To Elizabeth McFarland – still, always – and to my mother, Joan Roopanarine.
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Copyright
Ahuge debt of gratitude is owed to the friends, former team-mates and other professional associates of Harry Redknapp who gave freely of their time to be interviewed for this book, including: Kenny Allen, John Best, Richard Cooke, Leon Crouch, Tommy Docherty, Jimmy Gabriel, Trevor Hartley, Bobby Howe, Alan Hudson, Peter Jeffs, Rupert Lowe, Milan Mandaric, Rodney Marsh, Alvin Martin, Jim McAlister, Wilf McGuinness, Dejan Stefanovic, Ian Thompson and John Williams.
Thanks are due also to Nick Callow, who got the ball rolling, and Allie Collins of John Blake, who was patient and supportive throughout. Nicola Benn, Paul Edwards, Stephen Farmer, Wendy Hardy, Dick Hookway, Howard Nurse, Joanna Olszowska, Nick Pitt and Paul Vanes all provided much appreciated help in terms of contacts or research material. Particular thanks to Frank MacDonald of Seattle Sounders for his invaluable assistance in helping me to track down various contacts Stateside.
Several written resources were helpful in terms of research and reference. They include: My Autobiography, by Harry Redknapp (with Derek McGovern); The West Ham United Football Book, by Dennis Irving; NASL: A Complete Record of the North American Soccer League, by Colin Jose; Sleeping Giant Awakes and Stay Up Pompey! by Pat Symes; Bonzo, by Billy Bonds; goalseattle.com; and the 1974 and 1978 editions of the Seattle Sounders Media Guide. A wider debt is owed to the exhaustive chronicling of Harry’s life and times by friends and colleagues in the national and regional press.
I would like to thank several people who have had a shaping influence on my career to date: at the Observer, Brian Oliver and Roger Alton; Peter Mitchell and Jim Bruce-Ball of the Sunday Telegraph; and everyone on the guardian.co.uk sports desk. Particular thanks also to Jon Henderson for numerous kindnesses.
Of the many others whose generous assistance contributed either directly or indirectly to this book, three deserve special mention. Tim Haynes put me back on the road to journalism after a lengthy spell pursuing alternative interests, for which I shall always be grateful. Andrew Truscott has been an unfailingly stimulating source of debate on all things sporting. Above all, without the love, support and encouragement of Elizabeth McFarland, this book would still be in extra-time.
Bournemouth had made a so-so start to the 1982/83 season. By the time the conkers bounced, Dave Webb’s side were already occupying the mid-table area in which they would remain for the rest of the campaign. Now it is October and Harry Redknapp, Webb’s number two at Dean Court, is driving back to the club’s West Parley training ground after watching a reserve game at Southampton. Still a couple of months away from his first foray into management, he is mulling over the players he has just seen, wondering if any might do a job for Bournemouth. Redknapp is approaching the Eastleigh turn-off when he notices that the car behind is flashing him. ‘At first I thought it was the Old Bill,’ he would say later. ‘When I saw it wasn’t I kept driving, but the geezer stayed behind me.’ They reach some traffic lights, and the car draws up alongside Redknapp. ‘Pull over,’ says the driver, ‘I want to have a word with you.’ They stop at the next lay-by. As the man gets out and starts walking in his direction, Redknapp winds down his window.
‘How much do you want for your number plate?’ asks the stranger.
‘What?’ stammers Redknapp.
‘Yeah, how much? It’s my initials.’
‘Harry sold his number plate to him for about three hundred quid,’ recalls Kenny Allen, Bournemouth’s goalkeeper at the time. ‘It could only happen to Harry. He obviously didn’t have the wealth then that he’s got now. That was him, always had an eye for a bargain. Now he does it with players, and turns them into decent players.’
Fast-forward to the last Sunday of October, 2008. Much has changed. Football is awash with unprecedented wealth and Redknapp, his Third Division days long since consigned to sepia, has established a reputation as one of the finest English managers of his generation. He is not the only one whose circumstances have changed. Ten weeks into the new season, Tottenham – a club that finished the 1982/83 campaign fourth in the old First Division – are bottom of the table with two points from eight games. Only two sides have ever retained their Premier League status from a similar position. Crucially for Spurs, however, one thing remains unaltered: Redknapp’s relationship with the unexpected. The day before, he had been the manager of Portsmouth. Now, after a whirlwind sequence of events – and with a league game against Bolton minutes from kick-off – he is about to be presented to White Hart Lane as the successor to Juande Ramos, the Spaniard given his marching orders late the previous evening. At £5 million, the sum Tottenham have paid Portsmouth in compensation for his services, Redknapp has become – overnight – Britain’s most expensive manager.
Driving one minute, dealing the next; Portsmouth manager on Saturday, in charge at Tottenham come Sunday. Such are the natural rhythms of life for one of football’s most whimsical characters. And to think that for the best part of two decades Redknapp took charge of just two clubs, Bournemouth and West Ham.
Suit-and-tie dapper, Redknapp emerges from the tunnel to the inquisitive glare of a battery of flash-bulbs and the sonorous roar of a capacity crowd. Briefly, he stands by the touchline, arms raised, returning the warm applause of the crowd. If this was politics or showbiz, you would swear the scene had been choreographed. Yet Redknapp’s demeanour – the head-bowed entrance, the awkward half-smile – hints at anxiety. Within twenty seconds, he turns on his heel and disappears into the bowels of the West Stand.
‘I didn’t sleep much,’ Redknapp would reveal afterwards, ‘I was very nervous.’ No wonder. Only twenty-four hours earlier, he had been overseeing training at the Wellington Ground in Eastleigh, preparing Portsmouth for a visit from Fulham. Thereafter events had moved with such speed that uncertainty swirled even within his own, famously tight-knit family. ‘We didn’t know anything about it,’ Mark Redknapp, the older of Harry’s two sons, told friends. ‘He just came home on Saturday and told mum he was off. He’s always fancied a go at one of the big clubs; all of a sudden it was bang, “I’m off to Spurs.” You know what dad’s like.’
Of course they knew. It could only happen to Harry.
The surreal nature of the weekend is underlined by events on the pitch. Within seventeen minutes, a Tottenham side previously