It's high time football closed Harry Redknapp's window

31 January 2009 21:33
At five O'Clock tomorrow evening the football agents of England will switch off their telephones, open a bottle of something expensive and begin the arduous task of counting their January profits. [LNB]It could take them some time. [LNB]Companies may fold, dole queues may form and homes may be repossessed on a scale we have never known. But for these diligent manipulators of supply and demand, January remains the kindest month.[LNB] [LNB]Window clean-up: Redknapp loves a deal[LNB]It is the time when prudence flies through the transfer window and desperation comes crowding in. [LNB]In fairness, there are people for whom the window might have been invented. [LNB]Harry Redknapp, for example, comes alive on New Year's Day. [LNB]Every year at this time he publicises his targets, indignantly denies all suggestions of 'tapping' and buys or sells Jermain Defoe.[LNB]   More from Patrick Collins... Who would sign for City with David Brent in charge?[LNB]24/01/09 City pick the wrong time to flaunt their extravagant riches[LNB]17/01/09 Simply, Pietersen is a victim of his own lumpen stupidity[LNB]10/01/09 Patrick Collins: Pietersen is caught on a sticky wicket[LNB]03/01/09 The year of our sporting lives[LNB]27/12/08 Come off it, Sam, you are not a superman[LNB]20/12/08 PATRICK COLLINS: Try telling Hoy you can't be a Scot and win glory for Britain[LNB]13/12/08 Keane lets his flaws get in the way of greatness[LNB]06/12/08 VIEW FULL ARCHIVE[LNB]  'You don't like the players I've got?' he says to his followers of whichever club he happens to be managing. 'All right, I'll buy some you will like.' [LNB]So Spurs sell and re-purchase Defoe at improbable prices, ditto Pascal Chimbonda, the kind of player who never stays anywhere long enough to remember his postcode.[LNB] And Harry goes on doing what he does best. [LNB]But there is only one Redknapp. Most football men deplore the back-stabbing, leakridden, neurotic uncertainty of it all. They are aware that the window forces up prices, distorts valuations and generally brings the game into chaotic disrepute.[LNB]And so, quite sensibly, they want to bring this failed system to an end. [LNB]But here's the rub - an increasing number of clubs believe that the answer lies in leaving the window permanently open. Transfers would be permitted throughout the year. [LNB]If you want a player then you go out and buy him. No restrictions, non-stop action, just like the good old days. It is, they tell us, the only answer. [LNB]Well, I believe they are wrong. Instead of allowing transfers for 12 months of the year, I believe they should be banned from August to May. [LNB]In this way, transfer deals could be done only in the summer close-season of June and July. Under this system, managers would assemble their playing squads in the knowledge that they would have them for the next 10 months. [LNB]With the chequebook removed from the equation they would have to stand or fall by the quality of their preparation and the ingenuity of their tactics. [LNB] Back at the Lane: Defoe[LNB] Postcode problem: Chimbonda[LNB] Naturally, the richest clubs would have deeper, more talented squads. [LNB]But they would not be allowed to seek instant solutions by throwing money at passing problems. [LNB]Of course, wholesale injuries would bring crises and there could be exemptions for genuine hardship. But, by and large, clubs would be required to survive through their own resources. Panic buying would be abolished and not before time. [LNB]Already, one can hear the protests of those owners for whom the transfer market is an easy escape route. [LNB]Likewise those managers who are more at home in an auction room than a training ground. But there are tangible side benefits.[LNB] For one thing it would end, at a stroke, all those turgid transfer tales in which Manager A is in a 'shock swoop' for 'wantaway' Player B, while Club C issues 'a hands-off warning' to anyone with designs on Player D. [LNB]Some are true, some are well-based, but a good many are fables, prompted by managers and planted by agents. [LNB]Ah, those agents! [LNB]Take away transfer activity for 10 months of the year, and they would be left with bills to pay, debts to honour, school fees to settle and wine merchants to placate. [LNB]They would be furious, incensed, hopefully speechless. Some may even be forced to seek productive employment. I ask you, isn't that a prize worth having? [LNB]So I commend my 10-month transfer ban on the grounds that it is equitable, reasonable and replaces the current free-for-all with a touch of decent dignity. [LNB]But I realise this is English football. Dignity is no more than an optional extra. And I am not holding my breath.