NOW HAS GARETH GOT WHAT IT TAKES TO GO ALL THE WAY?
A champion triple jumper and a 200m flying machine who survived a ‘bear pit’ at Crystal Palace and is making England fans believe again...
PERCHED outside the cattle truck that doubles up as a dressing room, 13-year-old Gareth Southgate cannot stop smiling as he savours his first international football experience.
Hazelwick Comprehensive School from Crawley are on tour to the French village of Vernouillet and with no changing room in sight, a local farmer provides an alternative for boys to put on shirts and shorts for a match against nearby Nicolas Robert college.
Five-star luxury it ain’t, but for the youngest member of Hazelwick’s team, it is an adventure as exciting as the one he faces this summer, taking England to the World Cup finals in Russia.
‘Gareth was the one everyone noticed and talked about. He was likeable, admired and considered in what he said, even as a young boy,’ recalls David Palmer, the teacher in charge of the England manager’s inaugural overseas trip.
‘We had to borrow kit and there were no changing rooms but he took everything on board, saw the funny side.
‘He stood out both for his talent and the way he was off the pitch. He was an ambassador who got his first lesson in international relations when we were welcomed by the local mayor, who gave a very nice speech.’
Southgate grew up in Crawley from the age of eight. Before then, his family — parents Clive and Barbara, sister Michelle — moved around due to his father’s job as a facilities manager at IBM. His first lesson in the rough-and-tumble of football came aged three when he chased a ball at home, ran into a glass door and cut his head open.
From Clive, Southgate inherited stoicism — he never heard swearing at home — and sporting talent. Dad was an athletics coach and ran his son’s first Sunday League team, Crawley Traders, who held training sessions in a multi-storey car park because it was well-lit in winter.
‘Gareth did a lot of athletics,’ says Palmer, who taught at the school for 38 years. ‘He was county champion at triple jump and held the Hazelwick record for years. He was also one of the best 200 metre sprinters in the district.
‘He played basketball and rugby too. He was a fly-half, which gives a clue to his football talent.’
Southgate’s head of PE was Steve Avory, now academy director at Charlton Athletic. ‘I love to tell our boys about Gareth. That he was this well-spoken, polite young man who didn’t appear to have a steely determination off the field, but was a hell of a competitor on it.’
At 14, Southgate missed a lot of football due to a condition called Osgood-Schlatter disease, which causes knee pain in growing adolescents. Yet, two years later, Crystal Palace offered him an apprenticeship.
‘He was bright enough to do A-levels if he’d stayed on,’ stressed Palmer. ‘But he was pretty focused on what he wanted to do. Nobody at school tried to talk him out of following his dream.’ ‘CRYSTAL PALACE’S dressing room was full of characters,’ says Geoff Thomas, captain of their 1990 FA Cup final side. ‘Ian Wright was bouncing off the walls, Andy Gray and I competed for everything. It wasn’t a case of initiation but survival.’
Joining the streetwise band of brothers in the first team was Southgate’s aspiration, but getting through the youth team and reserves was just as hard.
Alan Smith, then youth team manager, says: ‘The young players cleaned boots in cold water and usually had to shower in cold water after the boiler had been used up.
‘Our training ground at Mitcham was a pretty dirty place. One toilet between 40 blokes. For away games, we’d cram 14 players and the kit into one mini-van. The banter could be harsh.’
For the well-mannered Southgate, it was a culture shock. A big turning point came at 16 when Smith felt he needed to dish out the mother of all rollickings, ending with the clear message: ‘You have to f****** toughen up. Otherwise, no f****** chance.’
It was left to senior pro Gary O’Reilly, who used to drop Gareth home after training, to pick up the pieces.
‘Alan was very forthright and Gareth was upset. I don’t think anyone had spoken to him like that in his life,’ says O’Reilly, who now lives and works in New York. ‘He was being tested and asked to prove that he had what it takes to make it.’
Despite the harsh words, Smith and Southgate remain close friends to this day.
After a hundred reserve-team games, a breakthrough came in 1990 when Southgate and best pal Andy Woodman were named in Steve Coppell’s FA Cup final squad to face Manchester United, though there were ulterior motives behind the decision.
‘Gareth and Woody were our gofers,’ smiles Thomas. ‘ We had a players’ pool and they were the go-betweens with agent Eric Hall. He had Gareth hopping about doing all sorts. If we needed an umbrella or the right newspaper for a photoshoot, his job was to get it.’
As consolation, Southgate was allowed to join the traditional pre - match walkabout at Wembley. He learned how to survive in an environment akin to Wimbledon’s Crazy Gang.
‘He’d do it in a different way from everyone else. He used his humour, sharp enough to bat anyone back who gave him stick,’ adds Thomas. ‘I remember all the players going to a nightclub called Bananas and I got involved in a fracas. I was splashed all over the papers while Gareth stayed out of it. He was much more sensible.
‘We knew on the pitch if you ever needed him, he’d be there for you. But off it, he was a thinker, not a fighter.’
Coppell’s team broke up, Thomas left after relegation in 1993 and Smith became manager and made a 22-year- old Southgate his captain. Two years later, Southgate’s own career would outgrow Selhurst Park. But what he learned would stay with him.
‘Crystal Palace was a bear pit really,’ he says. ‘But that doesn’t mean you can’t say hello to the tea lady.’ GOOD management is taking the best bits from people you have worked with, and discarding the worst. One ceremony carried out by his Aston Villa boss John Gregory will definitely not be repeated by Southgate in Russia.
‘John would join in our warm-ups before matches wearing the captain’s armband. Then back in the dressing room he’d place it on Gareth’s arm in front of the other lads,’ reveals Villa team-mate Steve Watson.
