Students interview sporting legend Harry Redknapp

​​​​Students from the School of Media interviewed football legend and winner of ‘I’m a Celebrity Get 2018’, Harry Redknapp, who headlined the 2019 Media Festival at Park Campus in Cheltenham.

The ‘In Conversation with…’ event was organised and filmed by students from the BA TV Production course, and the interview panel included students from BA Sports Journalism and BA Magazine Journalism.

Prior to headline event, students from a variety of courses had the opportunity to ask Redknapp questions about his football career as both a player, a coach and a manager, in a mock press conference.

Following this, the student radio station Tone Radio had their turn at the questions, interviewing Redknapp live on air.

During his hour-long headline event, Redknapp talked in detail about leaving his career as a football player without riches, and his first experiences as a coach and manager, to his on his time on ITV’s I’m a Celebrity and his wife Sandra’s brush with sepsis. He also talked about his son, Harry Redknapp’s, involvement in sports as a journalism and his advice to aspiring sports journalists: 

“Any Journalism could be so powerful. Sport Journalism is amazing isn’t it? It’s a great career to have. Get to know people and let yourself be known. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and be nice!”

Redknapp was also willing to take as many questions from the audience as possible, giving advice to young aspiring footballers as well as busting the myth about his famous love for Jam Roly Poly! ​

Joe Kennett, 3rd Year Journalism student and Tone Radio Assistant Station Manager, said:
“I never thought last year when I was watching I’m a Celebrity that I’m going to be interviewing him next year, that’s just crazy. But it’s so nice to be able to have that opportunity and it’s going to be really great for me later in life.”​

Throughout his press conference and headline event, Harry talked about the importance of hard work and dedication to your craft – saying repeatedly “the harder you work, the luckier you get.”

This sense of hard work plays out daily in the media school, said Anne Dawson, Head of the School of Media:
“Because of the way we teach our students, which is in practical, studio environments, they get a taste really really early, right from the first year, of what it’s like to be on these sorts of sets. For a day like today, when they’ve had to start really early, for the last few days and planning for the last few weeks, they had a proper, full-on experience of what it’s like to work on a TV set. And they’ve heard it from the main man as well! Careers advice doesn’t get much better than this.”

You can now watch the interview in full on the University of Gloucestershire’s YouTube account​.