Football's a simple game, stop trying to reinvent the wheel

SOAKED to the skin, Harry Redknapp maintained his sentry guard on a soggy touchline in Somerset to the final whistle.

- MIKE WALTERS

Dear old 'Arry hadn't suffered such a drenching since David Bentley tipped a bucket of water over him during a live TV interview to celebrate Tottenham qualifying for the Champions League.

In a storied career, Redknapp's beat was once Europe's top football citadels or as king of the TV jungle on a diet of lizard's gonads or crocodile glands.

Yet here he was, braving a monsoon as mentor to the perpetually hopeless Tunley Athletic, whose record last season read like a threatening letter: Played 26, lost 26, goal difference minus 137.

Redknapp, 77, said: "I'm standing there, wringing-wet, thinking, 'What has happened to me? I've gone from taking teams to White Hart Lane, Old Trafford, the San Sio and the Bernabeu to this.'

"Not so long ago, I was the bookies' favourite to become the England manager and now I'm thinking, 'We only lost 6-1, there's room for improvement. That's life."