Harry Redknapp Calls Danny Dyer a Fierce Rival

Harry Redknapp has said was one of the toughest opponents he has ever faced across a football pitch when the pair managed rival teams for a new TV series.

The former manager joined his fellow Eastender in The Dyers’ Caravan Park which aired on Sky One last week.

Cockney Redknapp, 78, used to spend most weekends as a child at the campsite on the Kent coast where his mum and dad owned their own caravan, and which is the subject of the Dyers’ new television show.

In the new reality-style show, the actor and his daughter Dani battle to rescue struggling Priory Hill and Nutts Farm Holiday Park at Leysdown on the Isle of Sheppey.

One episode sees the father and daughter come up with the idea to host a staff vs holiday makers match as part of the revival plan, with Redknapp roped in.

‘Danny was a bit fierce, he was acting like his life depended on it,’ he told the Daily Mail.

‘He treated it like a World Cup final but we had a great laugh.

‘He managed the staff and I managed the campers. We were together all day and he takes his football very seriously. But I won’t tell you the score. But the whole place was buzzing.’

Redknapp said that, while he had ‘no idea why’ Danny bought into the rundown caravan park, he thought it was a ‘good idea.’

‘The producers rang me up and asked me to go on because they found out that my mum and dad used to own a caravan at Nutts Farm,’ he said.

’We lived on the fourth floor of a block of flats in the East End of London. My dad worked in the docks and mum worked in the Co-Op cake factory nearby.

‘On Fridays we would get a bus all the way to the Isle of Sheppey; a little green coach. In those days it took about four hours to get to Leysdown.

‘Often the bus would arrive around 10 o’clock at night and my dad would have to jump off the bus and sprint across the road to get our tea because the fish and chip shop would be shutting just as we got there.’

He said that his mum and dad only ‘had a caravan’ but that to him ‘it was paradise’ and they would ‘always have a great time.’

Dyer and his family also spent many happy school holidays at caravan parks, which is why he decided to invest in the family-run business.

‘I’m sure Danny will make it work. He has a terrific personality and knows how to get people going,’ said Redknapp.

Dyer is also a passionate supporter of West Ham Football Club, where Redknapp came through the youth team ranks and played more than 150 games in a career that also took him to the US before becoming a hugely successful manager.

Nutts Farm was the launchpad where his love for the beautiful game grew as a schoolboy amid the chaotic campsite games organised by his father Harry Snr.

‘We were the caravan park and across the road were the chalets. They were the posh lot compared to us,’ he said.

‘My dad was football barmy and he set up matches between us and them. At the time I was about nine or 10.