¬ÊHarry’s new King of Jungle ¬ÊEquals his 2008 final glee
HARRY Redknapp believes being voted King of the Jungle is now his crowning achievement.
The former football boss reckons viewers voting for him to win the reality show makes up for him never winning the big prize of the Premier League during his career of more than 50 years in the game.
And he says it matches his proudest moment of winning the FA Cup as manager of Portsmouth in 2008.
The 71-year-old boasted proudly: “I have never won the Premier League – but I have won this.”
He added: “It’s the same as winning the FA Cup.”
The football legend told the Daily Star he is “worried” about what other football managers will think of his Jungle stint.
Watching
But he revealed his mates all predicted he would only last two days in camp.
And he admitted it was an ordeal. On ITV’s Good Morning Britain, he revealed : “I had four days without eating. I have lost one stone.”
Harry only signed up because beloved wife Sandra was getting fed up of him at home. “I need to be doing something,” Harry said.
“I’ve got a low boredom threshold, I can’t be sat here watching television and I don’t really read a lot of books.
“Certainly Sandra doesn’t want me sitting around all day.”
Runner-up Emily Atack wound Harry up in the Jungle about trying to pull his hunky son Jamie.
Now he says she is welcome to try – although he is not sure that she is Jamie’s type.
“I will be honest, when I saw her in the jungle I thought ‘no chance’ but I’ve seen her today when she’s scrubbed up and she looks all right, I’m telling you,” Harry said.
“She looks very useful. When I saw her in the Jungle I thought: ‘No, you ain’t got a prayer.’
“She looked fantastic, I went: ‘Who are you?’ She went: ‘I was in the Jungle with you’, but I went: ‘I haven’t seen you before.’ She was brilliant, she’s great.”
The dad of two joked the first thing he did was “grind with Sandra” before he joined his
Jungle pals for the wrap party.
And he revealed he had been warned by his mates he would be voted out within days – because he had not seen the show before. “They said I’d miss my family, the football and the racing,” Harry said. “They said: ‘You cannot last.’ I went: ‘Well, I’ll give it a go.’ “I’ve never even seen the show so I did not have any idea what to expect. I love it, but I won’t miss it in the future.”
Harry’s highlights during the series included singing My Way to his campmates in the Jungle Arms. But he reckoned legendary crooner Frank Sinatra would be “turning over” in his grave hearing his rendition.
And he said his East End love of jellied eels could not prepare him for the horrors of “treats” like emu and wallaby in camp.
Harry joked: “We’re going to start a jam roly-poly business up when we get home, me and Sandra.
“Down the local market, Saturday afternoons, couple of roly-polys.”