There's Only One Stevie Bacon by Steve Bacon

Author:Steve Bacon [Steve Bacon and Kirk Blows]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781849543316
Publisher: Biteback Publishing
Published: 2012-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Billy Bonds had always told me that I’d get on well with Harry Redknapp and that was certainly the case. He’s the best company going when you’re having dinner with him and we had some entertaining nights when staying in hotels before away games. Harry and Frank Lampard would generally eat with the rest of us backroom boys, but if Martin Cearns, Terry Brown or Peter Storrie were travelling with us then the manager would feel duty bound to eat with them instead.

Harry was on another table with the chairman and a few directors one evening and it seemed obvious that he wasn’t enjoying himself, because he kept making excuses and coming over to see Eddie, John, Ges and me. Harry’s favourite tipple was Châteauneuf-du-Pape, which is a lovely wine but rather expensive. At one point he came over and said, ‘They’re driving me bloody mad over there – and to top it all, the bottle’s empty and they won’t order another one.’ So Harry turned to me and said, ‘Order a bottle for your table.’ ‘I can’t order one!’ I exclaimed, to which he replied, ‘Of course you can, you’re Stevie Bacon! They’re not going to say anything to you.’

I duly ordered the wine and when it arrived Harry was hanging around with his empty glass, so I had to surreptitiously top it up for him. He then returned to sit with the chairman, but every now and again he’d say he needed to ‘check up on the boys’ and come over for a refill when his bosses weren’t looking. Funnily enough, the chairman never seemed to notice how Harry would leave the table with an empty glass and return with a full one.

The two significant developments – revolutions, even – at West Ham under Harry Redknapp in the second half of the 1990s were an influx of foreign players and the rehabilitation of the club’s youth scheme. Both factors contributed to the Hammers consolidating their place in the Premiership, with the team securing four top-half finishes between 1996 and 2001 – not that there weren’t a few relegation scares along the way, of course. And the huge turnover of players taking place as Harry went about wheeling and dealing and shuffled his pack of cards – as has become his managerial trademark over the years – certainly made the Boleyn Ground a very interesting place. It also kept me very busy as new faces arrived on a regular basis.

The trickle of foreign players into Upton Park became something of a flood as the 1990s progressed. We’d had Belgian playmaker François Van Der Elst for a couple of seasons in the early 1980s, but after that Luděk Mikloško, signed by Lou Macari in 1990, was the first imported player to make an impression at West Ham. The fans loved the Czech goalkeeper, who dominated between the sticks for eight years – and so did I. I had a good relationship with Ludo and met his wife Ivana and son Martin on more than one occasion.

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