FORMER Blackburn Rovers favourite Colin Hendry says he is ready to make a return to football.

The central defender took a 12-month break from the game after hanging up his boots following a three-month spell with Blackpool.

Now he is ready to turn his attention to management, and a return to Bloomfield Road could be on the cards following Steve McMahon's departure this week.

Hendry, who missed out on a managerial position at Scunthorpe last month after a boardroom shake-up, is one of the fans' favourites to take the reins at Blackpool, along with Carlisle boss Paul Simpson and ousted Burnley manager Stan Ternent.

And the Scot says the Scunthorpe experience has not put him off taking charge of a club in the near future.

"I haven't spoken to anyone about it yet but I'm honoured to be linked with the Blackpool job," Hendry said.

"It couldn't be a better position for me with living in close proximity to the ground. Plus I was there for about three or four months last season and struck up a good rapport with the fans and people at the club.

"But it's not about me, it's about Blackpool Football Club because that's what football is all about.

"The players only don the colours, the managers only manage the teams. The club is what it's all about. And I suspect a lot of people would like the Blackpool job."

Speaking of the Scunthorpe fiasco, which saw Brian Laws re-instated barely a week after he was sacked, Hendry said: "It was a bizarre situation.

"I was approached by Scunthorpe United to consider becoming the manager. I'd had a meeting with them and I was set to really put myself in a position where I had a decision to make.

"Unfortunately for me there were unforeseen circumstances with a major change in the boardroom and a major change in the running of the club, and that opportunity was taken away from me.

"But it got me going again.

"I've been in football for 20 years and have been out of it for the best part of a year, so it set the pulse racing again."

Hendry took time out from football to aid his wife, Denise, on the road to recovery after routine cosmetic surgery left her fighting for her life.

And the 38-year-old said the experience his family endured has helped to make him a stronger character and ready for the pressures of management.

"It's great that I'm being linked with a club like Blackpool and I'm ready to make the step up," he said.

"If I had gone into it 12 months ago as soon as I had stopped playing I think I would have done myself and any club I had been involved with a dis-service.

"But, as a player, and as a family, having been through what we've been through, I'm a much more organised, secure and open person in life."

If or when Hendry does make the move into management, he added that two former Rovers chiefs will have a big influence on his own style of approach.

"There are things that you learn from your managers that you would want to do with your own players and things that you wouldn't want to do," he said.

"Bad experiences and good experiences are all related to how you've been coached or managed.

"I've had a varied and successful bunch of managers, such as Roy Hodgson and Kenny Dalglish, Dick Advocaat and Howard Kendall. People that have won European championships and domestic championships."