Harry's Games

by John Crace

  Alongside this, Redknapp was also in charge of training, saying, ‘He [Bonds] let me get on with training and, after the first couple of months, I really enjoyed the coaching aspect without the aggravation of being manager.’ It was also left to Redknapp to take the lead role in his particular area of expertise – the transfer market. In his first season, West Ham had twelve players coming in and out; during the second, that figure had almost doubled to twenty-three, including the controversial sale of the fans’ hero, but club liability, Julian Dicks to Liverpool. ‘I was the instigator of the Dicks transfer,’ he said, ‘so I suppose observers may have suspected at that time that I was taking on an increasingly high-profile role, but wheeling and dealing [a description he wouldn’t be so keen on in 2010] was what I was good at and Bill let me get on with it.’

  On the basis of this evidence, it sounds as if Redknapp was doing everything except select the team. He was taking the training sessions, doing the touchy-feely Mr Motivator stuff, was in charge of nutrition – a bit of a turnaround for the man whose motto had been ‘win or lose – on the booze’ – and was dictating transfer policy. If Redknapp was overstating his input, it wouldn’t have been the first time a manager had done so, but the real issue is one of intent. Was Redknapp on a deliberate land grab to try to undermine Bonds, or was he just a hard worker, happy to get stuck in wherever he could?

  Everything points to the latter. The relationship between Bonds and Redknapp remained – by and large – sweetness and light. The club was doing well and so were they. It was just that Redknapp was the brighter star and Bonds wasn’t the first – nor would he be the last – to be dazzled and become a little overshadowed by his brilliance.

  ‘I don’t think anyone at West Ham really minded Redknapp taking a bigger and bigger role,’ says Delaney. ‘Bonds was just relieved to be spared the effort and the fans loved it. For the first time in ages, West Ham became a club that people were talking about; you could turn to the sports pages and find something about us.’

  The extra attention Redknapp was attracting didn’t do him any harm because, during West Ham’s pre-season tour to Scotland in the summer of 1994, Bournemouth – presumably having noticed that Redknapp had kept his home on the south coast and was commuting to London – asked him if he would like to return. Redknapp was tempted. ‘OK, it would have been a step backward leaving a Premiership club,’ he said, ‘but my home was still Bournemouth. I thought to myself, “Well, Harry, you’re pushing 50, why not settle for an easier life?” When I told Bill about the offer during our pre-season trip in Scotland, his attitude was, “I don’t blame you, Harry, it’s your home. But I don’t know what I’ll do without you.” Then, after a pause, he said without warning, “If you go, I’ll go.” I couldn’t understand it.

  ‘ “Don’t be stupid, Bill. What do you want to do that for?”

  ‘ “Ah, I don’t want to do it any more,” he said. I told him that if he was taking that attitude then I was staying put. I certainly didn’t want to be responsible for Billy walking out of his beloved West Ham. “No,” he said. “You do what you want to do. I may not go. We’ll see what happens.” ’

  Thereafter, things become steadily less clear. According to Redknapp, what happened next is that West Ham got wind of Bournemouth’s interest and he and Bonds were summoned to a meeting with West Ham chairman, Terence Brown, and managing director, Peter Storrie, during which Brown cross-examined Redknapp about his management ambitions before offering him the job of West Ham manager on the spot. Redknapp turned it down, pointing out that the club already had a manager in Bonds. At which point, Brown suggested creating a job for Bonds as director of football. Having been silent so far during the meeting, Bonds then said, ‘It’s quite obvious you want Harry to take over from me. I’m not stupid. You think he’s better at it than me. You want Harry as manager.’

  ‘I told Bill that I genuinely didn’t want the West Ham manager’s job. Maybe I was lacking in ambition or something, but I just didn’t feel comfortable with all the aggravation. And, of course, there were two other factors playing on my mind: first, the tempting offer from Bournemouth; second, the growing realization that, if I was to take over from Bill in the circumstances I’ve just described, it wouldn’t take mischief-makers too long to put two and two together and make five.’

