Harry Redknapp

Henry James "Harry" Redknapp (born 2 March 1947) is an English former footballer who has had a long career in football management and is the current manager of Tottenham Hotspur in the English Premier League.

He had previously managed A.F.C. Bournemouth, West Ham United, Portsmouth, Southampton and Portsmouth in a second spell. While in his second spell at Portsmouth, he managed the side to win the 2008 FA Cup. This was his first and so far only major trophy as a player or manager.^[2]

His son, Jamie Redknapp, played under him at Bournemouth and at Southampton. He is also uncle to Chelsea player Frank Lampard, who played under him at West Ham United.

Early life

Redknapp was born in Poplar, London and supported Arsenal as a boy.^[3] In a 2008 interview he stated as part of a tribute to Tom Finney: "I was a big Arsenal fan as a kid and I remember seeing him play against Tommy Docherty one night".^[4] However, after being appointed Tottenham manager later that year he stressed his Tottenham connections as well, stating: "I am a big follower of the history of the game and Tottenham have been a great club over the years. I followed Tottenham, I trained there as an 11-year-old, 12-year-old so I know the history of the club. It is a big, big, club."^[5]

Playing career

Redknapp's playing career began at West Ham United. After coming through the youth ranks as a winger at Upton Park, he signed professional terms as a 17-year-old in 1964 and went on to make 149 top flight appearances, scoring eight goals.

In 1972, he transferred to Bournemouth, where he spent four years, playing 101 games. He then played once for Brentford in 1976 in a Division 4 game against Aldershot, later having a spell as the assistant manager of North American Soccer League side Seattle Sounders.

Management and coaching career

Bournemouth

At the beginning of the 1982–83 season Redknapp took up his first major coaching role as assistant manager to David Webb at AFC Bournemouth, six years after leaving the club as a player. Redknapp applied for the manager's job when Webb moved to Torquay United partway through that season, but was overlooked in favour of Don Megson. Megson did not last long in the position and was sacked in late 1983 with the Cherries in trouble near the foot of the Third Division, and Redknapp was handed the manager's position.

In his first season at the helm, Redknapp helped Bournemouth escape the drop to the bottom rung of the Football League. Bournemouth also caused a shock in the FA Cup when they beat holders Manchester United in the third round. After a couple of seasons of consolidation in mid-table, everything clicked in the 1986–87 season. Bournemouth won the Third Division title in style, gaining a club record 97 points as they held off the challenge of Middlesbrough.

After two years at this level, Bournemouth were relegated at the end of their third season. Bournemouth were in 13th position on 3 March, but injuries, which depleted the squad, combined with a catastrophic loss of form, meant that they won only won one more game for the rest of that season, and were relegated on 5 May after a 1–0 defeat at Dean Court against Leeds United.

In June 1990, whilst watching the World Cup in Italy, Redknapp was involved in a car crash with Bournemouth's managing director Brian Tiler, who died along with four other people. Though Redknapp made a full recovery (apart from being permanently without a sense of smell), he became disillusioned with the lack of funds and limited resources at his disposal and resigned at the end of the 1991–92 season.^[6]

West Ham United

For the next season he was appointed assistant manager to Billy Bonds at West Ham United, another of his former clubs. However, when in August 1994, Bonds left after a major disagreement with the board, Redknapp was appointed manager of his hometown club.

Redknapp helped to stabilise the club and establish it in the Premier League, and also helped bring through a number of young players from the club's academy, including Rio Ferdinand, Joe Cole, Michael Carrick and his nephew Frank Lampard coming through the ranks. However, Redknapp also made mistakes in the foreign market with the signings of Marco Boogers and Florin Raducioiu proving to be expensive flops.

Nevertheless, West Ham finished eighth in 1998, and then enjoyed one of their best seasons when finishing in fifth place and qualifying for the Intertoto Cup. In the 1999–2000 season West Ham won the Intertoto Cup and qualified for the UEFA Cup but failed to match their performances in the league, which could be put down to the extra games played. Redknapp left West Ham on 9 May 2001, one game before the end of the 2000-01 season. For some time it was unconfirmed whether he resigned or was sacked but Redknapp shed new light on the true circumstances in October 2007:

Portsmouth

Redknapp soon re-emerged as Director of Football at Portsmouth in summer 2001. However, after the club's poor form he replaced manager Graham Rix in March 2002. Redknapp managed the club to the Division One title in the 2002–03 season, gaining promotion to the Premier League, ironically replacing his former club West Ham.

Redknapp kept Portsmouth in the Premier League in the 2003–04 season, but had a dispute with Portsmouth's owner Milan Mandaric over his assistant Jim Smith. Redknapp had another disagreement with Mandaric over the appointment of Velimir Zajec as Director of Football and resigned as Portsmouth's manager in November 2004.^[7]

Southampton

A few weeks after his departure at Portsmouth, Redknapp became manager of Southampton, a move which infuriated Portsmouth's supporters as the two clubs are rivals. Redknapp was tasked with keeping Southampton in the Premier League but ultimately was unable to achieve this, ending Southampton's 27 year spell in the top flight. Redknapp remained in charge for the 2005–06 Championship season but was unable to establish consistency needed to make Southampton promotion contenders. Redknapp was also unhappy with chairman Rupert Lowe's appointment of Sir Clive Woodward to the club's coaching staff. After being repeatedly linked with a return to Portsmouth after they sacked Alain Perrin, Redknapp resigned as Southampton's manager in early December 2005.

