Clint hill by
TacticalR 8 Aug 2017 20:38Talking of dropping down the leagues, this is from Crace's biography of Redknapp:
'Bobby Moore was the first to offer Redknapp a helping hand by taking him on as his assistant at non-league Oxford City where the former England captain had been appointed manager...Pete Johnson believes that if you want to understand Redknapp's managerial career, Moore's greatest legacy to Redknapp is probably to be found elsewhere in a gift he almost certainly had no idea he was giving.
'Harry had Bobby on a pedestal,' he says. 'And though he was thrilled to be offered the job at Oxford, he told me he was shocked at how far Bobby had fallen. It had never occurred to him that a World Cup-winning captain and football legend could end up managing a non-league side, playing against opponents who openly disrespected his reputation in front of just a few hundred spectators.
'It was a real wake-up call for Harry. If it could happen to Bobby, it could happen to anyone. And from that point on, I think Harry was determined that he wasn't going to end up as one of the vast number of bitter, ex-footballers who had been spat out and left broke and broken by the game. He was going to keep his wits about him and not let anyone take advantage of him. From then on, whatever career he could make in football was going to be on his own terms as far as possible. And he certainly wasn't going to end up penniless.''