Harry's Games Read Online Free
Author: John Crace
Seattle Sounders and Bournemouth (again) in the final six years up until his retirement in 1982, with a total of just 12 goals for all clubs. It does indeed appear to confirm the âbelow-average journeymanâ of Lord Macdonaldâs description. But what the statistics donât provide is an answer to the more interesting question: Was Redknapp a talented player who underperformed, or an unskilled makeweight who did well to play professional football at all? Here, as is so often the case with Redknapp, the waters quickly become very muddied.
One long-time West Ham fan remembered that Redknapp arrived at the club as a youngster with a big reputation. âHarry was a local Cockney boy so everyone knew he had been a good sprinter and a very promising right-winger at school,â Dave Newton told me. âWe all had high hopes for him.â As did others, as Spurs and Chelsea had also been in the mix to sign Redknapp as an apprentice teenager in 1963.
Initially, his career at West Ham flourished; he was an integral member of the team that won the FA Youth Cup in his first season, was picked for the England Youth team the same year and had a promising first couple of seasons in the first team. But, somehow, the sparkle vanished and he struggled to hold down a regular first-team place.
John Sissons, the left-winger who joined West Ham at much the same time as Redknapp in the early 1960s, is still not entirely sure why Redknappâs career didnât flourish more. âWhen I played alongside Harry in the youth team, he was always the quickest player on the pitch,â he says, âand we all had him marked down as someone who would go far. He was outstanding in our FA Youth Cup run, a real live wire who was more than a handful for anyone. But then he didnât quite develop in the way we imagined.
âI think he may have been a bit unlucky. Harry was a winger, pure and simple; heâd push the ball past defenders and outrun them. And he was a good crosser of the ball. But wingers began to go out of fashion in the game . . . Ron Greenwood started to play 4-3-3 and Harry couldnât adapt his style of play so he gradually became marginalized.â
Sissons isnât alone in reckoning Redknapp was a bit unlucky. Several other ex-footballers have voiced a similar opinion that Redknapp just didnât get the right breaks every player needs at certain points of his career. Luck only gets you so far as an explanation, though. To dismiss the random completely is to misread the universe, to fail to understand what it is to be human; it is equally so to throw up your hands and, like the hero of Luke Rhinehartâs satire
The Dice Man
, leave every decision to a metaphorical roll of the dice and relinquish all personal responsibility. The timing of the wingerâs decline in English football may have been beyond Redknappâs control, but his ability to adapt his game to the new reality wasnât.
Redknappâs loss of form wasnât a particularly unusual phenomenon. Kids develop at different rates, both physically and emotionally, and many child prodigies fade into obscurity; very few England schoolboys go on to play for the full international side. In his autobiography, Redknapp offered his own explanation: âLooking back,â he wrote, âI know I should have done better, but the game was changing a lot then. Full-backs suddenly werenât slow any more. Now they were as quick as wingers, not giving you a yard to control the ball. Suddenly, whenever you got the ball you were clattered within a split second. It was getting harder to play in that position, unless you played in a dominant team which enjoyed a lot of possession and could feed the winger regularly. We stayed out wide, never came in, and were expected to do something with the ball on the few occasions we got it. Suddenly, wingers died out, as Sir Alf Ramsey underlined withhis England side. As my form dipped, so did
One long-time West Ham fan remembered that Redknapp arrived at the club as a youngster with a big reputation. âHarry was a local Cockney boy so everyone knew he had been a good sprinter and a very promising right-winger at school,â Dave Newton told me. âWe all had high hopes for him.â As did others, as Spurs and Chelsea had also been in the mix to sign Redknapp as an apprentice teenager in 1963.
Initially, his career at West Ham flourished; he was an integral member of the team that won the FA Youth Cup in his first season, was picked for the England Youth team the same year and had a promising first couple of seasons in the first team. But, somehow, the sparkle vanished and he struggled to hold down a regular first-team place.
John Sissons, the left-winger who joined West Ham at much the same time as Redknapp in the early 1960s, is still not entirely sure why Redknappâs career didnât flourish more. âWhen I played alongside Harry in the youth team, he was always the quickest player on the pitch,â he says, âand we all had him marked down as someone who would go far. He was outstanding in our FA Youth Cup run, a real live wire who was more than a handful for anyone. But then he didnât quite develop in the way we imagined.
âI think he may have been a bit unlucky. Harry was a winger, pure and simple; heâd push the ball past defenders and outrun them. And he was a good crosser of the ball. But wingers began to go out of fashion in the game . . . Ron Greenwood started to play 4-3-3 and Harry couldnât adapt his style of play so he gradually became marginalized.â
Sissons isnât alone in reckoning Redknapp was a bit unlucky. Several other ex-footballers have voiced a similar opinion that Redknapp just didnât get the right breaks every player needs at certain points of his career. Luck only gets you so far as an explanation, though. To dismiss the random completely is to misread the universe, to fail to understand what it is to be human; it is equally so to throw up your hands and, like the hero of Luke Rhinehartâs satire
The Dice Man
, leave every decision to a metaphorical roll of the dice and relinquish all personal responsibility. The timing of the wingerâs decline in English football may have been beyond Redknappâs control, but his ability to adapt his game to the new reality wasnât.
Redknappâs loss of form wasnât a particularly unusual phenomenon. Kids develop at different rates, both physically and emotionally, and many child prodigies fade into obscurity; very few England schoolboys go on to play for the full international side. In his autobiography, Redknapp offered his own explanation: âLooking back,â he wrote, âI know I should have done better, but the game was changing a lot then. Full-backs suddenly werenât slow any more. Now they were as quick as wingers, not giving you a yard to control the ball. Suddenly, whenever you got the ball you were clattered within a split second. It was getting harder to play in that position, unless you played in a dominant team which enjoyed a lot of possession and could feed the winger regularly. We stayed out wide, never came in, and were expected to do something with the ball on the few occasions we got it. Suddenly, wingers died out, as Sir Alf Ramsey underlined withhis England side. As my form dipped, so did
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