Always Managing by Harry Redknapp

Author:Harry Redknapp
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781407060736
Publisher: Ebury Publishing

CHAPTER NINE

BIG MOUTH STRIKES AGAIN

They were good times at West Ham. So why did it all end so suddenly? Just two years before I left we had achieved what remains West Ham’s highest finish in the Premier League, ahead of clubs like Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur, with a squad that included Rio Ferdinand, Frank Lampard and Trevor Sinclair. We became an established Premier League club, we produced good young players and played open, attractive football. We qualified for the Intertoto Cup, won that, and went through to the 1999–2000 UEFA Cup – the first time West Ham had played in a major European tournament since reaching the Cup Winners’ Cup in 1980–81. And then, by the spring of 2001, I was out of a job. We had slipped back down the league to a disappointing 15th place finish by then but, even so, on the morning of 9 May when I walked into Terry Brown’s office to discuss a new contract, I had no idea I would be leaving it, unemployed, ten minutes later.

As I said, it was always an uphill struggle financially at West Ham and I think, in the end, that just placed me in conflict with the chairman on too many occasions. Looking back, I think I created a lot of my own problems there, too. I was out of order at times. I would argue with Terry and the other directors in a way most other managers wouldn’t. If they uttered something in a board meeting that I thought was rubbish, I’d say so, and I was probably wrong to talk to them like that. It took me a while to learn to count to ten. Back then, if I didn’t agree, I’d jump down the directors’ throats. ‘What do you know about football?’ I’d tell them. ‘You haven’t got a clue.’ But Terry was the chairman. And you can only say that so many times before the chairman gets the hump and lies in wait for you. When we were fifth in the league, Terry couldn’t afford to lose me. But at 15th? ‘Right, I’ll show you what I know, mate. You’re fired.’

The tension that came out at the end of the 2000–01 season had been building for some time. Things got so bad financially in 1996 that Peter Storrie, our managing director, admitted we were struggling to pay the wages. He came to me after an away game. ‘Harry, you know a lot of people,’ he said. ‘Do you know anyone that would be interested in buying the club? We can’t pay the players. It’s desperate.’

I told him I knew of one bloke who was a West Ham fan and very wealthy: Michael Tabor, the racehorse owner. ‘He’s a West Ham man, but whether he’d want to get involved, I don’t know,’ I said.

Michael wasn’t at all keen, at first. ‘Harry, do I really need to sit up in that directors’ box, with all the fans chanting to put more money in?’ he said.

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