Hong Kong soccer has become more sedate over the past few years, certainly when it comes to personal relations between players and managers.

That's all to the good and the way it should be in an ideal football world. But disputes will always be part of the game and those who have followed the fortunes of Hong Kong Rangers over the years will readily recall that they had them as regularly as they used to score goals.

Central to it all was the fiery figure of team boss Ian Petrie who started the side and was the main man behind the official introduction of professional soccer to the territory.

Petrie was an able administrator, excellent speaker and knew enough about the game to put together a team that, in the early days of professionalism, swept all before it.

At man-management, however, Petrie was a total disaster. So much so that he managed to break up a team that would have had a major say in the game for a lot longer than was the case.

Petrie could shoot himself in the foot just about as readily as big Walter Gerrard could put the ball in the net.

The present Rangers incumbent, the aforementioned Mr Lee, received nothing more than a couple of harsh words from his disgruntled defender last week. That falls a long way short of being chased around the club flat by a hatchet-wielding superstar.

The player in question was the mercurial Tang Hung-cheong while team manager Petrie displayed - by reliable accounts - footwork nimble enough to get past any defender. In this instance he got through the door in time to close it on the descending weapon.

To say there was a love-hate relationship between Petrie and some of his better players would probably be stating the case with some accuracy. Despite the ructions, pay disputes and angry exchanges, the team did largely stick together - and did win, at times with considerable flair.

He introduced the first foreign players but never seemed to find maintaining a personal or professional relationship with them particularly easy.

With a background in the Boys' Brigade, he was something of a stickler for discipline, particularly on away trips. Sudden midnight visits to players' rooms sometimes revealed more than the lads sweetly dreaming of the next day's victory.

Mind you, engaging company as Petrie invariably was during his hey-day here, young Scottish players leaving the country for the first time could be excused for finding him hard going.

It wasn't the sounds of Scotland The Brave that emanated now and then from the leader's bedroom but rather Hitler's speeches at the Nuremberg rallies.

Petrie did sign some truly excellent players - including the legendary Scottish winger, Willie Henderson. Paying them was another matter.

The failure of the 'readies' to appear on time resulted in endless disputes and eventually led to the virtual break-up of Rangers and the departure of Petrie.

With no money and a clutch of young players, Rangers looked doomed to relegation. Their fate was to be decided in the first game of a double-header at the old Hong Kong Stadium with the main match featuring Hong Kong's favourite side, South China.

There was not a seat to be had in the ground and Petrie walked to the bench acknowledging the cheers of the crowd. And his underpaid, or non-paid, lads did try their hearts out - to no avail. Rangers went down but in one of the most remarkable scenes in the history of the game here, over half the crowd walked out of the ground before the start of the South China game.

They had come to see Rangers - and Petrie. It was a graphic demonstration of the hold the team and their erratic boss had on the soccer public here.