  Within a few days, Redknapp had taken the job . . . or been bounced into it. Bonds had quit and the chairman had called a press conference to announce Redknapp’s appointment. ‘I managed to get hold of Bill again and told him of the chairman’s offer,’ Redknapp said. ‘ “Take it, Harry, you’d be a fool not to,” he said. “It’s a good job. It’s well paid, Take it.”

  ‘ “But Bill, what about . . .?” I began.

  ‘ “Don’t worry about me,” he said. “I’ve had it off. I’ve been well looked after.”

  ‘With that I was almost bundled into a press conference announcing me as the new manager. Yet it wasn’t something I’d wanted to happen. I allowed myself to be pushed into it too quickly and that was a mistake.’

  But he had taken the job, and with Bonds’ blessing. Which just leaves the awkward question hanging: Why has Bonds – one of Redknapp’s closest friends for nearly thirty years – never spoken to him again since? Bonds has said little in public about his exit from West Ham apart from one interview with the fanzine, EX, almost ten years later in 2003. But what he did say rather challenged Redknapp’s version.

  ‘Harry came in with talk that Bournemouth wanted him but whether that was just to try and bump up his wages, I don’t know,’ said Bonds. ‘He was always talking about being wanted elsewhere. Before Bournemouth it had been Oxford. I used to say to him, “Well, if they want you – go. I’ll miss you but if you want to leave, then do it.” I think the board got wind of the fact that Bournemouth were after Harry and they clearly wanted to keep him.’

  Reading between the lines, Bonds appears to have partially misread the situation. He was so used to Redknapp talking about everything and nothing – Redknapp and silence are not natural bedfellows – that he failed to realize that this time the chat about Bournemouth’s interest had more substance than usual and, as a result, he wasn’t alert to the seriousness of the possible implications. Equally though, Redknapp was an old and trusted friend, the West Ham board had given no hints they were in the market for a replacement and Bonds, according to his account, had never given any indication he was ready to chuck it all in, so why should he have been on his guard?

  The most crucial difference between the Redknapp and the Bonds versions concerns the meeting with Terence Brown and Peter Storrie. Redknapp remembers it as a collegiate, friendly chat in which the idea of him taking over from Bonds emerged as a surprise. Bonds recalled it very differently. ‘When I got to the room at six o’clock on the dot, the whole of them – the board members, Peter Storrie and Harry – were already sitting around. I’m not a mug and I got the strong vibe that they had already discussed everything and that Harry wanted to have more say in team matters. I didn’t feel needed or wanted any more. I don’t think the directors wanted me to leave the club, but I would imagine that they wanted Harry to take on a more senior management role. I told them that I knew where I stood and that I’d resign, but they wanted me to go on the board. I would have been the first manager to go into a director of football-type role but I’m not really one for staying around if I’m not wanted. I suppose I was hurt by it. That’s life. It happens.

  ‘Don’t get me wrong, no one should be guaranteed a job for life. It’s [being manager] the biggest job you can have at a football club and you know that one day you will get the bullet. I’m just sorry I left West Ham in the circumstances I did. All I will say is that I was a very bad judge of character where one person was concerned.’

  What actually happened, and whose version should we believe? Once again, the enigma that is Harry Redknapp refuses to provide a straightforward answer.

  The idea that Redknapp set out to stab Bonds in the back by c
ultivating an offer to return to Bournemouth seems far-fetched. Redknapp was still living in Bournemouth, he was popular there and had maintained close links with many people at the football club, despite the manner of his leaving. A conversation in which a former chairman, Geoffrey Hayward, said he was contemplating buying back the club on the condition Redknapp managed it, would have been neither particularly unexpected nor unwelcome – not least because he was being offered the same salary. Money had always been more attractive to Redknapp than prestige, so the temptation of an easier life in a lower division without the hassle of a daily commute should be taken at face value.

