Well Done H
Lesley Garratt helps Britain's favourite ex-Geography teacher
get things started at Wembley
Well done Sir Harry of Redknapp, finally you can add something worthwhile to your list of honours that stretched all the way from the Associate Members Cup to the First Division Championship. This was one of those finals that the purists love but which makes those who go to football for entertainment come away from the ground after three hours and about £70 lighter in their wallet shake their heads and wonder why they didn't stay at home and watch High Society on TCM. Portsmouth have a defence tighter than the proverbial and when they go one up it's more than likely that they will stay one up, it ain't pretty but professional sport is sometimes about winning ugly and Pompey are up there with George Graham's wonderful Arsenal side when it comes to having been touched with the ugly stick.
I'm pleased for Harry, not just because he's ex West Ham but because he's a football fan through and through. You don't deserve anything in life if you don't work hard for it and Harry has worked as hard, if not harder than most. As a player he used to infuriate those in the old Chicken Run at Upton Park with his constant running up blind alleys, I remember one goal he scored in the 1972 League Cup run against Liverpool that was from such an acute angle you had to wonder if there was a hole in the net. He managed Bournemouth into the old Second Division back in the eighties amongst chaotic scenes at Craven Cottage and famously knocked Manchester United out of the FA Cup. Now he's helped the club that plays in the only city in Europe that is on an island (trivia anoraks) win their first trophy since 1950.
Over the years he's put his hand into his pocket and given money to his old club to help them out financially when others in the area have looked the other way. At Portsmouth he has shown that he can get that little bit extra out of players some managers find difficult or don't want to take a chance with, as Kanu said in the papers this week the difference between Harry and other managers is that he accentuates the positive, he tells players what they can do and works on that rather than spending hours on the training ground trying to improve of areas that will never be improved on. I'm pleased for David James as well because he has been the most consistently good English born goalkeeper for a number of years and those daily five hour round trips from his house in Devon to Portsmouth have at last produced a medal.
So next year it's Portsmouth in Europe, something that hasn't happened since the old King waved the navy off to the battle of Jutland.
3 comments:
Didn't see the match: we're arriving in Dusseldorf at the time. Who is the girl singing? I don't recognise her.
I agree with you as far as Harry is concerned but I can't help feeling sorry for David Jones. Anyone wrongly accused of child abuse will, in the absence of other factors, get my sympathy.
Dusseldorf eh? Many years ago I wrote a short story that included Dusseldorf in it - business or pleasure?
That's Katharine Jenkins with LG. I agree about David Jones, he has an integrity that puts some sports people to shame.
I took Eben along for his first football match and we had a thoroughly good time. Granted he only actually watched about 10 minutes and he insisted on calling it the Portsmouth show, but he loved the atmosphere, which by the way was utterly brilliant. Both sets of fans did themselves and football proud. I also would have said that there were more than 53,000 Portsmouth and Cardiff combined they made some noise.
Anyway today Eben took his scarf into preschool for showing day and according to Nic sang 'Play up Pompey' on the way, so I think I've got a Portsmouth fan on my hands. Could be worse it's only 78 miles to the ground, if Cardiff had won we would have been travelling a hell of a lot more.
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