking before he was walking," chirped Clough. "The only time we ever clashed was when he was talking at the same time as me. Whenever we had a row he'd always say to me, 'I don't have to do this you know. I can go back to university'. So one day he said it to me, 'I can go back to university'. So I said here you go. I'd bought a plane ticket for him to fly back home."

With a barely concealed laugh a clearly exasperated O'Neill took the opportunity to put the record straight.

"He made it up. It is absolutely and utterly untrue and I've heard other people say it. But that's Brian Clough. The only thing he said to me about education, and it was him who always brought it up, was that in football terms I was as thick as a brick. He'd say, 'I hear you've got some GCEs - well, in football terms you're as thick as a brick."

Martin O'Neill on BBC 1 NI last Thursday was a programme of story-telling. O'Neill told stories about himself, of Brian Clough and Northern Ireland striker Gerry Armstrong. Clough and Celtic player Neil Lennon told stories of O'Neill. The O'Neill brothers told stories of their younger sibling. A one-hour collage in which the star was the subject himself explains something of the current Celtic boss's personality. From the shaggy-haired Derry minor GAA footballer to a natural leader of men in the 1982 soccer World Cup, O'Neill came across as one of life's achievers, a positive, driving spirit. For a man whose upbringing we were told was "conventional and Catholic", he showed a sense of humour too.

When the rank outsiders Northern Ireland beat hosts Spain in the 1982 World Cup to qualify for the quarter-finals, it was Armstrong's goal that got them through. Armstrong had been having a blessed tournament but you could tell from O'Neill that his new-found high currency was having some irritating effects on the team.

"He just never shut up," said O'Neill. "You know what he said on one occasion? He said, 'You know what they're saying back home? They're saying Socrates, Falcao and meself. There's only three players in this World Cup'."

O'Neill originally went to Queen's University Belfast to study law but was lured from the books by an offer to play professional football.

He had been playing with Belfast club Distillery, having left GAA behind.

A professional career as a player that earned him European Cup glory and a stellar managing stint that has earned him the reputation for being able to "make mediocre teams punch above their weight" has delivered O'Neill into the Premiership league of desirable managers.

The BBC have done interesting research on his football life to date. But O'Neill arrives on our screens as something more than a coach. He is educated, informed, articulate and a survivor of a time in Northern Ireland when two communities were profoundly polarised. The son of a barber, who went on to win a place in Queen's law school at a time when Catholics were still treated as an underclass, Martin O'Neill, you feel, has much more to say about his life.

Seb Coe, another televisual and sharp punter, turned up on Sky News and spoke a lot but said little. Coe has just been appointed as Lord of Britain's sales department for the 2012 Olympic Games.

London having survived the first cull of cities, no one seemed certain if the former London bid leader Barbara Cassani had been fired, reappointed, stepped down, given up or moved sideways. But Coe is now in charge and like O'Neill he is light-footed in conversation, if much more polluted with political bull.

"Was Cassani dumped because she's American?" Coe was asked.

"Let me say this . . ." said the Tory.

Rumours are that it is because she's American," insisted Sky.

"It is simply that the next step is to sell the idea (London hosting the 2012 Olympics) further afield," answered Coe.

Cassani's move into the background because of antipathy to American foreign policy is pragmatism at work and Coe's ability to schmoozle 126 IOC members, both Christian and Muslim, in resident lounges around the world adds another dimension to his choirboy image. Imagine it.

"Is that a double or a triple, Juan Antonio? Same again, Patrick?" Naw. Couldn't happen.