Like father like son

"Is there any truth in the story that Harry Redknapp once fielded a spectator during a West Ham game?" asked Terry Williams back in 2006. "Legend has it that the Hammers were having a shocker and a fan was heckling them. Harry is then supposed to have turned round and said: 'If you think you can do any better, then prove it!'"

Incredibly, the legend is true, Terry. In 1994, Redknapp was assistant manager of West Ham and his side were playing Oxford City in a pre-season friendly when ... well, we'll let 'Arry take up the tale:

"Lee Chapman was playing for us at the time," recounts Redknapp. "All through the first half some tattooed skinhead behind me was giving Lee terrible stick. At half-time I turned to this bloke who had West Ham etched on his neck and asked 'Can you play as good as you talk?' He looked totally confused. So I told him he was going to get his dream to play for West Ham. We sent him down the tunnel and he reappeared 10 minutes later all done out in the strip. He ran on to the pitch and a journalist from the local Oxford paper sidled up and asked 'Who's that Harry?' I said 'What? Haven't you been watching the World Cup? That's the great Bulgarian Tittyshev!' The fella wasn't bad - actually, he scored!"

The fella in question was a 27-year-old called Steve Davies who had given up park football six years earlier. The West Ham board were obviously impressed with Harry's idiosyncratic decision-making: they made him manager a month later.