BEEN there, done it, watched the video, bought the T-shirt . . . Graham Hawkins is your man.

Well, not many football managers can claim to have been thrown out of work by Saddam Hussein!

The former Ewood central defender has not been employed full-time in the game since his career was rudely interrupted by Saddam's tanks as they first rolled ruthlessly into Kuwait.

If variety is the spice of life, then Hawkins, resident in North Shropshire and still very actively involved in scouting, has lived his to the full - and continues to do so.

A cornerstone of the Gordon Lee side which won the Division Three (now Two) championship in 1974-75, he enjoyed three separate spells at Ewood.

He has managed Wolverhampton Wanderers, coached abroad for several years in Bahrein and would have had another Middle East stint but for Saddam.

All set to fly to Kuwait with wife Jane, he was to take charge of one of their top clubs, Al Araby, in 1990 when Iraq attacked.

Graham had been conducting pre-season preparations with them in Germany when the job, for obvious reasons, fell through.

But he felt fortunate simply to have avoided being caught up in the invasion by just a matter of days.

He had just resigned from his third Ewood spell, as chief scout, to take up the Middle East challenge.

Left between jobs, it was to signal the end of his full-time football career which had begun as an apprentice at Wolves back in 1962.

Now 52, Hawkins explained: "I was fortunate to get the job with Rovers but Kuwait was too good to turn down.

"Then I found it very difficult to get back into football, apart from the scouting side of it.

"I worked in the pottery business for a time but I wasn't really into the cold sell. "Then the lease came up on our local pub. We were very good friends with the couple who were retiring and knew the business, so Jane and myself took it on for five-and-a-half years.

"We would never have taken another pub, it was just that we knew this one so well and the people.

"It was hard work, very comparable to football management, though not as stressful.

"Twelve months ago, we asked ourselves if we really wanted to do this for the rest of our lives, so we came out and decided to take a couple of holidays.

"Summer was spent doing the garden and now we have taken part-time jobs.

"I have still been doing a bit of scouting for the Rovers and various other people, it gets me out and about and I have been up to Ewood a couple of times.

"The game is always in your blood and I enjoy going scouting, with the Midlands my main area.

"But I would never want to be a manager again, not with what I went through at Wolves."

Hawkins made his name at Wolves and Preston as a big, strong, commanding centre half who never shirked a challenge and had obvious leadership qualities.

In the summer of 1974, Lee needed such a figure to build a promotion bid around and he managed to sign Hawkins - then only 28 - from neighbours Preston for just £18,000.

He proved a major influence on the successful title push and in re-establishing the club at a higher level.

Before moving on to Port Vale in January 1978, Hawkins made 120 full senior appearances for Rovers, plus one as a substitute.

His second, albeit brief, spell at Ewood was as reserve team boss, before going on to Stoke, Shrewsbury as assistant manager, and eventually back to Wolves.

Hawkins was named manager of Wolves on the eve of the 1982-83 season and led them to promotion to Division One in his first season. But, with relegation beckoning in April 1985, he lost his job.

A successful and happy period followed, coaching in Bahrein, where the entire Hawkins family found life pleasant to say the least.

And, on his return to England, it was back to Ewood again as chief scout in March 1990.

The Kuwait offer tempted him to return to the Middle East and he reluctantly quit his Ewood post, only to lose out on both.

Looking at the state of the game today, Hawkins believes professional football could face huge problems in the near future because schools will not turn out potential stars as they have in the past.

Finding young talent these days is, he claims, a real problem for the top clubs.

"For Premiership teams it's like looking for a needle in a haystack," he said.

With his vast experience and knowledge of the game, there is no reason to doubt his views.

It's all a far cry from the days when you could spend £18,000 and buy a central defender to help you win a championship.

And, while he might have done it all, I suspect Graham Hawkins still has a lot to offer the game that has been his life.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.