A CLASS ACT TO THE END

In a career full of ups and downs Sven always had dignity and style

- Mike Walters

LOUNGING by the pool at 10am, Didi Hamann was taken aback to see Sven-Goran Eriksson approaching with a bottle of champagne and two glasses on a silver tray.

Manchester City were on an end-of-season tour in 2008 after signing off with an 8-1 defeat at Middlesbrough in the Premier League, and Eriksson knew his days as manager under a Blue Moon were numbered.

When German midfielder Hamann asked what they were celebrating, Eriksson broke into that disarming, alluring smile and said: "Life, Kaiser. We are celebrating...life." If bubbles at 10am was a classy gesture by a condemned man awaiting his summons to meet the firing squad in the exercise yard, it was entirely in keeping with his enviable charm.

Everything that Sven-Goran Eriksson did reeked of class.

Even when he was betrayed, as he led England to three quarterfinals at successive major tournaments, the Three Lions' first non-English manager accepted his fate with remarkable equanimity.

Eriksson, who has died aged 76 after a battle with cancer, may not have been the greatest England coach since Sir Alf Ramsey - but he was surely the most dignified.

After a trophy-laden managerial career in his native Sweden, Portugal and Italy - including titles at Benfica and Lazio - his appointment as Kevin Keegan's successor was greeted, in some quarters, with Little Englander disdain.