  What might have taken Redknapp by surprise was the panic with which the West Ham board responded to the possibility of him disappearing back to Bournemouth. The board had been happy enough to have Bonds in charge with Redknapp as his number two so long as there was no threat to the status quo. The question of who was actually doing what was an irrelevant complication; as long as the team was doing well and Bonds and Redknapp were happy, then why rock the boat? It only became an issue when it looked as if Redknapp might be off, because everyone understood that Redknapp was the heartbeat of the team. Bonds might not have been too bothered if his old mate upped sticks, but everyone else was. At which point, it’s reasonable to assume that the board went on a Redknapp charm offensive to get him to stay.

  Now look at the position from Redknapp’s perspective. He’d been trundling along at West Ham, working hard, enjoying himself and not giving too much thought to any career move when – BANG! – out of nowhere the chairman love-bombs him with an irresistible offer. It’s one thing to consider trading in the job of assistant manager at a Premiership club for a return to managing a club that you know and love in a lower division; it’s another to trade in the chance of managing a Premier League club. The chance of managing West Ham was a serious game changer. This wasn’t about ruthless ambition so much as having a golden egg thrust in his face. Who wouldn’t give it serious thought? So long as Bonds was not hurt in the process, then it was a win-win situation for everyone.

  And that’s what Redknapp must have reckoned was on offer when the chairman suggested the idea of Bonds moving upstairs with the promise of a job for life as director of football. In Redknapp’s mind, a job for life in an insecure business was about as good as it could get: no driving taxis, no running a pub like so many other ex-players and managers whose football careers had outstripped their shelf life. Billy would be looked after in the game he loved until he chose to retire. Director of football might be a bit of a non-job, but Billy would be OK with that as he’d always been quite laid-back about Redknapp doing aspects of his job anyway. Once you began to think about it properly, he was actually doing his mate a favour . . .

  What Redknapp hadn’t counted on was that Bonds might mind and would get the hump. It is here that the discrepancies between the two men’s stories almost certainly arose and Redknapp glossed over a few awkwardnesses to cover his back, because Bonds’ account of walking into a room where Redknapp and several members of the board were already gathered is also the one given by one of the board members present.

  ‘Yes, we did discuss the situation with Harry first,’ one of the board members who had been present told me on the proviso he could remain anonymous. ‘So he did know we were going to offer him the job as manager and move Bill upstairs beforehand. The way we let Bill down is one of my biggest regrets about my time with West Ham. We should have talked to him. If we had, it’s possible he might have been happier about taking it on as he would have felt included in the process. At the very least, we would have had an inkling he would refuse and have the breathing space to try to come up with another proposal which he could accept.

  ‘Harry is right on one point, though. He never actually came out and said, “Make me manager or I’m off to Bournemouth.” That’s not the way he does things.’ The board member said that Harry did not explicitly state he wanted the manager’s job, but the board nevertheless thought he did. ‘So Harry can say with hand on heart that he didn’t stab Bill in the back, but all of us on the board knew that once the possibility of him being manager had been raised, he really wanted the job and colluded in finding a way to make that happen.’

  Aware that the Bonds and Redknapp affair was in danger of turning into a PR disaster for the club, Peter Storrie issued a statement aimed at damage limitation. ‘It wasn’t a case of taking the managership away from Bill,’ he said. ‘We wanted him to stay as a director. But he wanted a break. There are no hard feelings. It was difficult for both Bill and Harry but their friendship is as strong as ever. If Harry had gone to Bournemouth, there was a good chance Bill would have resigned anyway, so we were in a no-win situation. We’re sad that Bill is going and it’s a big blow, but it’s time to move on and we have appointed a great manager.’

  Storrie’s words went unheard, for, as Steve Blowers recorded in Nearly Reached the Sky, his history of West Ham, the next day’s back-page headlines were all about how Bonds had been shafted by the club he had served so loyally. In the long term, though, the only lasting damage was to Bonds’ and Redknapp’s friendship. ‘Had this all taken place now,’ says Delaney, ‘then the fallout would have been much worse. All the fans knew that Billy had been treated very shabbily but there weren’t the Internet message boards of Twitter for that feeling to gather momentum and make itself heard.

  ‘It was also much easier for the club to keep control of information back then, so it took time for the whole story to come out, by which time its moment had passed. I also feel there was a certain amount of collusion between the club, the players and the fans. No one wanted to see Billy go, but we all knew that Harry was the better manager and that the club was likely to do better under him, so it was as if there was an implicit pact not to make too big a deal of it. We all basically just wanted the whole situation to go away.’

