From a lavish stay in the Dolomites to 1am wake-up calls and dressing-downs at Elland Road courtesy of Massimo Cellino, there are so many bemusing and bewildering moments to reflect on that David Hockaday could write a book. So much so that, after an hour, it feels as if we have barely scratched the surface of his wild, white-knuckle 70-day ride at Leeds United.

Infamously parachuted into one of the biggest jobs in the country almost five years ago after three covert meetings with the then owner, the now 61-year-old became the first victim of the chaos under the previous regime at Leeds.

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Other than his regret at failing to shore things up in a match at Bradford, when Leeds were leading with eight minutes to play in his final game, he is immensely proud to have followed managers such as Don Revie. Listening to Hockaday, who since 2016 has been head of male football at South Gloucestershire and Stroud college (SGS) on the outskirts of Bristol, speak brutally about his six matches in charge is staggering; he believes he has greater resources in terms of the staff at SGS than he did at Leeds.

“I was going into Championship games blind – it was crazy,” he says. “I’ve seen [Marcelo] Bielsa going on about all this data, but we had nothing. We had just one match analyst, one strength and conditioning coach, and it just felt unprofessional. I was thrown to the dogs, just scrambling to get information on the opposition by phoning up other managers who had played the teams. I went in at ground zero. There was virtually nothing.”

Hockaday recalls his squad looked at him as if to say “who are you?” in their first team meeting, his previous job having been at Forest Green Rovers, and it was as big a mystery to him as to everybody else how he ended up at Leeds without applying for the job. He says he was wheeled out in front of the media before even signing a contract. “It was just surreal, so cloak-and-dagger,” Hockaday says. “I knew his record with managers [Cellino sacked 36 in 22 years at Cagliari] and I was thinking: ‘Does he want to get an Italian-based manager in and get somebody who knows the English game to support him as the first-team coach? Or does he want an under-23s coach to bring through players, which is really what I’m about.’

Facebook Twitter Pinterest David Hockaday during his first home league game as manager of Leeds, a 1-0 win against Middlesbrough in August 2014. Photograph: Paul Thomas/Getty Images

“But he said: ‘I want you to be my head coach.’ I said: ‘What, like your manager?’ And he said: ‘Yes, I want you to be my coach.’ I was like: ‘OK, interesting,’ and I was sort of playing poker. I said: ‘I can handle the coaching, that’s not a problem,’ but said: ‘There’s a few things we need to talk about.’ He said: ‘ You can recommend players but I will have the final say. You pick the team, you train them and I don’t interfere with that’ – and, to be fair, he never ever did.”

Hockaday suggested several players but felt lumbered with a series of imports from Serie B. “He said: ‘Go and get me a young, unproven striker that will score goals and we can sell on,’” Hockaday explains. “I said: ‘Andre Gray.’ A few days later, he said: ‘No, I’ve spoken to him and his agent, he’s too much.’ I said: ‘From Luton to Leeds United, and he’s too much?’ Later in the season, he goes and gets [Mirco] Antenucci for millions of pounds.”

I’m a massive Leeds fan now, I love them to bits. It was only three months but a massive part of my life

The signings of Gaetano Berardi – “who was kung fu-ing everybody and getting sent off every game” – and Giuseppe Bellusci – “he thought he was a hard man but was an absolute pussy” – compounded Hockaday’s frustration and he says he was shut down after recommending Virgil van Dijk, then of Celtic, as well as Craig Cathcart and Mark Hudson as preferred centre-back options. A move for Conor Coady, available on a free, never made it past Cellino either. “Flipping heck,” Hockaday says, asked about what might have been. “Don’t make me cry. I was scratching my head being told ‘no’ about those I had recommended while we were getting in these Italian-based players who were nowhere near it and, I have got to say, that’s what killed me.” Hockaday fought to convince Cellino, who he says liked to be referred to as “Mr President”, to pay for food after training. “I basically had an under-23s’ team and a lot of disenchanted senior players. It was the most dysfunctional squad I’ve ever played with, trained with, coached – whatever. It was a terrible environment.

“I don’t know what they are doing with the swimming pool at Thorp Arch now but you know when you see the westerns with all the tumbleweed? It was like that, because none of it was being used. It was a massive facility that was ‘too expensive to run’.”

The real fun and games, Hockaday says, began when they returned to Yorkshire. He and the coach Neil Sullivan took the goalkeeper Marco Silvestri away from the rest of the squad to work on his kicking. “I found out quite quickly that the Italians reported back to the president … I had a phone call from Cellino to say: ‘Get yourself down to Elland Road.’ I get in there and he says: ‘What are you doing, embarrassing my goalkeeper?’ I said: ‘Right, hang on a minute, what’s he like with the ball at his feet?’ He went: ‘He’s not that good.’ I said: ‘Does he need to work on it?’ He said: ‘Yeah.’ I said: ‘Do you know what we’ve done? We’ve taken him to another field and worked on it.’ He said: ‘Good work, well done.’ That sort of thing went on every day.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Massimo Cellino at Elland Road in 2014. Photograph: Clint Hughes/Getty Images

Hockaday is able to laugh now. “He [Cellino] used to ring me every day, and at weird times – at midnight, 1am, all sorts. I used to pick up every call, which was a bit silly of me. He said: ‘Coach.’ I said: ‘Yes, Mr President.’ And he went: ‘You’re not a good English coach.’ I was thinking: ‘Oh shit.’ But then he said: ‘You’re a good Italian coach, three times [training] a day. I love it. Keep it going.’ He had spies and they were reporting back to him … I was incredibly grateful for the opportunity so I was always going to swallow some of what he was going to throw at me. He wanted a vulnerable, if you like, good coach. He told me he’d let me down and I have talked to him a couple of times since, when he has phoned out of the blue.”

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Since joining SGS, Hockaday has enjoyed great success. He recognises the value of education; he would have read business at Sheffield University had he not signed for Blackpool, and he studied civil engineering and accounting during his playing days. The defender Kasper Lopata, who joined Brighton, and the striker Antoine Semenyo, who signed for Bristol City, are the most salient success stories, and Saikou Janneh, also signed by City, is another export of the full-time programme. “I’m going to leave a legacy here,” Hockaday says. “I’m going to build something incredible.”

As for Leeds, he smiles. “It was a brilliant experience, I learned a lot about myself. ‘Can I handle the shit?’ Yes, I can. ‘Can I handle players at that level?’ I think so. I’m such a massive Leeds fan now; I love them to bits. It was only three months but it is a massive part of my life.”