Harry Redknapp: The Man Made Of Jam Roly Polys In A World Made Of Wasps

There’s something comforting about seeing Harry Redknapp on Transfer Deadline Day. It’s like watching Eastenders on Christmas Day. They’re both old and slightly outdated but the day wouldn’t feel the same without them. 

“For me”, to borrow a phrase from the former physic healer-cum-pundit and perpetual wordsmith Glenn Hoddle, there’s an unmistakable familiarity that manages to attach itself to a cockney accent. “I’m forever blowing bubbles”, E Pellici’s cafe on the Bethnal Green Road, the couple who live in the flat below me, Billy Mitchell...

And with not only a pandemic to contend with but a weekend of football that saw Utd ship six at the Theatre of neverinSpurs’wildestdreams and Villa putting seven past the champions, Harry Redknapp explaining the time he signed “ a t’riffic, top, top player” in that charming and slightly vague way he can to a Sky Sports Camera is exactly the sort of return to familiarity football fans needed.

All that was missing was him delivering the news that he was in for either “Crouchy”, “Jermain” or was planning a late bid for “Niko”, through an open car window. The pack of Murray Mints, the eye candy he left sprawled on the passenger seat for us all to see was sometimes just as much of a scoop, perfectly depicting the wheeler-dealer who treasured a £1 confectionary classic just as much as a £12 million swoop for the Honduran defensive midfielder Wilson Palacios. 

But these are different times. As Redknapp sat there in his slick, studio swivel chair behind the table and not the wheel, in a room where Murray Mints were replaced by Ipads and giant plasma screens, the six-foot beacons of interactive information that were mounted behind him were a reminder that Harry Redknapp was now sitting in a new world of “Transfer Talk”. 

It’s a seemingly simple concept, transfer talk, but the enormity of the sport it serves requires obsessive amounts of time and energy to be poured into it at all times, especially on “Deadline Day”. Someone moving somewhere else is urgent news. “You know that bloke that plays football but in another country? Yeah, well, can we possibly have him over here? We’ll pay you for it.” That’s basically it. Oh but it’s also so much more. 

Transfer talk keeps the football world spinning on it’s axis. The rumour mill has to keep turning which means that sports news channels have to keep on churning it. It’s filtered through Newspapers and Twitter for months on end while there’s no football on as a way of filling that blank space between the end of one season and the start of another when millions of people have to worry about what they’re going to distract themselves with.

It starts to seep into the subconscioucness until suddenly in those spare minutes between getting off the tube and walking to the ticket barriers, you’re contemplating whether signing that ageing Spanish midfielder on loan is good business or merely a “panic buy”. Hours and hours of air time is filled with speculation and when deadline day rolls around, twenty-four hours (an actual entire day on planet earth) is dedicated to Football transfers live on Sky Sports News. 

And as any pundit or the more knowledgeable pint-drinker will tell you, “Football has evolved”. It’s a piercing line usually reserved for a goalkeeper that can’t play with the ball at his feet, but seeing an ageing Redknapp try to navigate his way through a live Deadline Day made it painstakingly clear.

Stats and “XG’s” run the show. Players are scrutinised by analysts, be it statisticians or Twitter journalists (professional and amateur). The assessment that a player has been signed because “he’s a good character, a fantastic person, a proper family man, a real good pro” unfortunately belongs to another era now.

As the football clock ticked towards the 11 pm deadline, Harry Redknapp began to look for the most part like a seventy-three-year-old man who just wanted to be in his bed. His face wore the same weary expression of someone who had drunk everything there was to drink on Christmas Day. He’d eaten the cheeseboard and the box of Celebrations. He’d watched everything there was to watch on TV and definitely couldn’t stomach the “Mrs. Brown’s Boys Christmas Special” because that really would make anyone do a little bit of sick in their mouth. 

Redknapp looked full. Not surprising for a man who’s chewed on enough last-minute deals to last a lifetime. Plus he loves Jam Roly Polys. But such is the unforgiving nature of the day, at well past eleven at night he was still being asked to open wide and put one last bit of football into his Droopy the Dog mouth; “What did he make of Everton?”.

But it didn’t really matter what he made of Everton because there was something else that was trying to fight its way to the front of his mouth in time. “I think Spurs could even win the league this season”. Come on Harry, it really is time for bed now.