Painted nails - time for change.

TWICE a coach with his home town club, Geoff Allen ended up following United centre-half Stuart Boam to Mansfield Town as his assistant.

However, Geoff decided to get out of the game when he noticed that Mansfield's best player had painted his toe nails!

"We had this Beckham lookalike who could pull the birds and play a bit," Geoff told me.

"This day I was laying out the kit in the dressingroom when he was getting changed and when I glanced down I saw he had red painted toenails.

"I thought 'my whole living is dependant on you and you paint your nails'.

"It was time to stop and get a proper job."

When his playing career was tragically cut short by injury in his early twenties, Allen wasn't allowed to drift away from the club. Instead he was given the task of looking after Newcastle's youth team, which he did for four years.

"I returned when Bill McGarry was boss to take charge of the reserves, which is how I got to know Stuart.

"He was a good lad so when he got the manager's job at Mansfield and asked me to go with him I didn't hesitate.

"But unfortunately it didn't work out for him."

Geoff decided to remain in Mansfield rather than return to his roots and first took a job selling trucks before joining Fassi, an Italian firm, selling cranes which he's still doing years later.

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