A Man Walks On to a Pitch: Stories from a Life in Football

by Harry Redknapp

'When a man walks on to a pitch there's always a chance something magic can happen, that's what keeps us coming back...'. In A Man Walks On to a Pitch, Harry shares a lifetime's experience of obsessing over football, during which he has seen it all first hand - the good, the bad and the unbelievable. Harry started in an age where players were ordinary blokes who might live on the same street as you and earn a similar wage and now manages in an era of player power, multi-million pound wages and teams assembled from around the globe. As he shares stories of some of the legends and journeymen he played with, coached, argued with and drank with, Harry picks a team for each decade from the 1950s to the present. He gets to the heart of what was right and wrong with each era and explores the changes in the game from lifestyle to tactics. He weaves his choices together with unforgettable tales from the training pitches, boot rooms and card schools. There are tales of the untutored genius of Duncan Edwards and Tom Finney, legendary tough Scots like Bobby Collins, Dave Mackay and Billy Bremner, the world beaters of 1966, unpredictable one-off wizards from Sir Stanley Matthews to Matt Le Tissier, natural-born goalscorers from Greaves to Dalglish and the greatest foreign players to grace our game from Trautmann to Bergkamp. It is one of the best informal histories of the British game you'll ever read.

Genres: Nonfiction

352 pages, Hardcover

First published October 28, 2014

Reviews

[Bill McFadyen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Harry Redknapp is well know for his tales about football. This book continues this trait and if you are of a certain age and are interested in the characters from 1960/70 football as well as some of today's Premier footballers you will not be disappointed in this book. It is really sad to see how many of those great players ended up with life changing problems when the final final whistle blew.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting perspective of Harry's on players I grew up with(70's onwards!), culminating in his all time XI.....

[Jon Merry · Rating 4 out of 5]

You read this and can easily imagine being sat in a room with Garry as he describes the; players, the game, the managers and owners. A real insight. Great

[Jonny Brick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Arry's Top, Top Players. Particularly good on Taarabt, this is a collection of after-dinner anecdotes in book form. Very readable.

[Huw Rhys · Rating 4 out of 5]

Harry Redknapp is quite a character, there’s no doubt about that. So much of a character in fact that since the turn of the century, he’s released at least 4 different versions of what would both loosely and concisely be called an autobiography. This 5th book is pretty much more of the same.

Now, I quite enjoyed the two I’ve already read – and this was no different. Harry tells a good story – and what we have here is a vehicle for Harry (or his ghost writer!) to tell us some more of Harry’s stories.
As a structure, he chooses 11 players from each of the 7 decades he’s been involved with English football. He never makes it quite clear whether it’s the best team, or his favourite players. Certainly the 77 names are all fairly well known to even the most fairweather of armchair football fans, but the other thing they all have in common is there is a good story or two to tell about them. Or someone who knew them. Or someone with some sort of connection to them.

Are you getting the picture yet?

This isn’t a re-hashed, formulaic “my favourite players” book at all – it’s a vehicle for Harry Redknapp to thoroughly entertain us with a load of stories about his time in the game.

These are in turns heartwarming, nostalgic and funny – I particularly loved the one about Jason Mcateer trying to fill in a credit card application, and getting stuck at the box which asked him for his position within the company, because he had played both in midfield and defence over the years….

There are also some very interesting insights – he questions whether over training is stopping players from being spontaneous – and therefore we don’t have the maverick entertainers these days that we saw 20 or more years ago – and also whether too much science applied to the game is actually leading to more injuries, because players are becoming more programmed and don’t therefore intuitively stay away from potentially dangerous situations any more.

And if it’s a look back at the heroes of your youth you’re after – well, there’s loads of memory jogging moments here as well.

If you or yours are in the least bit interested in football, with a dash of nostalgia, humour and insight thrown in, then you could do a lot worse than give this book a spin!

[Mika · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was not the book I set to read. I was expecting stories from his own carrier and meetings around football, but I liked it. Instead chapter-wise he describes British players (and foreign in the later chapters) what have put them in attention of being included in his own starting XI in each century from the 60´s to present.

What thrilled me was the quality of the players trough history that have remarked themselves as the superstars of modern day. But have not been praised enough. So much history to be shared in this book about players I did not know that much of.

I would have given it a four-star rating, but I think the book could have been written perhaps even more enthusiastically if he had put his mind to it. Somewhat repeatedly written and should have stayed in focus when detailing specific players under the player sections. I would have appreciated details in figures of the players (clubs, years etc.).

[Stephen King · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable set of reminisces about great players past and present. I would have liked to hear more about Harry's own life, career, and some of the controversies he's been involved in - but apparently he has also written an autobiography, so maybe I'll try that one day. Very happy to see Pearce, Robertson and Shilton included in some of Harry's teams of the decade. Can't believe Larry Lloyd and Bert Bowery didn't get selected, though! (If you don't know who Bert Bowery was, look him up. A truly frightening character from Forest's past - could literally run through a brick outhouse, I'm sure, but obviously had no understanding of the offside law. Think of Marlon Harewood but twice as big and half as intelligent. But perhaps not quite so good looking!)

[Thomas Ranson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good old Harry Redknapp tells plenty of interesting and amusing stories about his own career as well as what other players got up to from the 1960s to the present day.

Best for readers over the age of 40 or so, as they would remember having seen the players at matches or from Match of the Day.

A really good read.

[Ben Burhouse · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely brilliant such a fascinating insight into one of the most colourful modern day football managers. He describes his upbringing and how through the ages football and indeed footballers have changed. He also goes about picking a team for each decade.

[Chris Harrison · Rating 3 out of 5]

Didnt realise this was set as a decade by decade pick of his best teams, the earlier years a lot of players where not known to me and for that reason it was really the 70's onwards that this book took my full interest. Nothing controversial but worth a read

[Mark]

a reallly entertaing read and a must for football fans