Neville’s done his homework ... but has the wrong answers

IT was our history teacher, Mr Farrar, who taught the worth of digging out obscure facts and anecdotes to keep examiners engaged during essays. ‘If you tell them something they don’t know,’ he advised, ‘they might even let you off a bit you miss out.’ Did you know Charles II was nicknamed Old Rowley after a particularly wellendowed stallion in the royal stables? Well, you do now. Anyway, on the subject of massive tools, full credit to Gary Neville for doing his homework, and painstakingly going through the records until he located two occasions when Harry Redknapp had a poorer winning percentage than his at Valencia. Queens Park Rangers and Birmingham. Redknapp took over Rangers when they were bottom of the league with four points from 12 games, Birmingham were 20th in the Championship, three points off relegation. Neither club was really on the up. By contrast, Neville arrived when Valencia were ninth in La Liga, five points off the top four, and left them 14th, six points off the bottom three after 28 matches. Had Valencia maintained their points aggregate under Neville throughout the entire season, they would have finished 19th, and been relegated for only the second time in their history. The spat was over some disparaging remarks from Neville about Tottenham, to which Redknapp took exception. Neville said Tottenham were spineless in the decades before Mauricio Pochettino arrived, irking Redknapp, who took the club to the Champions League quarter-finals and from bottom to top four. He made a cutting riposte about Neville’s time at Valencia and advised him to do his homework. With further research, maybe Neville would have concluded that Redknapp’s longevity must have meant he was doing something right. He won Portsmouth’s only trophy since 1950, took West Ham to fifth, won promotion to the second tier with Bournemouth. He’s not Sir Alex Ferguson, but who is? Either way, if Neville ever finds an owner who will trust him to manage a football club again, he could take a swing at equalling Redknapp’s managerial record. Just the 1,367 matches to go.