Managers Mick McCarthy and Neil Warnock go back a long way to their days as players at Barnsley together. Winger Warnock was a senior pro and McCarthy a youthful centre-half when they played together in the reserves at Oakwell.
McCarthy says the pair are friends: "I know Warney well, I played with him at Barnsley when I was a kid and he was considerably older, which he still is, of course.
"I get on well with him, he’s a pal of mine and you have to admire his achievements — seven promotions is pretty good going.
"I think he was so unlucky to lose his job at QPR. He got them promoted and he was doing all right. In fact he was doing better than everybody else who has come in since! I’ve got huge respect for the job he’s done at every club he’s been at.
"He tells everybody I used to clean his boots, which is true because I used to clean everybody’s.
"And I cleaned the toilets and I swept the terraces and I divoted the pitch!"
Comparing his time as an apprentice with life in the Town academy these days, he added: "It makes me laugh. We give out tips now, I never got a tip!”
Warnock has said he expects to leave Leeds at the end of the season, but McCarthy can’t imagine him retiring from management: "If he does then I think they’re going to have to kill him, and there’s probably a queue to do that job!
"I don’t know. He was going to pack it in when he left QPR and Leeds came up. He was due to go away with his missus and his kids and he didn’t go and took the Leeds job. I think his missus will be at the front of the queue!
"He just seems to love it, like the rest of us. You get infected by it and when you’re out of it then you miss it.
"You can be in it sometimes and chewing a little bit at results and you’re dealing with this and dealing with that, it all seems to be a whole lot work, a lot of pressure and a lot of stress at times, but as soon as you’re out of it, you miss it like hell.
"I can’t imagine him packing it in. I saw somewhere that he wants to be the Red Adair coming in and rescuing a team at the end of the season.
"That’s probably not a bad job that - keep just riding in and rescuing and keeping them up.
"He’s a good manager and what I do know is that when we play them it will be a tough, tough game. Every time you play his teams, you’ve got to scrap it out with them. He gets the best out of them, so let’s hope we can win.”
The Blues boss sees similarities in the manner in which he and Warnock have achieved their success: "There are a few of us who have been successful in the game, who have had to do it a different way, while there are others who have had jobs and had dough to spend.
"Neil’s never been one of them. He’s been one that’s done it the hard way, knowing his players and getting the best out of them.”