IT’S not just Town players who have paid tribute to the late Ian Greaves.

Members of the successful sides he also created at Bolton and Oxford have been quick to praise one of football’s most highly-respected men, who died on Friday, aged 76.

While Greaves never bossed Blackburn Rovers, Ewood Park held a special place in his heart.

It was there that Town, having already clinched promotion to the top flight by drawing at Middlesbrough the previous Tuesday, clinched the old Second Division title with a 2-0 win sealed by a Frank Worthington brace on Saturday April 4, 1970.

Town had been out of English football’s elite for 14 years – the same time Bolton had been missing when Greaves repeated the Second Division title feat as Wanderers won 1-0 at Blackburn, with Worthington getting the goal again, on Wednesday, April 26, 1978.

Greaves had resigned as Town boss at the end of the 1973-74 campaign, joining Bolton as assistant manager to Jimmy Armfield after a short spell coaching at Plymouth.

Armfield’s appointment to succeed Brian Clough at Leeds paved the way for Greaves to become boss at Burnden Park.

Greaves not only helped shape the careers of Peter Reid, Sam Allardyce, Paul Jones, Mike Walsh and Neil Whatmore, who all came through the youth ranks, he also grafted flair and experience into his squad with shrewd signings such as Worthington, Alan Gowling (whom he had signed for Town in a club-record £80,000 deal in the 1972 close-season), Ray Train and Willie Morgan.

Greaves also utilised existing stalwarts such as Roy Greaves, John Ritson, Peter Nicholson, Tony Dunne and Barry Siddall to build a team of great character.

Former Town player Allardyce, who also managed Bolton and is now in charge at Blackburn, said: “Ian was the man who gave me the chance to fulfil my childhood dreams.

“We excelled as a team that was based around not just Greavesie’s football knowledge but his skills as a person and as a manager. You really wanted to play for him.

“He had a fantastic rapport with his players and long after he retired he was always there for advice.

“He always kept an eye on what we were all doing. I think that was one of the things that kept him going, because he struggled for a long time with his health.

“He has gone now, sadly, but many of us have a lot to thank him for. He was a special man.”

After Bolton, Greaves had a spell as assistant manager at Hereford before taking on his third management challenge at Oxford in 1980.

He was regarded by many as the man who first built up the best Oxford team of the mid 1980s, who went on to win the Third Division Championship and continued to the top flight and Milk Cup glory.

Peter Foley, Oxford’s joint club-record goalscorer (tied with John Aldridge on 90) said: “He was a manager who could give you great belief. He turned a team that wasn’t winning many games to one that did win a lot of games.

“He was the manager when we won 3-0 at First Division Brighton in the FA Cup, and that scoreline itself proved that he’d given us real belief.

“Ian must take great credit for turning a not particularly successful club into one that would go on to be very successful.

“One thing I do remember was that under Greavesie we worked very hard when we didn’t have the ball, which led us to becoming a very difficult team to beat.

“I certainly enjoyed playing for him and he was a players’ manager.

“He is the only manager I have ever played under when, if everything was going well 20 minutes into the training session, he’d stop, and say he was quite happy with that, and let us go home!

“If he felt it couldn’t be improved on that was it, he’d finish, and as players that really gave us an incentive to try and get it right.”

Greaves also managed Wolves and Mansfield, with whom he won promotion from Division IV in 1986.