Freak mishap in Bournemouth leaves Sandra Redknapp hurt

Football manager Harry Redknapp almost killed his wife Sandra in a freak accident in Bournemouth on Tuesday, “The Sun” revealed. The 69-year-old had parked his car next to a shop where his wife was doing some shopping. Sandra’s coat became caught in the car door, and Harry, distracted, drove off without noticing that she was not inside the car but outside it. He dragged his wife several metres, which was enough to leave her with a serious wound to her foot. Witnesses at the scene said there had been a lot of blood.

After the accident Sandra was taken straight to hospital, where doctors operated on her. She was reported to be all right: “She is okay, she will be fine,” a close friend of the family said. Sandra, who is also 69, has a twin sister, Patricia, who is Frank Lampard’s mother.

With the incident now in the past, Harry Redknapp could finally breathe a sigh of relief. Everyone was fine, and the manager had every reason to be grateful, since it is hard to imagine him forgiving himself had things turned out worse.

A few words, too, about Harry Redknapp’s career, which had recently stalled. His last coaching job had come earlier that year, when he was appointed manager of the Jordan national team, but he left the post after only 2 matches (an 8-0 win over Bangladesh and a 5-1 defeat to Australia). In his long and successful career Harry Redknapp managed Bournemouth, West Ham United, Portsmouth, Southampton, Tottenham Hotspur and Queens Park Rangers. A return to the Premier League would have been fascinating, with several clubs possibly about to change managers.

A managerial career in numbers

Redknapp was born in Poplar, London, on 2 March 1947. Before coaching he was a midfielder with West Ham United from 1965 to 1972 and Bournemouth from 1972 to 1976, and he finished his playing days with the Seattle Sounders in the United States between 1976 and 1979.

His management career started at Bournemouth, where he was in charge from 1983 to 1992. He then managed West Ham from 1994 to 2001, Portsmouth from 2002 to 2004, Southampton from 2004 to 2005 and Portsmouth again from 2005 to 2008. The second spell at Fratton Park brought the biggest trophy of his career: on 17 May 2008 Portsmouth beat Cardiff City 1-0 in the FA Cup final, with Nwankwo Kanu scoring the winner.

At Tottenham Hotspur, from 2008 to 2012, he was named Premier League Manager of the Season for 2009-10 and led Spurs to the quarter-finals of the 2010-11 Champions League, where they lost 5-0 on aggregate to Real Madrid. He went on to manage Queens Park Rangers from 2012 to 2015, a spell that ended when he resigned on 3 February 2015, saying he could no longer give the job everything it needed.

After the accident

The spell with Jordan had been brief by design: Redknapp was appointed in March 2016, alongside Kevin Bond, for two World Cup qualifiers only, and his record there read one win and one defeat. The return to club football came the following spring. Birmingham City appointed him on 18 April 2017, and despite losing his first match 1-0 to Aston Villa he kept the club in the Championship. He was sacked on 16 September 2017 after five straight league defeats.

Away from the dugout, Redknapp won the 2018 series of the long-running jungle reality show on British television and was crowned King of the Jungle. Football has run through the whole family. His son Jamie Redknapp made his professional debut under his father at Bournemouth in 1990 and later played for him again at Southampton, while Frank Lampard Sr., his former West Ham teammate and brother-in-law, worked as his assistant.