“I’m very lucky – I’ve had a lot of things go my way.”
Former soccer star Jamie Redknapp is as proud of his stint on comedy quiz show A League of Their Own and his new clothing line Sandbanks as he is of anything he did on the pitch, writes Marie Kelly.
Jamie Redknapp wears his celebrity lightly. The former footballer arrives on our scheduled Zoom call asking if we can postpone the interview with an earnestness that’s disarming. The reason for the request is charming and un-showbizzy. Redknapp’s two-year-old son Raphael has a ‘Little Kickers’ football session, which Redknapp had forgotten about, and the father-of-three wants to be pitch-side.
When we sit down to chat two hours later, it’s clear that the 50-year-old wears his success lightly too. Despite being the most expensive 17-year-old signed in the English Premier League in the early 1990s, playing for his country, captaining Liverpool FC and forging a broadcasting career that has spanned punditry, reality TV and comedy, he says simply: “I’m a very lucky guy. I’ve had so many things go my way.”
His glass-half-full attitude belies the more nuanced reality; plenty of things haven’t gone Redknapp’s way. Professionally, his career as a top-flight footballer was beset by injury from the age of just 27. When his peers were in their prime, Redknapp was running out onto the pitch feeling “like someone was sticking a knife into my knee”. Four years of injuries, cortisol injections and specialists later, a surgeon in the US called time on the only career Redknapp had ever considered or wanted. “He told me I’d never play again and it was terrifying,” he says.
Redknapp’s personal life hasn’t been devoid of difficulties either. In 2017, his 19-year marriage to former Eternal pop star Louise – perceived as one of the happiest in showbusiness – ended after the singer had a hugely successful turn on the BBC show Strictly Come Dancing, which she’s quoted as saying prompted her to re-evaluate her life. The couple, who are parents to 19-year-old Charley and 14-year-old Beau, separated within months of the show’s finale.
Today, however, Redknapp is all ease and good humour. His TV career is thriving, he is married to model Frida Andersson and the earth-friendly outerwear brand, Sandbanks, which he co-founded with Sam Harman and Wayne Collins five years ago, is growing steadily. The brand has now acquired a concession at Brown Thomas, a store he says he always visits when he’s in Dublin. “It was amazing to hear that the brand was going to be stocked there,” he says. “I’m old-school. I like to feel and touch clothes before I buy them, and I’m really pleased that customers in Dublin will be able to try on the jackets too.”
Redknapp credits his interest in fashion to his older brother Mark. “He was a very stylish big brother and I always looked up to him. He wore Fila and Kappa and all those very trendy brands,” explains Redknapp. “Clothes have always appealed to me. I remember helping my dad [the inimitable Harry Redknapp] redesign one of the playing kits when he was managing Bournemouth. I was only 14 or 15. We gave the shorts a longer cut and changed the colours to red and black, just like AC Milan.”
Redknapp admits that making his soccer-mad father proud has always been incredibly important to him. When Jamie was forced to hang up his football boots, Harry nudged him towards management, but the broadcaster and entrepreneur knew it wasn’t for him, saying that he has always trusted his instincts.
“I grew up watching the stress and strain of management on my dad, and I knew that wasn’t for me,” he says. “Dad’s a storyteller, a great talker and very confident in front of people. I’ve never been the most outgoing person. I’m more like my mum.”
Notwithstanding this, within two months of his soccer career ending, Redknapp had dusted himself off and taken a leap of faith, signing a deal with Sky to be a sports commentator. While these days, the path from soccer player to TV pundit is a predictable one, in the mid-noughties, it wasn’t a given, especially for someone who describes himself at that time as “not shy, but quiet and not that confident”.
Punditry led to a permanent spot on Sky’s sports-based comedy game show A League of Their Own, which Redknapp jumped at, despite being advised by his eldest son not to do it. “Charley told me I wasn’t funny enough,” Redknapp remarks dryly. Thirteen years later, Redknapp admits that people, in Ireland especially, talk more about his performances on A League of Their Own than they do on the football pitch, and he takes this as an enormous compliment. “I would never complain. I’m very happy and I’m really proud of my other career.”
He still gets what he calls “pre-match” nerves before going on TV, but says his success on the small screen, and on A League of Their Own in particular, has given him more confidence. Redknapp has nothing but compliments for his co-hosts, past and present, describing James Corden as “a genius”, Freddy Flintoff as “the best character I’ve ever met in my life”, Romesh Ranganathan as “the sharpest guy I know”, Micah Richards as having “star quality” and Jill Scott as “adorable and so funny”.
Throughout our conversation, in fact, Redknapp has plenty of kind words to say about plenty of people. “I was brought up to be nice and to be respectful,” he states, adding, “I don’t understand people who get carried away by fame.” He credits the late Terry Venables, who gave him his first cap for England, and former Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish with changing his life. “You can’t put a price on the opportunities they gave me,” he says. “Terry was a real role model. I loved him. But they were both nice men: very personable, and they had time for everybody.”
His dad is however his greatest hero and when I suggest Redknapp might follow in his footsteps and make an appearance on the ITV show I’m A Celebrity . . . , which the 74-year-old Terry won in 2018, he is quick to respond: “Do you think I’m mad? How could I follow him? He was brilliant.” He admits he doesn’t have the constitution for eating sheep’s brains and fish eyes either. “Never say never, though,” he adds. “It’s the only TV show Frida and I watch. I love Ant and Dec; they crack me up.”
Right now, Redknapp’s focus is firmly on Sandbanks. Named after a small peninsula on the English channel coast in Dorset, where he and his co-founders grew up, the brand uses recycled plastic bottles from the ocean and landfill to create what Redknapp describes as “cool, well-designed and incredibly well-made clothes”. The price point, like the product, is premium, with shirt jackets starting at just under €500 and long-length puffer coats costing a little over €900. True to his unstarry nature, Redknapp acknowledges that they are, indeed, expensive purchases during a cost-of-living crisis. “I wasted loads of money on clothes in the past, as we all do,” he says, “but these jackets are made to last.”
Redknapp says that he and Frida always wear Sandbanks when they’re pitch-side watching Beau play rugby. Both Redknapp’s sons have chosen to play what his social media followers often teasingly refer to as a “proper sport”, with Charley now in university in Arizona on a rugby scholarship. Redknapp doesn’t seem too concerned about the survival of the Redknapp soccer dynasty. That said, he’s not missing one of Raphael’s Little Kickers games for love, money – or magazine interview.
Originally published in the Business Post Magazine, December 2023