Gary Rhodes’s restaurant in London’s Cumberland hotel was the venue for a blue chip charity auction for the OneTo One Children’s Fund.
Redknapp was in his usual free wheeling upbeat form as he fielded questions from the floor. Which Premier League player would he most like to sign? “Well I know that Fábregas wants to come to Tottenham,” he replied, breezily. “He keeps ringing me up. I said: ‘Look Cesc, we have got a good midfield, you will have to be on the bench …'”
“I love Stevie Gerrard, obviously, although he’s not getting any younger. It’s difficult. A lot of the English players are at the latter stages of their careers. You would have said Wayne Rooney eight months ago but at the moment he doesn’t look anywhere near the player that he was.
What’s happened to him, I don’t know … something’s happened to him in his life or whatever. You would have picked Rooney, for sure, a year ago but at the moment, I wouldn’t be so sure. I’d probably ring Cesc back.”
“We have been down the road with Sven … you know, bless him … he didn’t set us alight and now we have Capello, who is one of the greatest managers of all time. If he cannot make a success of it, it’s quite frightening.
It’s a difficult job and the moment you get it, the papers slaughter you. It does not seem a lot of fun.”
Redknapp left the crowd laughing – “I’ve got another auction lot,” Redknapp declared. “A load of you can come to Spurs Lodge and watch us train. You can have some lunch with us … Daniel Levy might buy you a sandwich if you’re lucky.”
One to One Children’s Fund is a small charity making a big impact, trying to relieve the suffering of children who are innocent victims of poverty, disease and conflict, with projects in South Africa, Kosovo, the Middle East and the UK.
The charity is the inspiration of chairman David Altschuler and was started in 1999. The charity’s mission is to work towards rebuilding lives of children, one child at a time. We remedy and prevent the adverse impact of HIV/AIDS and trauma on children, working hand in hand with communities to develop and implement projects which can be scaled and replicated. Find out more at www.onetoonechildrensfund.org
Quotes courtesy of The Guardian online.
