There has to be a terrible sense of irony that it seems Alan Ball died of a heart attack while fighting a hedge fire at the bottom of his garden in Hampshire. For Ball spent most of his management career fighting for causes with a passion burning his heart that would leave him exhausted after 90 minutes.

Had the modern technical areas been in existence on touchlines in his day, by mid-season they would not have contained a blade of grass and in 15 years as a manager, the high-pitched squeaky voice so famously heard out on the field during his playing days, began to sound like the product of a man smoking sixty a day. Such was his involvement that he would have kicked every pass for his players if he could have done.

Yet while club chairmen queued up for his services knowing they would be linked with a World Cup winner and an English football icon, Ball was never fortunate enough as a manager to be given a role backed by sufficient financial or player resources to achieve success at the highest level, even though his tracksuit career began with rich promise.

When he took his first job at Fratton Park in 1984, Portsmouth were a solid mid-table outfit in the old second division still living on the glory years immediately before and after World War II but with a fast-crumbling ground and no money. He gave Portsmouth's fan base cause for hope by finishing fourth in his first two years and then leading the club back into the first division in 1987.

However, their stay in the top flight lasted only one season in which they managed just seven victories before being relegated, and soon after he was sacked and reduced to backroom roles at Colchester and Stoke.

Given the furore that followed the more recent South Coast moves of Harry Redknapp, Ball was fortunate to escape similar vitriol when he joined Southampton in 1994 with the side deep in relegation trouble, and he immediately entered the club's folklore by saving their Premiership status. For that he owed much to the mercurial Matt Le Tissier, who, restored to the team with Ball's encouragement, responded with six goals in his first four games including a hat-trick against Liverpool.

But Ball stayed only briefly at The Dell before being enticed by his long-standing friendship with Francis Lee to move to Manchester City, where he never really settled and was shown the door after they dropped out of the Premiership in 1996.

After spending almost two years on the golf course, Ball went back to Portsmouth for a second spell in 1998 and faced yet another relegation scenario that was only averted by a 3-1 win on the final day at Bradford. It made a him a huge favourite with the Fratton Park faithful, but in the boardroom there was turmoil. With the club £7 million in debt, the following winter the receivers were called in and despite agreeing to cost-cutting measures, Ball became a victim of one himself in December 1999 when his services were dispensed with. Disillusioned with fighting continuous relegation fires he turned his back on soccer management and retired.

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