Actually, when I think back I can't ever recall Ducks losing it verbally in a game either as a player or on the line as a coach. He was more the smiling assassin type and would tend to have a quiet, although sinister word, with his 'target'. Totally different with us in training though and in the dressing room when terms like 'both barrels' and 'paint-stripper' come readily to mind.
His fearsome reputation was widespread throughout the LOW though and opponents usually steered clear of him when they could. But this jogged a memory of a Cardiff Corries striker who I played against in one particular game. We shook hands at the final whistle and walked to the dressing room together passing Ducks, our trainer that day, who was getting his stuff together on the touchline and the striker said to me that he was glad that Ducks had stopped playing.
I asked why and he said that several years earlier when he was a whippersnapper and Ducks was winding down his playing days, he'd played against him and nutmegged Ducks. Ducks wasn't best pleased and had a quiet word along the lines of don't do that again. Full of the foolhardy juice of youth he did and Ducks told him that he'd already been warned. So the striker took this as a challenge and went past Ducks a third time later in the game. I asked him what Ducks told him then and he said that he didn't know because he woke up in the dressing room!
How true that particular incident was I don't know but it was something I heard often from other players who'd made the same mistake.
www.bbc.com
