EVERYBODY loves Harry Redknapp. You only have to listen to or read the views of our national press corps to get that message loud and clear.

Tipped more than once as a future England boss, he had a managerial career stretching back 34 years that took him to Bournemouth, West Ham, Portsmouth (twice) Southampton, Tottenham, QPR and finally Birmingham City (with a brief stopover in Jordan).

When he was sacked by Birmingham after their latest defeat by Preston, you could almost feel the sympathy. It was as though the game was discarding a legend.

It is true he will be missed – he was always good for a quote or two to help a story along – but he is simply another in a growing line of managers who fall foul of club owners’ impatience.

While Harry’s was the headline sacking of the weekend, there were two other bosses clearing their desks further down the greasy pole of football management.

Port Vale told Michael Brown he was no long in their employ, while at Chesterfield Gary Caldwell had taken charge of the Spirites for the last time. Unlike Harry Redknapp, neither of them a household name, just more victims of the panic button.

But back to our Harry. Although he was and will still be a popular figure around the press rooms, his 34 years have hardly been littered with trophies to put him alongside some of the successful bosses in the game.

He was Premier League Manager of the Year in 2010, and he won the FA Cup with Portsmouth in 2008.

He can lay claim to success in the Football League Trophy with Bournemouth and the long buried and forgotten Inter-Toto Cup (which wasn’t even a proper cup) with West Ham, but that’s about it.

A total of 561 wins in 1,395 matches (40 per cent) hardly warrant legendary status.

He is now 70 years old and, in his own words, a realist, and expects the Birmingham job to be his last.

In the summer, he bought 14 new players and only a few days ago he was optimistic that he was building a team to challenge for the play-offs.

Today, after six straight defeats, the Blues sit next-to-bottom in the Championship – no better off than they were when he joined them.

Last year, he saved the club from relegation and was hailed a hero of St Andrews. Now he is unemployed and, like Frank de Boer, he knows it’s a cruel game this management lark.

ONE of the reasons I could never invite Lewis Hamilton round for a meal is that we would both probably be bored to death before the first course arrived.

I would be rambling on about rugby league’s weird play-off systems and the game’s versions of a scrum, and he would be trying to explain things like wet-weather tyres and how there is more to Formula One that just having the best car.

Of course, a handy little crash at the first corner that takes your biggest rivals out of the race before it’s really got going is a big help.

Hamilton was honest enough to suggest after winning the Singapore Grand Prix at the weekend that the Good Lord was on his side.

A bit like Foinavon in the Grand National of 50 years ago, he was too far back to get tangled up in the mess ahead.

‘Hamilton pulls off miracle win after biggest rivals take each other out at the first corner’ was how one headline registered the win that takes Hamilton 28 points clear of Sebastian Vettel in the world, with just six races to go championship chase.

With only six races to go Hamilton is now in pole position – to use the only F1 expression I know – to lift the title again, and I have little doubt that he will finish the job with something to spare.

I still won’t be able to invite him to dinner because we wouldn’t know what to talk about.

Meanwhile, I will go on wondering what Barrow Raiders have to do to get the crowds back to Craven Park. A healthy turn-out from Keighley boosted the gate to 1,000-plus on Sunday, but that is nowhere near enough for the club to build for a future in the Championship.

Perhaps Lewis Hamilton might have some advice on how to pull in the crowds ahead of this weekend’s semi-final against Newcastle Thunder. He doesn’t seem to do too badly.

HE scored just two goals in 15 games, he was overweight and unfit for purpose, and his new manager had no intention of picking him until he sorted himself out.

At least that was the plan.

But you don’t start your new job as a manager by telling the world’s highest-paid footballer that he’s fat. So you put him on the bench. He comes on, scores a goal, but his team lose 6-1.

That’s just a glimpse of life in the super rich world of Chinese football, where an unfit, overweight 33-year-old can pick up a reported £650,000 a week playing for Shanghai Shenhua.

Carlos Tevez was once a hero on both sides of Manchester (at different times, naturally), but it is unlikely he has reached such status in China. At least he can laugh all the way to the bank.