It was announced yesterday that our former midfielder and manager had passed away aged 76. For six years in the late 1960s and 1970s, his dynamic input into a trophy-winning side was watched closely by centre-back Dempsey.

When Hollins returned to Chelsea after eight years away in 1983, joining that same summer was a young Pat Nevin who first had him as a team-mate, then a coach, then his manager.

They both pay tribute to Holly the footballer and Holly the person…

John Dempsey on John Hollins

John gave 100 per cent in every game and the massively important thing is he could defend as well as attack.

He scored really good goals, especially when he used to hit them from 20-odd yards. People remember him especially for scoring important goals including one of the best I’ve ever seen, against Arsenal when he ran onto a long ball and hit the bar and then he had to turn around and smash it into the net. That was him all over really because he covered every inch of the pitch and he was so enthusiastic because he hated losing.

• Obituary: John Hollins MBE 1946-2023

• Online book of condolence for John Hollins

We had a lot of skilful players, in midfield where Alan Hudson was and Charlie Cooke would drop in at times and drift out to the wing, and there was Peter Osgood and different types of players and you needed one who would work tirelessly. John probably didn't get the accolades that he should have because he covered for people. When the other team broke away, he wasn't thinking about sticking to this man or whatever, he would chase back, get tackles in on the edge of the box, he was a grafter.

He was a brilliant player and a brilliant team-mate, everyone got on with him. He had a really good sense of humour. He would come in and do impressions of comedians like Benny Hill and Tommy Cooper. John was such a nice man and such a lovely person to talk to. He never had a bad word for anyone and he always had time to sign autographs like he was never in a rush.

When we won the European Cup Winners’ Cup, John was sad to miss the replay when we won it 2-1 because he was injured but he was the first one afterwards getting really excited and that showed what John was really like.

He deserved more than his one cap for England because at the time he was as good as any other English player. I know there was Alan Ball and people like that to compete with but playing with him, you knew what he was really like. I imagine a lot of opponents didn't like playing against him because he was up in one box and then back in the other box defending.

During pre-season training, which was very hard, occasionally we’d go to Epsom Racecourse for a cross-country run for five miles. John and Peter Bonetti would win all the time. John was driven to win.

To play 592 games for Chelsea shows how fit he was because he played in the most-tiring position and he was up against really tough, aggressive opponents but rarely got injured. That number of games is unbelievable really, and he'll always be remembered at Chelsea for being an outstanding player and being a great team-mate as well.

Pat Nevin on John Hollins

When I was a kid, John Hollins was one of the incredibly well-known names in Chelsea’s firmament, so when I arrived at the club I knew about John as a legend anyway. He was 37 and it was quite obvious that he was going to do a bit of coaching as well, but he was playing right-back behind me as soon as I started playing. So we worked up a really nice relationship, and it was like a friendship immediately. Everyone who has ever known Holly knows exactly what he's like, he's just everyone's friend.

So we had an understanding, with me almost taking for granted that he was a very good player, even if it was near the end of his career, and that he was a Chelsea legend because of the number of games he'd played and how the fans felt about him.

When he faded from the team after a few months, Holly immediately was a coach and it felt really comfortable. He was an on-the-pitch coach, very much in tracksuit, talking through [manager] John Neal’s ideas. That could have been hard because he's a mate but it was dead easy for him at that point in time, because everybody liked him so much.

There were lots of reasons for that. He was just a lovely person but he was also unbelievably funny, and a phenomenally good mimic. He would have you creased up all the time. Whatever we were talking about, if ever a jokey moment was needed he could provide it, but not in a stupid way, in a sweet, nice and smart way when the moment needed it within the team dynamic.

There were lots of funny moments and certainly one of my favourites is when he came round the hotel rooms just chatting to the lads. People might think he was checking up on the lads the night before a game but it didn't feel he was checking up. He heard a noise coming from my room which he thought was a vacuum cleaner but it was actually just one of my indie bands playing, the Jesus and Mary Chain. When he walked in the room looking for a vacuum cleaner that wasn't there and it was just my tape recorder playing, Holly found it hilariously funny.

The dynamic was John Neal as the manager, Ian McNeill the assistant, and Holly was coach and that can complicate things. But if you're the kind of coach who is the mediator between management and players, you're kind of liked by both so at that point, he was just incredibly popular. He didn't play many games in the second half of that first season because we had an incredibly settled side but there was no annoyance or bitterness from him, he was delighted we we're doing so well. It was that kind of selflessness that was him as a player as well.

When he was manager, a high league finishing place and winning a cup at Wembley were wonderful moments for him. We had been on a fantastic upward trajectory and for a period of time it continued. But football doesn't stop and he had to make his own decisions and some of them didn't go as well. But you couldn’t be angry with Holly, even if he dropped you or somebody disagreed with a tactic, it was impossible to be angry with him.

I do remember near the end of his time as manager he came up to me after a game and he basically apologised to me for leaving me out and he said he was wrong. He didn't need to do that because that would appear to slightly weaken his position, but he wasn't that bothered about his ego so he could be honest and straight with you.

There are always some negative words said about managers, that is just the nature of it, but you have to understand that John was absolutely Chelsea at heart, he loved the club and his heart was completely in the right place.