What George Petchey doesn't know about football isn't worth knowing.

Now, coming up 70, he is in the second season of a self-imposed retirement and stoutly maintains there will be no going back on a decision to finish with the game that has been his life.

George has quit football on at least two previous occasions but each time was lured back or found it impossible to stay away. Old habits are indeed hard to break.

Bringing on kids and scouting has been George's forte since dealing with senior players at the Goldstone during Chris Cattlin's term of managerial office.

As a former manager himself, at Millwall and Orient, George knows every move in the book and a few that are not. Just as importantly, he knows everybody in the game and they know him.

Naturally a good deal of iron has entered the soul after 50-odd years in football but remarkably George's enthusiasm when dealing with youngsters remains as fresh as ever. Experiences as a manager have left him cynical about directors.

A fair number who gained such status turned out nothing but imposters bent on satisfying personal vanity.

Yet George is not one to knock football or indeed castigate those who made a difficult life even more difficult when he managed clubs with seemingly insoluble cash-flow problems.

Only an unshakable belief in his own abilities and a fitness to command enabled George to retain a sense of reason in a sometimes chaotic world when directors pulled one way and trouble-making players the other.

George's upbringing and maturing as a player with West Ham, QPR and Crystal Palace fitted him for the whirligig of running a football club. He soon was able to spot the rogue director or cheating player at a glance.

Given the number of years George has been in football the amount of time spent in Albion's service was minimal. Way back in 1968 he was interviewed for the managerial vacancy at the Goldstone but lost out to Freddie Goodwin.

Four years earlier George's playing career had been ended by a finger in the eye at Crystal Palace. At Selhurst he was on the coaching strength and also assisted Bert Head, the manager. He was naturally attracted to the Brighton job, not just because he lived just up the road in Southwick where he and wife Molly had set up house in 1953 on being married.

While the name of Arthur Rowe will mean nothing to the younger generation, the father of push-and-run who was such a tremendous influence at Tottenham after the war, found many an admirer and one was Petchey. Arthur Rowe was Palace's manager in the early 1960s and he took George to Selhurst from QPR.

It proved a happy and profitable move. In George's first season Palace were promoted from the Fourth Division and all that season the teachings of Arthur Rowe formed the basis of the Petchey understanding of football.

And if Rowe proved such an influence there was another coach who left a similarly indelible impression. Before Real Madrid visited Palace for a 45,000 turn-out friendly, George went over to Spain and watched Helenio Herrera work.

The high priest of catenaccio with Inter, Herrera used it with Spain during the 1962 World Cup, but what struck George most of all was the way the coach allowed the players to perform naturally and do their own thing.

"I had met Arthur Rowe before going to Palace and when he was at Tottenham and I was at West Ham. I learned so much from him it is impossible to evaluate and he was the first manager to say to me, well done, after a game. I am proud to say that he is godfather to our kids."

What George did not reveal was how he fared in that match with Real Madrid, suffice to say that he was given the job of marking the great Alfredo di Stefano.

But a couple of years later George's playing days were over. The first graft on his damaged eye lasted 14 years and the sight was saved, but then the condition deteriorated and after a total of six grafts the eye packed up altogether.

There was no fat cheque by way of compensation. At the outset £200 was offered but George sent the money back. The way was open for George to make his way as a coach and his reputation was high when, in 1971 he succeeded Jimmy Bloomfield as Orient manager.

Brisbane Road was very much in keeping with George's roots. Born in Whitechapel, the son of a choir-master in the Mile End Road, George is a dyed-in-the-wool Cockney.

In mid-summer he and his pals would swim under Tower Bridge and when the family moved to Hornchurch he had a trial for Essex and, at 14 signed for West Ham, then managed by Charlie Paynter. Shortly, Charlie retired and Ted Fenton took over and after picking-up a few bad injuries, George looked around and for a while worked at the Stock Exchange and became a blue button.

"There were so many good kids coming through at West Ham then, like Bobby Moore and Martin Peters and I was sold to QPR for £6,500, which was a lot of money in those days. From up front I went back to wing half and had eight happy years there."

Altogether George went on to play over 400 first team games for his three League clubs. When he was in charge at Orient the team was in the Second Division and once narrowly missed out on promotion.

But, in 1977, the swings and roundabouts went the wrong way. Orient were in such a plight that the bucket was passed among the crowd to help pay the wages.

When Orient avoided relegation on goal difference it was the end of the road for George, who left of his own accord.

When Millwall parted company with Gordon Jago there was a chance for George to get back into management. All was not well at The Den. Winning the last half dozen games saved their bacon in the Second Division but there was no escaping the drop next season.

"I know what a lot of people said about Millwall, but I liked the crowd and we won the FA Youth Cup which was a tremendous achieve-ment for a club with so few resources. I had to sell all the team later because at Millwall there were very serious cash problems and debts that I didn't know about and monies owing that had not been paid for years.

The club was £1.25m in debt at one stage, the bank had foreclosed and because of VAT arrears we couldn't use the floodlights. One of the directors had only £2,000 in the club, so somebody had to do something and I sold all the players I could get decent money for. Towards the end of my time there we won our last seven games to stay up but eventually I got the sack."

After that George started scouting for Sunderland and Newcastle.

He had two seasons with Albion looking after the reserves and being in charge of youth development.

His duties were increased to chief coach and soon the back room team comprised Cattlin and Petchey until Cattlin was unjustly forced out. George had charge of the first team on just one occasion; the final match of the 1985-86 season at Hull.

"There was a lot of sadness about the whole thing. I didn't know what went on. My second time at the Albion was more pleasant with Liam Brady."

When Brady left, George assisted Jimmy Case for whom he has unconcealed admiration and sympathy that things didn't work out better. When Case left, George was in charge for a short spell, but the arrival of Steve Gritt changed that arrangement and George gave further proof of his good faith by tending to the under-14s for nothing.

"In that second time at Brighton we brought some good players through like Gareth Barry who was 12 when I went there. He was the best of the bunch. Then there was Michael Standing who is also at Villa. After so many retirements I don't think I'll have any more come-backs; I'm too old!"