Harry “Deadline Day” Redknapp has spent more time leaning out of car windows talking to the press than he’s spent sleeping over the last 30 years.
Fearing for our lives, we’re not going to call him a “wheeler and dealer” because the former Spurs, Portsmouth and Bournemouth boss hates that. We’ll simply refer to him as a “canny purveyor of the transfer market.”
But it wasn’t always an easy gig for ‘Arry as he reveals in his Evening Standard column that he once missed out on a player due to Teletext*.
“One of the greatest examples I had was back in 1990 when manager of Bournemouth and I was going to sign Ian Woan from non-League Runcorn. I watched him twice in midweek — freezing cold nights — and we loved him. I met his dad, who was an ex-professional at Aldershot.
“We did a deal with Runcorn to buy Ian and he was supposed to come down on the Tuesday to sign. His dad, Alan, phoned me and said: ‘I am working today so I can’t make it down. Can we come down in the morning? I really want to be there when my boy signs his first professional contract.’
“Ian’s dad didn’t really need to be there but I agreed. That night it was on Teletext that Woan was coming down to Bournemouth to sign for £40,000. Brian Clough was in his office with two of his backroom staff, Alan Hill and Ron Fenton, and he saw it on the television.
“Cloughie said: ‘Bournemouth have a good record in signing non-League players. Who’s this Ian Woan?’ None of them had any idea but Ron knew the Runcorn manager and he phoned him to ask if the deal was done.
“They were told it was happening the next day for £40,000. Cloughie immediately offered £80,000, got him down that night and signed him. I got a call at 11.30pm saying we’d missed out.
“I lost a player to Teletext, so imagine how hard it is to keep a deal quiet now with 24-rolling news, social media and agents talking to journalists all the time! What can you do?”
*For the younger SportsJOE readers, Teletext was like a colourful Sky Sports news without the added bonus of Kate Abdo or Jim White and a shameful lack of purple sex toys.
