Redknapp Let Fan Play for West Ham

I have never heard this story before, so I have no proof of its authenticity, but I hope it is true. According to The Soccer Weblog Harry Redknapp once let a fan play for West Ham in a pre-season friendly.

"Lee Chapman was playing for us at the time," recounts Redknapp. "All through the first half some tattooed skinhead behind me was giving Lee terrible stick. At half-time I turned to this bloke who had West Ham etched on his neck and asked 'Can you play as good as you talk?' He looked totally confused. So I told him he was going to get his dream to play for West Ham. We sent him down the tunnel and he reappeared 10 minutes later all done out in the strip. He ran on to the pitch and a journalist from the local Oxford paper sidled up and asked 'Who's that Harry?' I said 'What? Haven't you been watching the World Cup? That's the great Bulgarian Tittyshev!' The fella wasn't bad - actually, he scored!"

Apparently the fan was a 27-year-old called Steve Davies who had given up park football six years earlier.