Just 24 hours before VE Day in 1945, Barry Fry was born. No wonder the Germans surrendered.

Now 70, one of English football’s great raconteurs – who reckons he was sacked 37 times in nine years by a ticket tout at Barnet and reinstated on 36 of them – is still going strong.

After one of his ritual dismissals by Stan Flashman, Fry emerged to deliver his considered verdict on a controversial paymaster.

“There is only one thing wrong with Stan,” he mused. “The man is a complete and utter s***.”

Eventually, he grew tired of life on Flashman’s volcano and went to work for more discreet employers, who were porno barons, at Birmingham City.

Cup success: Fry and Peterborough won the Johnstone's Paint Trophy in 2014 - and are looking for more cup magic today

After criticising the owners in public, Fry was dragged out of the showers at St Andrew’s by Karren Brady so the Baroness of Knightsbridge could recite the riot act to her manager in the boot room with only a towel around his waist.

As a player, Fry once scored for England schoolboys in front of 95,000 fans at Wembley, when he was the brightest prospect in the Busby Babes class of ’62 on Manchester United’s books.

But if Best, Law and Charlton went on to become celebrated pianists, Fry’s greatest hits as a piano tuner have been no less melodic.

Today, Peterborough United’s director of football will be in his element as Posh, backed by 4,500 travelling snobs, go in search of an FA Cup scalp at West Bromwich Albion. “I believe in the romance of the Cup not just because I’m an old fossil now, but I’ve seen how it can transform people’s lives,” he said.

“When I was at Barnet and we played Brighton in the third round in 1982 – which was then non-league against top flight – we held them to a draw at Underhill before going down with all guns blazing in the replay.

“Mike Bailey, the Brighton manager, was so impressed with our left-back Graham Pearce, who was a printer by trade and playing for buttons at Barnet, that he agreed to buy him.

“A year later, Pearce was at Wembley in the FA Cup Final and you cannot put a price on that.

“I’ll be going to the Hawthorns with the same high hopes of turning over the big boys – I’ve calmed down a bit since I was a manager but, being the age I am, it still makes the sap rise and I’ll be in my element.”

In 20 years at Peterborough, Fry has fulfilled just about every imaginable job from manager to chairman, secretary and owner.

When he was responsible for funding the £150,000 monthly wage bill at Posh and the money ran out, he remortgaged the family home and threw in his own £200,000 pension pot. And when that was not enough, he gave the bank title deeds to his mother-in-law’s home as extra surety – without telling her.

Barry Fry once remorgaged the family home, threw in his pension pot AND used his mother-in-law's home to ensure Posh could survive

Fry admitted: “When we were skint, we played at Chelsea in the FA Cup and although we lost 5-0, the money was a lifeline.

“On the day of the game I asked then Blues chairman Ken Bates if we could take our share of the takings home with us because we didn’t have a pot to p*** in and he told me to go forth and multiply.

“Normally you have to wait a couple of weeks for the gate money to be carved up but, good as gold, on the Monday morning Ken sent a bike round with a cheque to keep the bank manager off our backs.

“My fondest memories of the Cup are not just restricted to what happens on the pitch, which is just as well – I’ve never been in charge of a giantkilling in my life!”

More recently, when Fry’s daughter Amber – whose other half is Posh legend Craig Mackail-Smith – went into labour, Fry added midwifery to his many talents.

“I heard all this screaming and foul language from upstairs - I have no idea where she got it from,” joked Fry, whose fly-on-the-wall TV documentary as Posh manager explored the alphabet from A to F.

Baby Isla was safely delivered and Fry, for once, did not have the most colourful vocabulary in the family.

But in Grandad’s Army, few of English football’s elder statesmen are better value than the man born just before VE Day. Who did you think you were kidding, Mr Hitler? We’ve got Barry Fry.