MANCHESTER, England (REUTERS) - England's longest-serving football manager is retiring aged 71 after overseeing several trophy-laden decades at the club he loves - but he is not called Alex Ferguson.

Just days after the footballing world watched Ferguson call time on his managerial career, Jimmy Davies will step aside from his post at amateur club Waterloo Dock after a 50-year stint that makes the former Manchester United manager's 26 years look short.

Davies has a lot in common with the highly successful Ferguson even though the worlds of a non-league Liverpool-based club and the serial Premier League champions are poles apart.

"We like to win," Davies said. "We come from similar backgrounds, he was a shop steward in the Glasgow shipyard, I was a shop steward on Liverpool docks.

"We are quite a successful side... at the last count we had won 72 trophies. But he probably doesn't have to go home and wash football kits like I have to do."