  Not that it ever would entirely, not least because Redknapp handled the transition spectacularly badly with his players. ‘When he called us in to explain what was going on,’ one ex-player remembered, ‘Harry told us that he’d been out for a drink with Billy the night before, that they were still good mates and that he was taking over with Billy’s blessing. So we were all OK about it until Tony Gale talked on the phone to Billy a day or so later and discovered that was all nonsense. Billy and Harry hadn’t been out for a drink and Billy hadn’t given Harry the OK. At that point a lot of the squad lost a bit of respect for Harry as we knew he hadn’t been straight with us.’

  This isn’t the definitive proof – the smoking gun – that Redknapp did stab Bonds in the back, but it is indicative of the self-destructive side of his personality. If he’d simply told the players, ‘I haven’t spoken to Billy about all this but I know he isn’t very happy . . .’ he’d have had the squad pretty much on his side. Most footballers understand the game can be brutal, with managers and players frequently expendable, and they would have quickly adjusted with little lingering resentment towards Redknapp. As it was, Redknapp’s desire to be liked – even to the extent of telling an account that was almost bound to be found out within hours, if not days – made a bad situation worse.

  With his legs under the manager’s desk, one of Redknapp’s first back-room moves was to get his brother-in-law and fellow ex-Hammer, Frank Lampard senior, in as his assistant. It was an appointment that raised a few eyebrows among the fans as Lampard had no track record in management or coaching since retiring as a player in 1986, but, as he was considered to be one of the West Ham family, most were prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt.

  As important to Redknapp, one might imagine, was that Lampard was a member of his own family; having seen how easily close friendships could go pear-shaped with Bonds no longer speaking to him, Redknapp might well have seen the virtues in an assistant with blood ties. If not a sign of the guilty conscience to which Pete Johnson referred, then it was certainly one of a good understanding of the nature of football realpolitik. Over the ye
ars, Redknapp has been careful to make sure his assistants’ first loyalty has been to him rather than their own ambition; none has ever exploited a downturn in his fortunes and popularity to try and replace him.

  Redknapp’s most pressing on-field problem was Joey Beauchamp, a winger, whom West Ham had bought from Oxford United in the summer for £850,000, yet who showed a remarkable reluctance to play for his new club. After numerous set-tos with Beauchamp, who made no competitive appearances for West Ham, Redknapp sold him on to Swindon just fifty-eight days after buying him. ‘It was like a black cloud had been lifted,’ Redknapp said when Beauchamp was finally shown the door.

  In some ways, though, the Beauchamp saga was a miniature portrait of Redknapp’s management style throughout his time at West Ham. While Redknapp had managed to contrive a solution to the Beauchamp problem, he was less willing to acknowledge that he had, in large part, been responsible for creating it. During the Bonds regime, Redknapp had taken the lead role in buying and selling players so, to all intents and purposes, Beauchamp had been signed on his watch and on his say so. For an outlay of £850,000, you might have expected a little more preliminary work before the deal was done; watching a player gives you an idea of his talent and fitness, while talking to him reveals his state of mind – his ambitions, anxieties and desires – which are every bit as important. Beauchamp’s neuroses and homesickness didn’t appear out of thin air the moment he moved fifty miles east of Oxford. They would have been there for all to see if only anyone had bothered to look for them. Redknapp only saw what was in front of him, part of which was a capable footballer, part of which was also the deal.

  Much as Redknapp may now dislike his reputation for a knack in buying and selling, it appears to have been hard-wired into his blood as a manager. ‘Harry just loved the thrill of a deal,’ says the former West Ham board director. ‘It was almost as if it was a drug. Almost every week he’d be going on at me about how “so and so is a brilliant player and we’ve got to buy him before anyone else does” and every week it would be about a different player. With Stan Lazaridis it was that he’d seen him doing keepy-uppies on a tour of Australia. Harry doesn’t stop. He wears you down.’