Harry Redknapp - The World According to Harry

Harry Redknapp was born in 1947 in Poplar, East London. After starting out as a trainee at Tottenham, he signed for West Ham and played for them between 1965 and 1972. He also played for Bournemouth and the Seattle Sounders before injury took him into management and coaching. He has managed at Bournemouth, West Ham, Portsmouth (twice), Southampton, Tottenham Hotspur and QPR. He won the FA Cup with Portsmouth in 2008 and took Spurs into the Champions League in 2010. In 2018, Harry was crowned King of the Jungle in Im a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here. He has written three bestselling books: his autobiography Always Managing, which was number one in the Sunday Times, his history of the game in A Man Walks On To a Pitch and his survival guide to the worlds hardest job in It Shouldnt Happen to a Manager. He is married to Sandra and has two sons, Mark and Jamie (who played for Liverpool, Tottenham and England). He is also uncle to Frank Lampard Jr. He has two bulldogs called Lulabelle and Barney.

Also by Harry Redknapp

Always Managing

A Man Walks On To a Pitch

It Shouldnt Happen To a Manager

To my grandchildren, who persuaded me to do
Im a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here!

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Whats the worst that can happen?

On my first day in the jungle for Im a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, I found myself looking around the camp and thinking, Im a football manager. How on earth did I end up here? I honestly thought it would be hard work, sitting around all day with people I didnt know and didnt seem to have anything in common with. My God, I thought, what have I got myself into? Im not sure Im going to last too long

I spent most of that first day listening to the others chatting away and because they were mainly showbiz people, actors, singers or presenters, I didnt have a clue what they were going on about. Rita Simons, Sair Khan and Malique Thompson-Dwyer were in soap operas, Emily Atack was in a sitcom, Fleur East was a singer, James McVey was in a band, Nick Knowles was a TV presenter, John Barrowman was an entertainer and Anne Hegerty was off a quiz show. So most of the conversation revolved around television programmes, pop music or who was appearing in this or that in the West End. It was all going over my head, and I did wonder if Id have anything to offer.

At one point, they started talking about what they listened to on the radio, and when I said talkSPORT, they were all scratching their heads. John said to me, Whats talkSPORT?

You know, talkSPORT, with Alan Brazil and the other lads.

Yeah, but what is it?

Well, they talk about sport

It was only Nick who had heard of it, and even he didnt have much interest in sport. When I started talking about Harry Kane, Nick and James were the only two who knew who he was. I couldnt get my head around that: Harry Kane had just won the Golden Boot at the World Cup!

When Im not in the jungle, I chat to my mates about football or horse racing or golf, but this wasnt my normal crowd. They were completely different people to the kind I was used to mixing with and it was like suddenly living on another planet. And to think I could have been waltzing around a ballroom back in London

Thats right, I was also asked to do Strictly Come Dancing. God knows why. At a meeting with the programme makers, I came straight out with it.

I cant do Strictly. For a start, I cant dance.

Dont worry about that, Harry, well send a dancer over so you can practise.

So they sent Amy Dowden over, this lovely girl from Wales. They booked a hall for us at Meyrick Park golf club, but I said, I cant go up there, all the blokes know me. Imagine me dancing around and theyre all looking through the window and laughing. So we ended up dancing in the house the cha-cha-cha and the quickstep with my wife Sandra laughing at me instead. Actually, she said I was better than she expected. But thats not really saying much.

Im not really one for getting up and dancing at weddings. I might do a quick waltz with Sandra at the end, but thats about my limit. So after giving it some thought, I decided to give Strictly a miss. Id have been out of my depth and ended up as the clown, like they have in every series. I didnt really want to be that person who was tripping over, being slaughtered by the judges but not getting voted off every week because the public felt sorry for me.

However, somebody from Im a Celebrity got wind that Id turned Strictly down and asked if Id do the jungle instead. Theyd already asked a few times but this time my grandkids found out about it and started driving me mad. They kept pulling my arm and saying, Please, Pop, youll love it! And dont be scared of Kiosk Kev!

Whos Kiosk Kev?

Hes the man who owns the Outback Shack. You go to him when you win a Dingo Dollar Challenge. Hes really mean.

Oh, right

I hadnt even seen the programme, not one minute of it. But Sandra had watched it over the years and when I was wavering as to whether to do it or not, she started telling me how upset the grandkids would be if I decided not to. Then I had a round of golf with a couple of mates whose opinions I value, and they said Id be mad not to do it. In the end I thought, You know what, Ill give it a go. I might be 71, but it will be a new experience at my age, something different. The worst that can happen is that I meet some different people.

Its not like I had any real commitments. Dont get me wrong, I like to keep myself busy, whether its following the horses, playing golf or keeping tabs on new property Im involved in. But my biggest decision most days is whether to have a sausage or bacon sandwich in the caf down the road. People used to tell me Id drive Sandra mad when I stopped managing, but Ive never been more relaxed and Ive loved every minute of it. When I open my eyes in the morning I think, Thank God therell be no aggravation today.

Once Id put pen to paper, Sandra kept saying, Youve got to watch some old episodes of the programme, so that you know what youve let yourself in for.

That didnt sound promising. So I said to her, No, if I watch it, I probably wont do it.