Source: Daily_Mail
EXCLUSIVE: Gareth Southgate, one of football’s nice guys, faces up to his demons as the d
Gareth Southgate turned up, that was the first surprise. Actually, he was even a little early for his engagement at an office within the drab boundaries of a charmless Middlesbrough business park.[LNB]He signed autographs and was polite and accommodating to just about all who crossed his path and, when he adjourned to have photographs taken on the banks of the Tees, he was obliging and helpful and nobly resisted the temptation to throw himself into the river below.[LNB]Normally, such basic human courtesy would be unremarkable, but this is football. Southgate is the manager of a club that appears increasingly destined for relegation,coming off the back of a 4-1 defeat at Bolton Wanderers. A lot of his contemporarieswould have ducked public engagements but adversity is more likely to bring him out.[LNB]He is a serial facer of music. He sees it as his duty. 'Stuart Pearce used to say that heknew my team's result, even with the sound down,' Southgate says. 'If I was on television, he knew we'd lost.'[LNB]Southgate had arrived directly from a team meeting at the training ground in which much of the talk had been about responsibility, on and off the field. 'When I got into the club this week I noticed that there were a lot of requests for our players, because so much of what we do involves the local community,' he adds. 'So, when we had themeeting about the Bolton game, I said that this is the time we have to front up, go intothe community, go into the schools, go to functions and whatever comes our way. Thatis part of the job.[LNB] A troubled man gazes into the Tees. He didn't jump, but he'll soon be heading for the choppy waters of the Championship unless he can grasp a lifeline...[LNB]'We've got to understand that we have not achieved as expected and take the flak. Welike the pats on the back when it's going well, but now there is no hiding place. I knowwhat other people might be like. I've seen it.[LNB]'But I was always the sort of player who went in front of the camera in defeat, and with such a young group of players I've got to give them a path in life, not just in football. That includes educating them on how to conduct themselves in public.'[LNB]The Middlesbrough manager is, you may already have gathered, one of the good guys.His chairman, Steve Gibson, is too. Asked to pick a club to survive the relegation scrap, most neutrals would identify Middlesbrough for this reason. Gibson is evangelistic about the need for a football club to invest in its young people and be a driving force within its community; Southgate is the managerial novice he chose to execute this project.[LNB] Middlesbrough are not a lost cause, insists their survival expert O'Neill Southgate safe as Boro chairman Gibson vows to stand by his manDES KELLY: For Middlesbrough's sake it's time to go, Gareth SouthgateBolton 4 Middlesbrough 1: Southgate: I'm not going to fall on my swordMIDDLESBROUGH FC
