The end of the year is fast approaching and it can mean only one thing. Yes, it’s time for the nation’s favourite oxymoron: the Sports Personality of the Year.
With Gary Lineker and Sue Barker presenting, the show is guaranteed to be a platitude-laced laugh-a-minute. Gary's quips and witticisms will evoke polite smatterings of laughter from the assembled sporting elite, as they sit uncomfortably in their dinner dresses and tuxedos, waiting to find out who is Britain’s best/most personable sportsperson.
Unfortunately, with their intense dedication to sport, professional athletes are often left bereft of any semblance of personality or character. A hollow shell, particularly good at one specific physical activity. It is instead left to those around them to be the personality behind the performance - puppet masters pulling the strings of their assigned automatons. Such Gepettos as Alex Fergusson, Posh Spice and Lewis Hamilton’s dad.
In terms of genuine personality in sport there is none more engaging than the indomitable cockney Harry Redknapp. An uncanny amalgamation of Derek Trotter, Arthur Daley and Brian Clough, who has had a typically lively, yet surprisingly successful, year.
‘Arry ‘Oudini worked his magic throughout 2008, leading Portsmouth to a fairytale FA Cup victory, before making Tottenham’s manager vanish. He then did his own disappearing act at Portsmouth, miraculously popping up at White Hart Lane and pulling some results out of the hat.
They say a picture tells a thousand words, but the flailing lack rhyme or reason to Redknapp's face speaks a novella before he’s even opened his mouth. Harry is a caricature. A throwback to when beer cost thru’pence hapney and the only local amenities were market stalls.
Take him down the rub-a-dub and he's likely regale countless anecdotes you wouldn’t Adam and Eve. Perhaps he'd tell you the one about how he pulled the presumably stunning dolly bird that spawned his son, Jamie; or he could help you find a second hand car with a low mileage. But you can never trust him. Beneath the chirpy exterior he's most probably scheming to do you some mischief.
Ultimately Redknapp’s penchant for mischief, and the fact that he isn’t a sportsman, mean he probably won’t scoop the award. After being stitched up on the dog and bone by the BBC, relations between the two are understandably frosty. So congratulations to the Scottish chap - the cyclist - who won all the golds at the Olympics. If you're looking to hawk your medals once all the furore blows over I think 'Arry knows a man.
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