Midfielder reveals ex-Spurs boss went ‘absolutely mental’ after secret Christmas party

Jamie O’Hara has admitted that former Tottenham Hotspur manager Harry Redknapp gave his players the hairdryer treatment when he found out that they had organised a Christmas party behind his back.

Redknapp enjoyed great success in the three and a half years he spent at Tottenham, helping the club qualify for the Champions League in his first full season in charge.

The former Spurs boss is certainly not known as a disciplinarian, with the likes of Rafael van der Vaart even revealing that the players often had beers and pizza in the dressing room after victories.

However, it turns out that Redknapp was not a fan of his players attending big Christmas parties and did not take kindly to the fact that the Spurs stars had attended one behind his back.

O’Hara revealed that Robbie Keane had organised a big bash in Ireland in 2009 even before Redknapp had informed the players to avoid celebrating publicly that year.

The former Tottenham midfielder told talkSPORT: “Robbie Keane had organised this big event in Dublin, and we all went there.

“Before Harry even knew what was going on we’d had the Christmas party and we were back in training on the Monday.

“Harry pulled us into a team meeting in the afternoon and said ‘boys I’m just letting you know I don’t want any of you organising a Christmas party this year’, not knowing we’d already had one!

“On the Tuesday, The Sun ran the story of us all out in nightclubs in Dublin – literally everyone’s on the back of it. Harry Redknapp goes absolutely mental.

“He gave us the hairdryer treatment, and let me tell you none of us played that weekend!”

Spurs Web Opinion

At least in those days, with social media not being as big as it is now, the main thing the players had to worry about was being pictured by the press. Nowadays, footballers have to toe a much stricter line given that news about any unsavoury conduct could instantly be broadcast to the world.

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