[LNB]  Holding has Pietersen stumpedEngland's cricketers set to work in the West Indies wearing those tight little smiles designed to assure us that they're all together, united, the very best of chums. [LNB]'Don't mention the Moores!' is their message. At least, not until it's time to write the memoirs. [LNB] Authority: Michael Holding deserves attention[LNB] But for a clear-sighted analysis of the conflict which briefly consumed English cricket, we can turn to a man who is perhaps the most respected observer of the world game.[LNB] Having excelled as player, critic and unofficial keeper of cricket's conscience, Michael Holding enjoys a degree of authority. So when he speaks of the collision between Kevin Pietersen and Peter Moores, he deserves attention. [LNB]Said Holding: 'He [Pietersen] has an ego, everybody knows that. But I don't think it was necessarily his ego [that cost him the captaincy], I think it was the signals he was reading and he probably misread some of them. Once it came out in public, you couldn't leave it like that. The ECB had to take action and the only action they could take was to relieve Pietersen of the captaincy and, of course, Peter Moores couldn't stay either.' [LNB]The Friends of Kevin Pietersen will no doubt continue to rewrite recent history. But I suspect that Michael Holding has just spoken the last word.[LNB]  Farewell to a man of the proper peopleMy favourite Reg Gutteridge story is the one which finds him sitting at ringside in northern France, awaiting the main event. [LNB]The French television presenter, killing time while the fighters prepare, interviews honoured guests. [LNB]Suddenly, he spots Reg. [LNB]'Mr Gutteridge!' he cries. 'You are very welcome because you have special connections with this region.' Reg nods. 'True enough,' he says. [LNB]'You were in the Normandy landings,' says the presenter. [LNB]'Quite right,' agrees Reg. [LNB]The Frenchman lowers his voice. 'And it was here, on our beaches, that you lost your leg.' [LNB]Reg gives him an exasperated stare. [LNB]'I did,' he says. [LNB]And then, devastatingly: 'Why? Have you found it?' [LNB]I heard Reg tell that story a time or three, usually late at night in a Las Vegas lobby, or in his own beloved Fleet Street, where the printers would gather to devour his tales of Robinson and Turpin, of Ali, Hagler and Duran.[LNB] Familiar voice: Reg Gutteridge reported from ringside[LNB] Making a point: Reg and Muhammad Ali[LNB] Reg saw them all, knew them all and understood their ways and their wildness. [LNB]'Ne' mind them bleeding footballers,' he would say. 'These are the proper people.' [LNB]He spoke in the wheezy, breezy vowels of pre-gentrified Islington and his voice became familiar to the nation at large when he combined reporting for the London Evening News with commentary for ITV. [LNB]He relished the fame, the quasi-showbiz celebrity which the job conferred. But his roots remained in the printed word.[LNB] I remember an October night in 1980, when we were in Las Vegas to cover Ali v Holmes for the Evening News. [LNB]A call from London told me the paper was soon to close and asked me to inform Reg. I called his room and broke the news. [LNB]There was a long pause. 'Shame,' he said. 'After 42 years, I was just getting used to it.'[LNB] Next morning, I met him at breakfast. [LNB]'Not like me, Patsy,' he said, 'but I had a few tears after that phone call last night.'[LNB] Some of us had a few tears last week when we heard that Reg Gutteridge had died at the age of 84. He was a good colleague and a great companion. We shall miss him.[LNB]  P.S. Joe Kinnear, known to all as 'JFK' after his famously demented tirade in the Newcastle Press room, is a grievously misunderstood man. [LNB]By mixing up the words 'insomnia' and 'N'Zogbia' the other day, he gave the Frenchman a perfect excuse to desert St James' Park for the safer haven of Wigan.[LNB] Earlier, when seeking a word to describe Manchester City's offer for Shay Given, he came up with the splendidly inventive 'derogary'. [LNB]It appears JFK has trouble controlling not only his temper but also his tongue. Which will come as no shock to Newcastle's Press pack.[LNB]  P.S.S: We must never predict hooligan excesses lest we be accused of provoking them. [LNB]So let us simply report that on Tuesday evening London will entertain the followers of Swansea, Cardiff, Leeds and Birmingham, all fans of dubious reputation who find themselves in the capital on a night when the noted pacifists of Millwall are at home.[LNB] There may well be any number of good reasons why abject planning should allow them to pose such an obvious threat to innocent civilians. [LNB]But I can't think of a single one. [LNB].[LNB] [LNB]

Source: Daily_Mail