2. Harry's Game

Jermain Defoe: Outside The Box

In the second episode of Outside the Box, Jermain Defoe visits some of his former managers to find out who he was as a player, and whether his experiences in the game and his commitment to being the best, can lend itself to a career in management. He travels to the South Coast to see Harry Redknapp - who signed him on three separate occasions - to discover whether Harry believes he has what it takes to lead a team. Together the pair discuss Jermain's origin story in the game: spotted on the parks of East London and signed first by Charlton and then Redknapp's West Ham, before a loan deal at Bournemouth lit the blue touch paper of his career. Harry tells him cautionary tales of buying and selling players, of dealing with chairmen, and how best to navigate the path of that first job should a team come calling for his services. Back at Tottenham, Defoe tracks down the man who signed him at White Hart Lane, David Pleat, who tells him that he believes he has what it takes to succeed in the cut-throat world of football management. However, both men tell him that if he's to get a job, it will almost certainly be in the Football League. Which gets Jermain thinking.