Chapter One
Bill Nicholson fixed his gaze on the scrawny, slightly breathless eleven-year-old. The young trialist had been up early that morning, excited at the prospect of parading his skills before Nicholson, the recently appointed Tottenham manager. Now, having done so, he looked up at the stern, slightly intimidating Yorkshireman with a mixture of awe and unease. Nicholson, a one-club man, was well known for his view that any player coming to Spurs, whether a major signing or just a ground-staff lad, ‘must be dedicated to the game and to the club.’ The youngster qualified on the first front – how could he not? His father, Harry, was a football obsessive, and so it followed naturally that his own upbringing had been steeped in the game and its traditions. But Nicholson’s second stipulation left him on shakier ground. The boy shared his dad’s passion for Arsenal, idolised Gunners midfielder Jimmy Bloomfield and was a regular at Highbury, where he would arrive early to claim his favourite spot – on top of a raised manhole cover – on the North Bank. Hardly the ideal credentials for a career at White Hart Lane. As for other clubs, if any had a place in his affections it was West Ham, whose Upton Park ground was a stone’s throw from the East London council estate where he lived. Could he seriously look Nicholson in the eye and proclaim his undying devotion to Spurs?
‘What’s your name, son?’ asked Nicholson.
‘Harry, Mr Nicholson.’
‘OK, Harry. I see you’re a winger. Score a lot of goals, do you?’
‘Not really, sir.’
‘Well, the only winger who doesn’t score goals is Stanley Matthews. And I don’t think you’re another Stanley Matthews, are you Harry?’
Fifty years have elapsed since that conversation took place and, as with most things football, Nicholson was proved right. Harry Redknapp didn’t become another Stanley Matthews. He was never dubbed ‘the wizard of the dribble’ or voted European Footballer of the Year. Yet Dickie Walker, Tottenham’s chief scout, showed sound judgement when he approached Redknapp’s father after watching young Harry star for East London Schoolboys against Wandsworth Boys at the Old Den. Five years later, when Redknapp became old enough to put pen to paper on schoolboy forms, every top club in London was after his signature. Nicholson, who invited Redknapp to train with the Spurs youth team following his trial, was among those suitors, as were the Arsenal boss George Swindin and Tommy Docherty, the Chelsea manager. Docherty, who had been alerted to young Harry’s potential by Chelsea scout Jimmy Thompson, even made a personal visit to the Redknapps’ home in Poplar in an effort to persuade them that their son’s future lay at Stamford Bridge. ‘I wanted Harry to sign for Chelsea,’ recalls Docherty, whose unexpected appearance on the doorstep left the teenage Redknapp agog. ‘In those days you used to speak to the parents. You wouldn’t speak to the boy because, in fairness, he was just overawed by big clubs wanting to sign him. Harry’s parents were very pleasant and hospitable. At the end they said: “The decision will be Harry’s.” We had a few Eastenders at Chelsea already, people like Jimmy Greaves and Terry Venables, and we were hoping to tap into that link because they had great character. But we also had Peter Brabrook at Chelsea at the time, who was a good player, a winger, and Harry probably thought “I’m going to have to wait a bit of time before I get my opportunity in the first team”.’
The decisive factor in Redknapp’s eventual decision to join West Ham was his mother, Violet. While she did not share her husband’s passion for the game, Violet instinctively perceived that the Hammers, under the shrewd stewardship of Ron Greenwood, embodied principles that would benefit her son’s development not just as a footballer but also as a man. West Ham was a family club, an East End institution forged on the anvil of a local businessman’s conviction that the borough, though poverty-stricken, was ‘rich in its population’. Arnold Hills, the businessman in question, had once owned the Thames Ironworks, a nearby shipbuilding firm that provided numerous locals with employment at the Victoria and Albert Docks where Redknapp’s father worked. Hills died in 1927, but Thames Ironworks Football Club – formed in 1895 at the suggestion of Dave Taylor, a shipyard foreman, and reconstituted five years later as West Ham United Football Club – lived on. A pivotal factor in Hills’ support for the project was his belief that sport was conducive to good morals and good morale. As a modern ambassador for those typically Victorian ideals, Greenwood – dubbed ‘Reverend Ron’ by his players – was perfect. To Violet Redknapp, though, such details were secondary; to her, the club simply had a family feel that inspired comfort and confidence in equal measure.
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