‘Really sad’ The Apprentice star shares poignant confession after ‘extraordinary’ firing – and reveals number one mistake he made at the very start of series

Harry Clough became the eleventh candidate to be sacked on Thursday’s episode of The Apprentice.

The financial sales manager, from Battersea, London, said goodbye to his £250,000 investment and partnership with Lord Sugar in the latest episode of the BBC programme.

Harry followed in the footsteps of his fired co-stars Rajan Gill, Megan Ruiter, Carrington Saunders, Andrea Cooper, Vanessa Tetteh-Squire, Roxanne Hamedi, Tanmay Hingorani, Marcus Donkoh, Georgina Newton and Nikki Jetha.

As viewers will recall, the first episode saw two teams sent to Hong Kong and tasked with completing the classic scavenger hunt challenge.

They were required to find a certain number of items within a certain time, but both teams failed badly, with Lord Sugar revealing before the episode aired that a “heated exchange” had been cut from the premiere following their “shocking” performances.

Lord Sugar then decided to allow the teams to have a second trial on the Isle of Wight.

The financial sales manager from Battersea, London, bids farewell to his £250,000 investment and Lord Sugar partnership in the latest episode of the BBC show

Unfortunately, Kieran McCartney and his team lost the assignment, meaning he had to pick two co-stars to get back into the boardroom.

The estate agent decided to bring back Harry and Conor Galvin, and Lord Sugar decided to get rid of Harry because he bought the stand-up paddle board too expensive.

Asked how he felt after being fired, Harry said: ‘It was phenomenal.

‘I mean, it was such a strange experience to see Lord Sugar pointing and then saying ‘you’re fired’, it was quite surreal.

‘I felt it coming because I was in the meeting room with Kieran and Conor, the biggest characters in the show.

‘So I thought I had no chance against these guys.

But then I was really sad. I loved the whole process, the shoot was crazy and everything was amazing.

‘But then you leave and you don’t see them again and then you go back to normal life.

The final episode saw the remaining 10 candidates given a chance to escape the disastrous scavenger hunt in Hong Kong earlier in the series.

The Apprentice airs Thursdays at 9pm on BBC One and is available to watch on iPlayer

‘I was happy to get this far, but I had absolutely no courage to go.’

And when asked if he thought he deserved it, Harry added: ‘I mean, there’s a lot of debate about SUP (stand up paddleboarding).

‘I think it was the right decision to buy it there.

‘Of course it was unfortunate that the other team bought a second-hand one, but that was out of my control.

‘I don’t think it was entirely because of me and I think there were other things going on too, but everyone did the job so well so it would always come down to the smallest thing.

‘At the end of the day, someone had to be fired.’

He also thinks the wrong person was sent home.

Harry said: ‘I would say it’s very close and I think it’s very easy to blame a Prime Minister and put the blame on them.

‘When I was in the boardroom I was saying Kieran should be sacked because obviously there was a joke about them having a day out with a lad and tasting wine and stuff like that.

‘They went against Kieran’s slogan about what we should do in terms of pricing in terms of doing it quickly.

‘But they also got really good deals. So I think it was very close.

‘It was very difficult and when it came to me, Conor and Kieran, it was always going to be me.’

It comes after candidate Rajan launched an attack on Levi Hague last week, saying he should be sacked instead for ‘putting himself out there’ more than his opponent.

Last Thursday, Lord Sugar was seen tasking the remaining candidates with creating a virtual reality demo of a new game and designing a brand that will score investments.

The losing team, led by Lawrence Rosenburg, opted to create an aerobics game in which large frogs chase the user, but they only received £55,000 worth of investment.

It was a stark contrast to the opposing team, which featured Harry Clough and, thanks to Karishma Vijay’s gaming expertise, romped to victory by investing £205,000 in their futuristic running game.

Lawrence, 28, decided to bring Levi and Rajan back to the boardroom to face Lord Sugar’s wrath – but ended up giving Rajan the task.

Dissenting from the decision, he said: ‘Ultimately Lord Sugar makes the decision based on the task and overall performance and I respect that. But to be honest, I don’t think I deserved to be fired.

‘One of the things Lord Sugar said to me before he kicked me out was that he didn’t feel like he could see much of me during this process.

‘But if I had the chance to talk to him now, I would remind him that I was deputy Prime Minister twice during the process. I think I’ve had three corporate negotiations throughout the process where each negotiation outweighed and brought down the other team.

‘And I give my all to every single task, and I feel like there are some people who don’t and they need to face the repercussions themselves.’

Featured former co-star Levi, he added: ‘I didn’t see much in terms of consistency throughout the process.

‘I think he was once deputy prime minister in the first stint in Hong Kong, and I feel like I put a lot more of myself in there than he did…’

The Apprentice airs on Thursdays at 9pm on BBC One and can be watched on iPlayer.