With a nod and a wink, the return of Arry the Geezer

The wink said it all. Harry Redknapp gave Luka Modric the thumbs-up when he scored the goal that secured Tottenham Hotspur's first win of the season and the old campaigner's faced creased up into a knowing wink. It was the gesture of the wide-boy, the signal of the streetwise. It said Harry's back in town, with all that can mean.

For Spurs, it seemed like the cloud that has darkened White Hart Lane was lifted as Redknapp led them to their 2-0 win over Bolton.

"Redknapp the Miracle Man" read one headline. That will make him smile. Redknapp, football's favourite fireman, knows better than anyone he is back in London to perform the miraculous. Rescuing Spurs may be one thing, but at 61 Redknapp may feel he has another feat to perform before he heads for a quiet life on the golf course.

The Poplar lad who became football's quintessential cockney wants to dispel a cloud of his own. Just under a year ago he was arrested by the City of London police in connection with a corruption inquiry. It dragged on for months, engulfing Redknapp in suspicion though he protested his innocence.

Many remembered that Readies Redknapp, as he has cheekily been called, had featured in unsubstantiated gossip about brown envelopes and deals in dark car parks.

Lord Stevens cleared him when he conducted his football corruption inquiry but as the City of London police investigation continued, tongues wagged. Redknapp successfully brought a case in the High Court, claiming wrongful arrest, then last month it was announced he was in the clear. Now Redknapp is talking about suing the police.

Redknapp would like to close his career with triumph at Tottenham. He also wants to banish the reputation that, rightly or wrongly, has dogged him for years. At Tottenham, he is where he likes to be firmly in the limelight.

His return to London may be a once-in-a-lifetime football opportunity, but it's also a chance to live down the unfounded rumour and innuendo and tidy up his place in history.

It's been half a century since an 11-year-old Redknapp, a promising schoolboy player full of dreams, ran on to the hallowed Spurs turf for a junior try-out. "You'll never be another Stanley Matthews", the gaffer, Bill Nicholson, told him. Perhaps not. But those who care about London football may feel Redknapp is uniquely placed now to save Spurs from the looming humiliation of relegation.

He did it for West Ham and Ports-mouth. Now, with Tottenham at the bottom of the table, despite spending £70 million on new players last summer, Redknapp knows the only way is up. He also knows he is in the forefront of what some believe is the beginning of a revolution.

Spurs chairman Daniel Levy is a much chastened man. He has championed a European-style coaching regime which, many believe, is long past its sell-by date.

Across the Premier League, in boardrooms and on the pitch, it seems a lesson is being learned: foreign does not always mean better.

It is an issue which dates back to 1996 and the appointment of Arsene Wenger as manager of Arsenal. An erudite and thoughtful Frenchman, Wenger imported new training methods, tactics and sports science from Europe.

The results were immediate and spectacular. Arsenal's display case groaned with trophies and the team went on to cement their place in the League's Big Four without having to find anything like the vast sums being spent by rivals Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool.

Wenger was hailed a genius. In a bid to break into the Big Four, Levy borrowed the idea of a two-tiered management structure from Europe's leading clubs. Rather than the traditional British model of a dominant manager, such as Sir Alex Ferguson, who picks the team and decides which players to buy, Spurs divided the roles.

As a result, since Levy has run Spurs, a director of football has operated alongside a manager. So, the English duo of David Pleat and Glenn Hoddle became Denmark's Frank Arnesen with Holland's Martin Jol, who were eventually replaced by the Frenchman Damien Comolli, a former scout of Wenger's at Arsenal, and Juande Ramos from Spain.

The system has been in place for decades on the Continent, but many believe it no longer has a place in the Premier League. So it has proved at Spurs. They are the richest club in Europe never to have played in the Champions League. At almost every Annual General Meeting of Spurs shareholders, Levy has been asked to explain why he persists with a structure that almost inevitably promotes internal conflict.

Levy has always been defiant, arguing that if it can work in Europe there is no reason it can't work here. It shows just how far Spurs have fallen under Ramos and Comolli that he was prepared to scrap the cherished two-tiered 'European way' in one ruthless weekend.

