Saturday, February 25, 2012

Harry Redknapp

Henry James "Harry" Redknapp (born 2 March 1947) is a former English footballer who has enjoyed a long career in football management starting in 1983 with Bournemouth. He is the current manager of Tottenham Hotspur.

He previously managed Bournemouth, West Ham United, Portsmouth (twice) and Southampton. While in his second spell at Portsmouth, he managed the side that won the 2008 FA Cup. At the conclusion of the 2009–10 season he guided Tottenham into the UEFA Champions League for the very first time. Redknapp subsequently oversaw Spurs' progress to the last 16 of that tournament when defeating German side Werder Bremen at home. They were the only new club to have qualified for the next stage of the competition and went on to top their group ahead of holders Inter Milan. Redknapp then helped his team beat AC Milan over two legs to reach the quarter-finals.

His son, Jamie Redknapp, played under him at Bournemouth and Southampton. He is also uncle to Chelsea player Frank Lampard, who played under him at West Ham United.

Former Leeds United midfielder and Republic of Ireland manager Johnny Giles said Redknapp had "a very, very good knowledge of the game" and was "a good judge of a footballer and 80-90 per cent of successful management is about getting the right players in the club. You don't see him complicating it with big tactics or formations".

Personal Life
Redknapp was born in Poplar, London, the only child of Henry Joseph William Redknapp (1922–1996) and Violet May Brown (1924–2001).

At the age of 11, while playing for East London Schools football he was spotted by Dickie Walker, a Tottenham Hotspur scout. From there Harry grew up in the Tottenham youth ranks playing at Cheshunt, meeting the likes of Bill Nicholson, Dave Mackay and Danny Blanchflower. At the age of 15 Redknapp moved to West Ham and played alongside Bobby Moore. In a 2008 interview he stated as part of a tribute to Tom Finney: "I was a big Arsenal fan as a kid and I remember seeing him play against Tommy Docherty one night".

He is married to Sandra and they have two sons Jamie Redknapp, a now-retired footballer, and Mark, who is a model. Jamie made his professional debut under his father at AFC Bournemouth in 1990 before moving on to Liverpool and later Tottenham Hotspur and finally Southampton before retiring in 2005. His nephew is Chelsea and England midfielder Frank Lampard Junior whose parents are Sandra's late twin sister, Patricia, and Harry's former teammate and managerial assistant Frank Lampard Senior.

He and his wife Sandra are currently the fundraising presidents for the Southampton based charity Leukaemia Busters, a role that they took over in 2004 previously held by former cricketer David Gower and his wife Thorunn.

Rednapp and his wife also own a property development company (Pierfront Developments); in August 2011, it was announced that a housing development their company are building in Southsea, Hampshire, will go ahead without affordable housing. The £600,000 they offered to the council to build affordable homes elsewhere, was accepted by the council. Opponents of the scheme estimated that this will only be enough to build eight homes, instead of the 28 that council policy says they should be building in this development.

From : www.wikipedia.org