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Sam Allardyce has lifted the lid on his final days at West Ham and said: “We both should have handled it better”, writes Steve Bates in the Sunday People.

Allardyce left Upton Park in May with both parties agreeing their time together had run out after four years in which he took the Irons from the Championship and turned them into a stable Premier League club.

But the end was messy.

Co-owners David Sullivan and David Gold ­approached potential successors ­behind Big Sam’s back while he was still at the helm, and neither club nor manager revealed their hand until the bitter end.

And that is Allardyce’s only regret.

With the dust now settled on his East End adventure, though, he is eager to nail the myth that he was driven out of town by Hammers fans who never embraced his style of football.

(Image: AFP/Getty)

He said: “The split was the right time for both of us. I was ready to go and had decided I would and they wanted a change, too. But perhaps we both could have both done it better.

"They weren’t letting the cat out of the bag, but neither was I. I knew they were speaking to ­people behind my back. I am a ­manager of many years experience and I knew that was happening. It’s not good, but it happens everywhere so you just have to leave it at that.

“I had four great years at West Ham. People will always refer to the ­difficulties at certain times, but you get those everywhere. The satisfaction for me is that when you leave somewhere you look at what you are leaving and I know I left West Ham in great shape."

Allardyce had a troubled ­relationship with West Ham fans at the end of his reign, with huge sections of the Upton Park crowd calling for his head.

It is clearly something he will not forget in a hurry.

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He added: “There were difficulties and differences of opinion with the fans, but like every manager at West Ham, they have difficulty with the fans at some stage and that’s acceptable.

“You know that before you take the job. It’s not a Sam Allardyce thing with West Ham fans. But because you are the manager, people make it a Sam Allardyce thing.

“But you don’t take the job if you don’t know that’s going to happen.

"Do people think I’m so naive at this stage of my life that I didn’t speak to everyone I could about West Ham? Of course I did – I haven’t been that naive for a long, long time so I knew what to expect from some fans.

“But I enjoyed my time there: Everything we achieved, the challenge, living in London, it was a great time and experience for my family.

(Image: Getty)

“I hardly ever came back to my family home in Bolton because the grandkids always wanted to come to London for half-terms, bank holidays and long weekends. It was a good time for me and my family. Believe me, I look back on West Ham in a good way.”

On the opening day of the new ­season last month, Allardyce was in Qatar – watching Premier League football.

He was doing a stint for beIN Sports with old pals Richard Keys and Andy Gray, analysing the action for Middle East viewers.

Not the slightest tinge of regret he was not in the dugout as the new campaign kicked-off, then? Nope.

While Jose Mourinho fights to get Chelsea’s mojo back, Brendan Rodgers battles with sliding credibility at Liverpool and Louis van Gaal defends his man-management techniques at Manchester United, Big Sam is having a ball watching from the sidelines.

(Image: Action Images)

And despite admitting he is still ­addicted to football at 60, he is in no desperate hurry to get back to the madness of management.

After extended holidays with wife Lynn, trips to Dubai with his ­grandchildren and jaunts to Hong Kong and Doha, Allardyce is enjoying life in the slow lane for a change.

When we meet in Manchester, he is late — delayed by a long ­telephone conversation with lawyers who are sifting through his new ­autobiography, which is due out for Christmas.

I joke that the book should be called Fireman Sam because it will not be long before he will be back performing ­another rescue act for a different ­Premier League club.

He is not amused.

He said: “People may look at me as a firefighter. But I am more than a firefighter, I know that. I think I am better than that after what I achieved at Bolton and West Ham.

“Still, that’s the way it is. You have to accept that. Almost everyone labels me as a firefighter, but that’s fine. It doesn’t bother me. But next time I get back in work, I am never going to go to a football club just to survive. I like to build a club.

“When/if the chance comes to get back into the Premier League it will have to be at the right club for me. I won’t be taking a job just because I want to work, I will be looking at the chances of success at that club.

(Image: Victor Decolongon)

“The hunger to work again will kick in at some point, but I can’t determine when that will be. That’s why I am not saying when I am coming back.

"It might never happen. I hope it does because for me it’s an obsession and an addiction and sometimes you feel an awkwardness not being involved and managing the madness day after day.

“But ­spending time with the family is a big bonus. I’m watching more football than when I was at West Ham and I couldn’t have written a book if I was still managing, no way.”

Following in the footsteps of David Moyes, now at Real Sociedad, and Newcastle boss Steve McClaren, who managed in Holland and Germany, could be an option.

And the growing credibility of Major League Soccer also makes America an appealing destination for Big Sam, who believes British coaches are undervalued overseas and at home.

He added: “I might work abroad, who knows? The ability of British coaches is much better than people gives us credit for.

“The amount of qualifications we have to go through now to get badges means we should have opportunities in our own country to get a job. But a lot of times British coaches aren’t even getting an interview and that can’t be right.”