What ex-QPR and Sheffield United boss Neil Warnock is qualified in - it may surprise you | OneFootball

Neil Warnock was a qualified chiropodist and could have had a very different career path

Some managers will say they had management in their eyeline for a long time before it became reality, but for one of the most recognisable managerial names in football history, Neil Warnock, there was a choice.

A choice between full-time management...and being a full-time chiropodist.

A chiropodist is a healthcare professional who specialises in the treatment of foot and lower limb problems. Warnock would say in a 2013 interview with The Guardian that his speciality was ingrown toenails.

The end of Warnock's playing career and his managerial beginnings came in semi-professional football. With the part-time nature, players and managers worked alongside the games, and Warnock was a qualified chiropodist, even owning his own surgery.

But when a decision needed to be made between his two professions, he chose football management. Although that didn't stop the former QPR and Sheffield United boss, among others, from using his past skills in his new job once or twice.

It's interesting, mind you, to consider how different the course of English Football League history could look if Warnock had decided to pursue a full-time career as a chiropodist, too.

To this day, no manager has more EFL promotions on the CV than Warnock's eight, with the wily Yorkshireman rightfully regarded as a legendary figure in the Championship, and it all could've been so different.

Warnock's professional playing career started back in 1967, but by the time the late 1970s rolled around, he was playing below the Football League with the likes of Burton Albion and Gainsborough Trinity.

During that time, Warnock studied chiropody for three years and ran his own surgery for eight years in his hometown of Sheffield alongside playing and managing for Burton and Scarborough Athletic.

In 1987, however, when his Scarborough side were promoted to the Football League, the 76-year-old had to choose between the two. He chose the manager path, and the rest, as they say, was history.

However, that didn't stop him from putting his skills in chiropody to good use in a different field.

Former Crystal Palace man Darren Ambrose has stated that Warnock used to cut his toenails whilst he was the manager at Selhurst Park, and Alan Wright has spoken on a podcast about how he took his toenail off at Sheffield United.

Warnock was a promotion specialist, someone who could conduct a great escape, and a commanding voice in the dressing room. But he was also someone who players trusted with issues that some physios couldn't get to the bottom of.

Neil Warnock's legendary career could have been much different

Warnock will go down in history as one of the greatest managers in English football history, taking charge of a record number of English professional games and holding a record eight promotions across the EFL.

But if he had decided to take a different career path, perhaps one of the biggest household names in football wouldn't have been known at all.

Warnock has said that he was a very good chiropodist, hence why he'd still get involved with the treatment of some of his players, so he arguably would have been able to pave a career out of that, too.

Luckily enough for football fans, he chose management, and one of the more entertaining characters in the dugout was able to be showcased across the Premier League and the EFL.