Return to Portsmouth

Redknapp returned to Portsmouth on 7 December 2005 with the club threatened by relegation, although not in the relegation zone. At first it looked like Redknapp would be heading for a second successive relegation, but a fine run of form at the end of the season, aided by the takeover of Portsmouth by Alexandre Gaydamak (which provided Redknapp with more money), ensured Portsmouth's survival. In the following season, Redknapp led Portsmouth to a ninth placed finish which was the club's highest league finish since the 1950s. In October 2007, Redknapp signed a new contract at Portsmouth lasting until 2011.^[8]

In January 2008 it emerged through the media that Redknapp was offered the vacant manager's job at Newcastle United following the sacking of Sam Allardyce. Redknapp had apparently declined the job, stating "I have a job to do to take this club forward and to walk away would not have been the right thing to do."^[9] It was later stated by Newcastle chairman Christopher Mort that Redknapp "was interviewed for the job but he was only one of a number of people we were speaking to at that time", and at the time of Redknapp's interview the club had already been in secret talks with the eventual appointee, Kevin Keegan, for a week.^[10]

On 8 March, he led Portsmouth to an FA Cup quarter final victory over Manchester Utd, completing a hat-trick of FA Cup wins over Manchester United, and followed this with a semi-final victory over West Bromwich Albion at Wembley Stadium on 5 April. He guided the club to their first FA Cup Final in 69 years, where they beat Cardiff City, on 17 May 2008, to win The FA Cup 1-0, thanks to a goal scored by Nwankwo Kanu.^[11]

Tottenham Hotspur

Following the sacking of Juande Ramos by Tottenham Hotspur, the Club announced that Redknapp had agreed to take over as the new manager at Spurs.^[12] This was confirmed by Harry Redknapp, in interviews to Sky Sports and the BBC in the early morning of the 26 October 2008. Tottenham paid £5 million in compensation to Portsmouth for letting Redknapp go.^[13]In his first two weeks in charge he took the club out of the relegation zone, winning ten out of the twelve points available with wins against Bolton, Liverpool and Manchester City and a draw against North London rivals Arsenal. He then guided Tottenham to their second European win of the season in a 4-0 rout of Croatian champions, Dinamo Zagreb before progressing to the quarter finals of the Carling Cup defeating Liverpool 4-2 in a game where both Fraizer Campbell and Roman Pavlyuchenko got their names on the scoreboard.^[14]

Corruption allegations and arrest

Main article: 2006 allegations of corruption in English football

On 19 September 2006, Redknapp was shown on camera by BBC Panorama taking part in what appeared to be an interest in approaching a player illegally. Redknapp denies his conversation about then-Blackburn Rovers player Andy Todd with the soccer agent Peter Harrison amounted to "tapping up" or illegally approaching the player. Redknapp referred to Todd as a "tough bastard" during the conversation and suggested that he would be interested in signing the player on a full time basis if he was available. Redknapp told the BBC that he has never taken a bung and had given Kevin Bond no reason to think otherwise and that he considers himself to be "One million percent innocent".^[15]

In the final report of the Stevens inquiry published in June 2007, the only criticism of Redknapp concerned his ownership of a racehorse named "Double Fantasy" thought to have been given to him by the agent Willie McKay, which has aroused some suspicion. Redknapp told the inquiry that it was possible that he did own the horse but insisted that he had not made any money out of it because the horse was a failure and never won a race.^[16]

On 28 November 2007, it was reported by BBC News Online that Harry Redknapp , Portsmouth Managing Director Peter Storrie, former Portsmouth chairman Milan Mandaric, agent Willie McKay and footballer Amdy Faye had been arrested by City of London Police in relation to the ongoing inquiries into allegations of corruption in football.^[17] As of 23 March 2008, no charges have been brought against Redknapp in this matter. On 16 April 2008 Redknapp announced his intention to take the police to court over his arrest.^[18]

Redknapp considers his arrest under corruption allegations as the reason for the failure of the FA to consider him for manager of England after the sacking of Steve McClaren.^[19]

On 23 May 2008 the BBC reported^[20] that the raid by City of London Police officers, on Redknapp's home in Poole, was illegal.

Freedom of Portsmouth

Redknapp returned to Portsmouth to receive the Freedom of the City in a ceremony on 28 October 2008. As this event took place two days after his departure for Tottenham he received a mixed reception.^[21]

Honours

Bournemouth

• Football League Division Three: 1986–87
• Football League Trophy: 1983–84

West Ham United

• UEFA Intertoto Cup: 1999

Portsmouth

• FA Cup: 2007-08
• Football League Division One: 2002–03
• Premier League Asia Trophy: 2007
• FA Community Shield: Runners-Up 2008

Statistics

Player

^{[22] [23] [24] [1]}

Manager

^[25]

Team	Nat	From	To	Record
				G	W	L	D	Win %
Bournemouth		19 October 1983	9 June 1992	457	180	170	107	39.39
West Ham United		10 August 1994	9 May 2001	327	121	121	85	37
Portsmouth		25 March 2002	24 November 2004	116	54	36	26	46.55
Southampton		8 December 2004	2 December 2005	49	13	15	21	26.53
Portsmouth		7 December 2005	26 October 2008	128	54	45	29	42.19
Tottenham Hotspur		26 October 2008	Present	11	8	2	1	72.73
Total				1088	430	389	269	39.52

Updated on 3 December 2008.

According to Portsmouth F.C., the official records have missed some of Redknapp's games as manager, and the match on 13 January 2007 against Sheffield United was not his 1000th, but his 1030th.[1] [2]

References

External links

• Harry Redknapp management career stats at Soccerbase
• West Ham playing career statistics
• Harry Hotspur - Harry Redknapp