ACCRINGTON Stanley’s John Coleman may be facing FA sanctions after being sent from the touchline last weekend, but he feels he is beginning to mellow as a manager.

Coleman and assistant manager Jimmy Bell have often cut tense figures on the touchline during matches and Sky pundit Paul Merson outrageously suggested that the Stanley boss should be kept in a cage after an altercation with Paul Ince during the Blackburn Rovers manager’s time with MK Dons last season.

Coleman was handed a two-match touchline ban after being banished from the dugout during a controversial game at Chesterfield last year and he is now waiting to hear from the FA to find out whether he again faces the same fate following an incident during last weekend’s 2-1 home defeat to Bury.

The 46-year-old boss kicked the ball away in disgust after being unhappy with some of the decisions of referee Lee Probert and was forced to watch the rest of the game from the stand - albeit only about five yards away from the dugout.

But Coleman said: “I hope I won’t get a ban. I’ve heard nothing from the FA and I think it would be harsh. Moving me to the stand was punishment enough.

“I don’t really like being in the stand because you can’t see.

“I know what they’re feeling now when I’m getting in everyone’s way when I’m standing up, you can’t see and it’s difficult.

“But at the end of the day, no matter how frustrated I get, I shouldn’t be kicking the ball away.

“I think the punishment was a little bit harsh.

“I think a ticking off would have sufficed but you know before you do it that you shouldn’t do it and sometimes you just get a rush of blood.

“You’re that passionate about the game and you’re kicking every ball, so when the ball comes near you it’s your chance to do it literally!

“I thought it was actually a great strike with my left peg!

“To get it 70 yards in the air I’m doing well!”

Coleman believes his behaviour has improved since Stanley moved into the Football League and joked that he knew what that was down to.

“Electric shock treatment and a couple of bouts in the straitjacket,” he said.

“It’s something as you get older you probably get a little bit wiser.

“It’s the age old saying, when I was 20 I thought I knew everything and my dad knew nothing.

“When I got to 40 I was amazed how much he’d learned in those 20 years.

“I’ve had a will to win since I’ve been six years old and I don’t want to change on that.

“But I think my actual behaviour on the touchline has improved no end over the last three or four years.

“I think I’m a lot more level-headed now and I think the players respond better to me as well.

“I try to be more focused on not the whole picture but certain aspects of the game.

“But people try to manufacture themselves to be something that they’re not.

“If you try to go down that road you don’t get the benefit of what you’re about.

“You can learn from your mistakes and you can try not to be as petulant and try to improve your behaviour.

“But you can’t change your passion.

"If you try to eliminate that, you may as well go and do something else.”