Ron Atkinson's mission to set the image right
In one fell swoop, more than four decades of experience in football was flushed down the pan, and a reputation was tainted beyond recovery.
Thanks to those infamous comments about Marcel Desailly in 2004, Ron Atkinson the manager was suddenly Ron Atkinson the racist.
It was especially disappointing for Albion fans, who remain to this day staunchly proud of Big Ron's swashbuckling Baggies team of the late 1970s that boasted the 'Three Degrees' – Cyrille Regis, Laurie Cunningham, and Brendon Batson.
It was a team that took on defenders and prejudice with the same panache and cavalier artistry that came to epitomise Ron the manager.
After 30 successful years in the dug-out, Atkinson was carving out a career as a personality pundit at the start of the millennium, an experienced man with plenty of stories whose opinion mattered.
But in 2004 that media career was left in tatters, and for the past 12 years he's been on the peripheries, occasionally popping up on reality shows trying to learn French or taking part in Celebrity Wife Swap.
Now though, he's trying to restore his previous image, and there's no surprise then that his new book is called 'Ron Atkinson: The Manager'.
Atkinson knows his life is now synonymous with those words he uttered when he thought the microphones were off, and he addresses the issue head-on in the book.
"It was idiotic, stupid and offensive, and I should never have said it," he says. "To this day I can't believe I did."
When he's probed further about it during interview, he's noticeably weary of the question, but understands the need to answer it. Does it make him unhappy, to be pigeonholed by so many because of one sentence that he describes as a mistake?
