‘Harry Hotspur’ and the illiteracy bug

There has not been an abundance of stories in the English press to second Harry Redknapp’s testimony in his tax evasion trial that he is a ‘near-illiterate disorganized technophobe who cannot even fill a team sheet’. This bizarre claim helped him get a ‘not guilty’ verdict from a jury in a tax evasion trial and then pitchforked him into England manager-in-waiting following the dramatic resignation of Fabio Capello.

The 64-year-old ‘Harry Hotspurs’ reportedly said in his defence that he writes ‘like a two-year-old’, ‘doesn’t fill in a team sheet’, ‘can’t work a computer, don’t know what an email is, has never sent a fax or text message’ and was therefore quite innocent of the charge of having received a $ 295,000 payoff from Milan Mandaric, now Sheffield Wednesday owner, in a Monaco bank account, appropriately codenamed Rosie 47, after his pet bulldog and year of birth.

Good old ‘Arry may have scripted a regular column in The Sun and was otherwise intelligent enough to have “a keen sense of his own pecuniary value” (as described by the prosecution), amass a fortune and live in a 10 million pound house in a fashionable quarter; but that is now beside the point.

Like the jury, ‘Old Blighty’ seems to have accepted ‘Arry’s ‘near-illiterate’ argument near universally, perhaps relieved by the departure of the national team’s dour non-English speaking manager who kept the local press at arms length. England would now prefer to perform or perish with one of their own kind. So be it. The Cockney bloke’s CV however bears no comparison to that of Caps, whose record with England is also creditable, barring the 2010 World Cup blemish.

Still, if ‘Arry is anointed and scripts a decent run at the Euro, it will be the stuff of legend. Otherwise England will go back to the old refrain to explain their continuing failures at the big dos – we are like that only! Like are we, at facing the fast stuff in foreign climes in another game!

But, casting aside all barbs let loose by the doubting Thomases, there may be more than an iota of truth to ‘Arry’s self-deprecating admission. The stats certainly bear him out. According to government figures released three years ago, 5.2 million workers in Britain are “functionally illiterate” and 6.8 million are “functionally innumerate”. Most footballers in England (and everywhere) come from the working class, football being the quintessential working class game. So if yesterday’s players are today’s managers and today’s players are tomorrow’s managers there are and will be many Redknapps loitering around the footballing fields of England.

As a report in The Telegraph headlined “Half of us are barely literate and it’s getting worse”, said: “’Functional illiteracy’ is not the same as the blank inability to read anything – but the bar for competence is not set very high. If you can’t read the stories in The Sun, or the signs in a station indicating from which platform your train departs, you are functionally illiterate. Similarly, ‘functional innumeracy’ involves such things as being unable to calculate the change you are owed, or how much you spend every month on regular purchases…”

Quite a few English footballers could well be within these goalposts. Current Stoke City winger Jermaine Pennant, who was arrested for drinking and driving in 2005, was subsequently discovered to be illiterate during his trial. As a report in The Independent stated, “Jermaine Pennant probably didn’t want the world to know that, although he might possess magical techniques on a football pitch, he has trouble reading and writing…”The report went on to state that Pennant was just the visible face of a blight that is seriously affecting children from unprivileged backgrounds all over Britain.

Going by the occasional rants in the English media, it is quite likely that several English footballers are “illiterate, uneducated uncultured barbarians”, “overpaid, illiterate tosspots” and the like. Which brings to mind comedian/musician Bill Bailey’s classic jibe (perhaps aired for humorous effect) about English/England footballers being a bunch of “illiterate, millionaire borderline rapists, who’s job it is to shepherd a bit of leather into a badly made outdoor cupboard”!

I remember reading a Baichung Bhutia feature in the English media (don’t remember which newspaper though) when the ‘Sikkimese Sniper’ was playing for Bury FC, where the reporter noted that he spoke better English than many English footballers!

But this does not mean that all English footballers are dullards. Frank “The Professor” Lampard has 11 GCSEs and an A* in Latin. England-born Iain Dowie, former Northern Ireland international and former Hull City and Queens Park Ranger manager, has a degree in engineering and once worked for British Aerospace. Theo Walcott is one up on most – he’s an author — of children’s books! The young Arsenal striker most recently teamed up with the Duchess of Cornwall to launch Premier League Reading Stars and give illiteracy the red card in Islington. Other Premiership players supporting the campaign are Mark Schwarzer, Joey Barton, Ryan Nelsen etc. The stable of authors read ranges from David Beckham to J K Rowling to Harper Lee.

Like Beckham, quite a few footballers and managers have penned books. But even these player/manager-authors trip in the verbal department, which presumably highlights their grasp over the language or absence of it. But even we would fumble when facing a microphone! Anyway, here’s a recap of some famous funny footballer quotes of which you will find plenty on sites like ‘Stupid Footballer Quotes’, ‘Funny Football Quotes from Players and Managers’ etc. Enjoy!

* Alex Ferguson is the best manager I’ve ever had at this level. Well, he’s the only manager I’ve actually had at this level. But he’s the best manager I’ver ever had. – David Beckham

* We deserved to win this game after hammering them 0-0 in the first half. – Kevin Keegan

* The first 90 minutes are the most important.’ — Bobby Robson

* Shearer could be at 100% fitness, but not peak fitness. – Graham Taylor

* Allegations are all very well but I would like to know who these alligators are. – Ron Saunders