Harry Redknapp is a dying breed amongst football managers. While we may live in the age of hands on coaches such as Pep Guardiola or Jurgen Klopp, Redknapp had a different style of management.
Kevin Doyle recently described how a simple word in the ear was often his only contribution during the week, but this story from Jamie O'Hara on talkSPORT shows how the former Spurs boss had no troubles bonding with his players.
The Spurs squad were planning a trip to Cheltenham one season, only for Redknapp to ban players from travelling to the event as the team had a game only two days later. However, when Harry was offered a free ride himself, he couldn't say no.
🚁 "Woodgate organised a helicopter for us to go to Cheltenham."
😡 "Harry said if any of us went we were done."
🙏 "We offered to get him a helicopter & come with us."
👍"Harry said 'I'll have a bit of that!'"
Great story from @Redknapp's time at #THFC!
🤝 with @ArnoldClark pic.twitter.com/sz6p0iRdl3— talkSPORT (@talkSPORT) December 13, 2019
We had a Cheltenham race day and it was always a big event. Woody (Jonathan Woodgate) was big on the races and he had for the Thursday to have a helicopter there.
Harry pulled us all in, we had Man United on the Saturday. He pulled us all in and said 'I don't want to see anybody at Cheltenham, if I see anybody at Cheltenham, that's it you're done'.
What he didn't realise was that Woody had put on two helicopters for the team to go on the Thursday and we had a box.
All the boys came in and said to Woody we're going to have to cancel it. He said 'give me five minutes'.
He's gone into Harry's office and gone 'look Harry, we've organised to go, it's a big racing day and event. All the boys want to go, it's team bonding, we won't drink and just have good day out'.
He went 'I'll tell you what, if I put a helicopter on for you and the staff, why don't you come with us'.
Harry said 'yeah, I'll have a bit of that'. Harry was in there with us, we played Man United on the Saturday and got a result.
