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Liam Mackey
We usually see Harry Redknapp inside a car, usually rolling out the window while some one of Sky Sports is on his way. approach with a microphone to find out what he did on the last day of transfer.
But this time it's Arry who asks the questions, driving the driver who brings him back from Cork Airport with questions about the Gaelic football brand. "It's 15-a-side, innit?" Is one. The scene takes place in the opening episode of The Toughest Rivalry, a series aired exclusively on AIB social channels that pit the football legends Redknapp and Gianluca Vialli Castlehaven in West Cork and Erin & Island in Dublin
The series will end with a rematch – scheduled for the month of August – of their infamous semifinal of the 1998 All-Ireland Club which was decided at Erin's # 39; s Isle. favor by a controversial last-minute goal.
For Redknapp, his first exposure to Gaelic football was a revelation.
I had never seen a game before, I did not know the rules, I did not even watch on TV, "he said in Dublin yesterday.
" So it was a bit of the unknown, but I must admit that I absolutely loved the game in the few days that I spent there. I followed a workout that I enjoyed and I only had to adapt football drills. You are always kicking the ball, having volleyed on goal, it's always a question of technique. "
What struck him most about Gaelic footballers, however, was their devouring commitment based, he said, on nothing but their pure devotion to the game.
That night when I went There I saw how hard they train them boys .It was amazing to see them train and how they did everything they were proud of. were not sloppy, their attitude was absolutely perfect.
Lovers with a professional attitude?
"Yeah. It was a revelation to see guys coming in, driving 50 miles to train because they love doing it, they love to play. The conditions were not good, it was raining with the rain, the night was miserable, I came directly from work, I went out on the training ground, I put everything in training. I thought it was great. "
In contrast, the game that he knows best has changed anyway since he was a young player who was playing with West Ham in the 1960s.
" Of course, yes . Everything has changed in football, it's a game completely different from the one I went into all those years ago. Everything is laid. No stone has returned. From the food they eat after training, the dieticians, their way of traveling, the mbadeurs. It's just another world. They fly everywhere, they no longer go in the bus. Arsenal played at Bournemouth last year, which is about an hour and 45 minutes by coach, but they flew down. It's unreal now. "
Has anything been lost in all this progress?
Certainly, the players, do they even speak? When you got on the bus, it was not even there. You talk and you talk, you talk about the upcoming game and the game you played in. I do not think it happens too much now.They do not even speak, they all have their headphones, all in the area or anything else.
For unrelated reasons, Redknapp was fascinated by the intimate feel of the community of his adoptive family
London who was not like a small community in Castlehaven, "he said.
"I thought it was fantastic, a great place to walk around the little village with the pub and shop.It was another world but I thought, what a fantastic world & # 39; 39. People value things more.I found that people were incredible.I went home and told people that I had the best three days that I had. Has been for years. "
– Harry Redknapp is the star of the new series" The Toughest Rivalry "with Gianluca Vialli. Premier League legends support rival GAA clubs from Castlehaven in West Cork and Erin's Isle in Dublin. The first episode, exclusively available on social channels of AIB, will be broadcast this Friday, July 13.
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