‘I don’t think we’ll be seeing the same kind of thing between Gareth and Harry Kane!’
The year of 1996 was pivotal for Southgate. He got engaged to Alison, won his first major trophy at Villa, the League Cup, and became an established international,
He was being tested, Alan Smith told him ‘you have to toughen up or you have no f****** chance’
only for a missed semifinal penalty against Germany at Euro 96 to make him an unwanted news sensation. Though Southgate tried to use humour — ‘The wedding’s still on, she’s not kicked me out over this,’ he said — his mum was so upset by the tone of coverage she has never done a media interview since.
But at Villa, Southgate’s style of leadership began to mark him out as management material.
‘He was like your parents. You’d prefer them to give you a kick up the backside than give a disapproving look, because you respected them so much,’ said Watson.
‘He was Skip. Meticulous in training but not a barker like a Roy Keane. Villa had a ruthless card school with Mark Draper, David James, Mark Bosnich and Julian Joachim. I wandered over as the newbie and heard Gareth tell me, “Are you sure?”
‘He was right. I only did the one session. They were heavy games, not for the faint-hearted.
‘Gareth looked after me. In 1999, I wanted to get back early from a club jolly in Magaluf to watch Newcastle in the Cup final. I’d had a few heavy nights and wasn’t in the best shape so Gareth and Ugo Ehiogu came back to babysit me on the plane and made sure I got to Wembley.’
Southgate hung up his boots at Middlesbrough in 2006 to become a manager, having won two League Cups and 57 England caps.
Glenn Hoddle, who took him to the 1998 World Cup, was a big fan of playing a back three, which Southgate is likely to use this summer.
‘Gareth was initially happiest in the centre. He felt he could be exposed being dragged out wide against pace,’ says Hoddle. ‘But we went through things, allowed him to move over earlier to mark, and were able to use him as the rightsided defender with Tony Adams in the middle. Gareth was always comfortable on the ball nice and wide.’
Four years later, Southgate was in Sven Goran Eriksson’s squad for the Japan World Cup but did not play. ‘He came to me privately and asked what he could do better to improve,’ says Eriksson. ‘When a player does that, sits and talks about things, you think they may become a coach or manager. His attitude was unusual. Some players do it but very few of them.’
In the Far East, he found a kindred spirit in Martin Keown, at their third tournament together.
‘After we were knocked out at Euro 2000, the pair of us stayed up into the small hours talking about what England did and didn’t do,’ recalls Keown. ‘Gareth was calm and studious. He sucked up knowledge.’
Southgate was ready for management. His first job at Middlesbrough lasted three years and he reacted to the sack by staying up into the early hours making a list of things that had to be returned, like his club car and mobile phone.
England soon identified him as the man to help rebuild the country’s decaying football philosophy. In 2013, he took over the Under 21s and three years later landed the biggest job of all. PLENTY of new friends have been made during Southgate’s career but it is striking how old ones have remained, not always the case in football.
Local Crystal Palace reporter Mark Demuth, who met Southgate in 1991, went on to enjoy his own successful career as a senior executive for ITV Sport and in a neat twist hired Southgate as pundit in 2012.
‘Gareth is as approachable now as when he made his Palace debut,’ says Demuth. ‘He makes a point of spending time with the production team, getting to know their names and what their roles are.’
Southgate and Woodman wrote a joint- autobiography in 2004 entitled Woody and Nord, a reference to Southgate’s nickname chosen by Palace coach Wally Downes, who thought he sounded like TV presenter Denis Norden. ‘Gareth used words we couldn’t understand and wore clothes we wouldn’t have been buried in,’ wrote Woodman in a way only close friends can get away with.
Thomas, who fought a successful battle against cancer and now raises funds for Cure Leukaemia, has also stayed close and last year enlisted Southgate’s help to win financial backing from Deutsche Bank. ‘I asked if he’d mind recording a personal message to post on social media so we could raise awareness,’ says Thomas. ‘He sent one within two minutes. He’s a busy guy but has helped us for years. He’s special. It shows the bond we all had at Palace.’
Smith, the youth coach whose tough love prepared him for professional football, has remained Southgate’s close confidant for more than 30 years and chaperones his proud parents to Wembley when England are at home.
‘ People have always underestimated Gareth,’ says Smith. ‘They see his good manners as a weakness. In fact it’s a strength.’
Southgate will sing the national anthem in Russia in memory of his grandfather Arthur Toll, a former Royal Marine. He doesn’t forget his roots. MICHAEL OWEN’S solo goal against Argentina aged 18 had a profound effect on watching teammate Southgate, who has never lost the conviction that young English players are as gifted as anyone given the right encouragement and coaching.
‘It can’t be genetic,’ says Southgate. The squad he has selected for this World Cup reflects that.
Away from senior football for seven years after being sacked by Middlesbrough, he studied the game at every level.
That included watching son Flynn play for junior teams in Harrogate, beginning with the Beckwithshaw Under 7s. He was known to make bacon sandwiches and sell cups of tea to help out.
The FA appointed him to work alongside Sir Trevor Brooking in 2011 on their youth development review. The following year however, Southgate left the organisation, frustrated by a lack of support from Premier League clubs.
He was especially upset by the Under 20s having to go to the World Cup without 30 players from his age group. ‘A lot of those guys were wanted by their clubs for preseason tours, covering for foreign players who had played for their country over the summer. It was incredible and bad for the English national team,’ says Southgate.
Perhaps this ruthlessness helped him call time on Wayne Rooney’s England career and leave Joe Hart out of his World Cup squad in favour of three rookies.
Now, he faces his biggest challenge yet.