Harry Redknapp: My Birmingham start vs Aston Villa brings up bad memories

Harry Redknapp20 April 2017

My new job at Birmingham starts with a very difficult trip to Aston Villa and in terms of getting personal abuse, it is probably one of the worst grounds for me.

I’m not sure why — I guess I’ve had quite a good record there over the years.

There was a game there with Portsmouth in 2008, which marked my 25th year as a manager, when someone threw a coin at me but it hit the linesman.

There was a break in play and I was talking to the linesman. Suddenly, this coin comes out of nowhere and hits the linesman just above the eye.

He suffered a gash on his forehead but he was lucky not to lose an eye. Whoever did it was aiming at me.

It’ll be pretty hostile for my first game given it’s a second city derby — there’s obviously no love lost there between the two sides and I guess I don’t help it!

I’ve walked into a team I don’t know a great deal about.

I will spend the next couple of days getting more advice from people around me.

I had a good chat with some of the coaches who have been here for years, giving me a breakdown of the strengths and weaknesses each player has.

I’ll get a feel for them over the next few days and get a team together in my mind for Sunday.

We will have to win one of the three games we have left.

If we stay up and it goes okay, I will look at signing a contract once the season is over.

The owners have taken some stick but they seem very nice people and it will be a question of whether they want me.

They have got big plans and want to seriously invest in the team to try and get out of Championship which would be an exciting challenge.

But first, we have to try to stay in it.

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