"Following a meeting of the directors and a full review of our football management structure, Damien will not be directly replaced," admitted Spurs' crestfallen chairman.

"In [appointing] Harry, we are also accepting with his appointment that now is the right time for us to move back to a more traditional style of football management at our club."

Tottenham are not alone in going back to the old-school, home-grown route Newcastle have recently appointed another veteran in Joe Kinnear, Manchester City's new Abu Dhabi owners have stuck with Mark Hughes and Hull's Phil Brown is arguably this season's manager of the year.

However, the speed of Levy's U-turn has surprised many fans who fear the club is panicking in the wake a woeful start.

Ramos was a highly-rated Spanish coach whom Spurs had courted for several months before he was expensively recruited from Seville last October.

By 11pm on Saturday night, however, he was out of a job having received a personal visit from Levy shortly after he delivered the same news to Comolli.

The sackings were the culmination of a manic 48 hours which followed last Thursday's humiliating 2-0 UEFA Cup defeat at Udinese after which star defender Jonathan Woodgate labelled the team "rudderless".

By Friday lunchtime, Levy had not only decided a new man at the helm was required, but that it should be Redknapp, a candidate for a previous Spurs vacancy and also well known to the club through his friendship with former vice-chairman Paul Kemsley.

Levy contacted Peter Storrie, the Portsmouth chief executive, who reluctantly gave his manager permission to talk to Spurs. By 9pm, Redknapp and his agent Phil Smith had arrived at Levy's home, near Cuffley, Hertfordshire, for a meeting at which the club's lawyer was also present. Five hours later, broad agreement had been reached for Redknapp to become Tottenham's new manager on a three-year contract worth around £3 million a year.

It was then left for Levy, who was determined to have Redknapp in place for the Bolton game, to complete the formalities by agreeing a £5m compensation fee with Portsmouth and telling Comolli and Ramos of their fates. Assistant coaches Gus Poyet and Marcos Alvarez were also axed. Late on Saturday night, the club released a statement and the following morning Redknapp was giving media interviews as Spurs' new manager.

Friends of Redknapp say it was too good an opportunity for him to turn down, particularly as financial worries at Portsmouth could force key players to be sold in January. Despite a strong record in both coaching and transfer dealing in more than 25 years as a manager, he has yet to work at any of the game's big clubs. A desire to coach the English side was frustrated when he lost out to Fabio Capello.

Redknapp's "Flash Harry" image has its roots in London's East End. He was born near the docks where his father worked and he left school without qualifications. But he was a useful footballer and did an apprenticeship at West Ham's youth academy, later gaining brief success crossing balls to the legendary Geoff Hurst.

But he never made it as a player and tried street trading and car dealing before beginning his coaching career at Bournemouth. That led to seven years at West Ham memorably saving them from relegation in 1997 before falling out with former chairman Terry Brown in 2001. A year later, he re-emerged at Portsmouth where, after winning promotion to the Premier League, another row, this time with former Pompey owner Milan Mandaric, led to him quitting Fratton Park in 2004 and joining bitter rivals Southampton.

That move was a disaster and, after relegation from the Premier League, he was offered his old job back at Portsmouth which he saved from relegation in 2005 and led to the FA Cup last season.

Redknapp knows his wide-boy image may have damaged him and he would be the first to say he has been a victim of the fashion for appointing more glamorous foreign coaches. Now, at Tottenham, he is well-placed to mitigate some of that.

He will have to forsake his South Coast lifestyle for now, a sacrifice he might have been unwilling to make for anything less than a top job.

He lives in a £10 million house at Sandbanks, Dorset, the multi-millionaires' enclave overlooking Poole harbour. He likes socialising with his wealthy neighbours and enjoys a trip to the races, especially if one of his own horses is running.

He may have to put that on hold for a while. Tottenham won convincingly against Bolton and the team seems to have been inspired by Redknapp's command. They will need to be. On Wednesday, Spurs face the old enemy, Arsenal.