Wolves boss Mick McCarthy has scoffed at the vanity of today's footballers.
McCarthy could be heard before and after the midweek Premier League game against Arsenal harking back with fondness to the good old days/bad old days.
"How many players who played with me at Barnsley were wearing pink boots?" he asked rhetorically during a BBC 5 Live interview prior to kick-off.
"Or yellow boots? Or white boots? Or with earrings in or long hair? You'd have been going down the tunnel and saying, 'He's getting it' or 'Them two with pink boots are getting it today'. It's just the way it would've been.
"Somebody with gloves on? Well, you'd have been, shall we say, disparaging about him straight away."
But even a traditionalist like McCarthy has found it necessary to adapt, however. Even in the midst of a light-hearted rant about coloured boots and woollen mitts, McCarthy recognised the need to temper his nostalgia and at least acknowledge current fashion.
"It's all changed and I've had to change as a manager," he said. "If anybody wants to wear gloves or pink boots, whatever they want to do that makes them play better... within legal boundaries."
