This is not a biography of Harry Redknapp. In fact having finished reading it, I am still not very sure what it is. What I do know is that it tells us very little about Redknapp that we didn’t know before. And that’s quite a failing in a book of more than 200 pages. It’s rather perplexing that the author can’t seem to make his mind up whether Harry is a wrong ‘un or just a bit of loveable rogue, with a gift for a media friendly soundbite. Often I’d find myself mentally screaming: “Just get off the ‘effing fence’.
For a book that rambles all over the place and never comes to a conclusion, it’s not unenjoyable. It didn’t bore me at all, which is odd because it never quite found its voice. The subtitle tells you you’re going to get inside the mind of Harry Redknapp. But the trouble is that if the book is to be believed there’s not a lot going on in his mind beyond an ability to charm the journalists off the trees. One thing we do learn, however, is that what Harry says one day, he is very good at contradicting the next. But didn’t we know that anyway?
We’re told he has his favourites and that if you’re not one of them you won’t get a game. But didn’t we know that? The England job saga is told at inexhaustible length – again not unentertainingly, but there was little we didn’t know before. Similarly with the court case.
The book leaves you with the feeling that the author wants to become Harry’s bessie mate, but every few pages he blows his chances.
