Source: Northern_Echo
Legend Southgate leaves with reputation in tatters
HE is the only player in Middlesbrough’s 133-year history to lift a major trophy, and also led the club to the final of the UEFA Cup.
He won 57 international caps for England and played in two European Championships and a World Cup finals.
Yet for both club and country, Gareth Southgate will now be remembered as a failure rather than a success.
Were he to advertise a leading Parmo outlet in the next few days instead of Pizza Hut, the correlation would be complete.
Football has always been an unforgiving game, but it would be particularly cruel if Southgate’s achievements were to be diminished by his failures as both a penaltytaker and a boss.
That, though, is the footballer’s lot. A plethora of triumphs mean little when things suddenly start to go wrong.
“I think people still have a certain view of me and I don’t think that’s ever going to change,” said Southgate, after he was asked to discuss his career as a whole earlier this season. “That’s part and parcel of my life and I live with it every day.
“People still go past and whisper, ‘That’s the guy who missed the penalty’. Such is life – you play for 15 years and people remember 15 seconds.”
Now, however, they will remember 15 seconds of action and a season-and-a-half of strife. If Southgate the player missed by an inch or two, many Middlesbrough supporters will claim that Southgate the manager missed by a mile.
BORN in Watford in September 1970, Southgate had played for both Crystal Palace and Aston Villa by the time his life changed irrevocably in the summer of 1996.
Having played a pivotal role in England’s charge to the semi-finals of the European Championships, the centre-half’s missed penalty proved decisive as Terry Venables’ side lost to Germany at Wembley.
By his own admission, it took him more than two years to overcome the pain of such a public humiliation, but after a self-deprecating advert helped remove the stigma that hung like a noose around his neck, Southgate learned how to turn the lowest point of his career into a source of motivation and perspective.
That was to prove invaluable, and enable him to retain his equanimity and dignity when things started to go against him in the latter stages of his Middlesbrough career.
“I’ve experienced the lowest point any individual can experience, and I came through it,” said Southgate.
“Football is the be all and end all while you’re doing it, but you learn there are other things in life.
“After the penalty miss, I had letters from handicapped people and people who had lost close relatives - people from all walks of life at that time – and that put my life into perspective. It’s something I’ve held on to ever since.”
FOR the majority of his Middlesbrough career as a player, however, such perspective was unnecessary.
Signed as Steve McClaren’s marquee capture in July 2001 and rapidly installed as captain, Southgate immediately became a firm fans’ favourite at the Riverside.
He won Middlesbrough’s Player of the Year award in his first season at the club, and wrote his name into Teesside folklore when he lifted the Carling Cup at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium in February 2004.
The 2-1 final win over Bolton secured Boro’s first major trophy, and kick-started a golden two-year run that saw the club finish seventh in the Premier League, reach the FA Cup semi-final and enjoy successive European campaigns, one of which saw the ‘Small town in Europe’ travel all the way to the UEFA Cup final in Eindhoven.
That game, which ended in a 4-0 defeat to Sevilla, proved to be Southgate’s last as a player, and it remains the high point of a period that might not be repeated for decades to come.
Speaking on the eve of the final in Holland, the beaming skipper spoke of his pride at being part of a transformation that had echoes of the success enjoyed by the likes of Derby County, Ipswich Town and Nottingham Forest in a different era of the English game.
“I’m extremely proud of my role in taking Middlesbrough forward,” said Southgate.
“One of the things Steve told me when he was trying to get me to join was that it’s great to go to a big club and want to win things, but sometimes you can take more satisfaction from building something right from the start.
“I have to admit I wasn’t sure about that at the time, and I certainly wasn’t sure about it after the first three months. But, ultimately, it proved to be more satisfying.
“To be a part of the team that won Middlesbrough’s first trophy was a fantastic feeling and you can see the pleasure that this cup run has given to the people in the town.
“We’re building Middlesbrough as a place on the map – not just the club. It’s okay achieving things but, if you can’t share it with people, it doesn’t really mean very much.
“I feel that we are sharing this with everybody that was jumping up and down after the games against Basle and Steaua Bucharest.”
Unfortunately, over the course of the next three seasons, Southgate’s relationship with those supporters would be fractured to the point of no return.
MIDDLESBROUGH confirmed their former captain’s appointment as Mc- Claren’s managerial successor in June 2006, and were immediately forced to mount a forceful campaign against a sceptical League Managers’ Association who were concerned at Southgate’s lack of a Pro Licence.
His first match as boss was anything but auspicious – Boro lost 3-2 at Reading’s Madejski Stadium despite taking a 2-0 lead – but his maiden campaign ended with the Teessiders in a creditable 12th position.
A summer of upheaval followed though, with Boro losing the services of Mark Viduka and Aiyegbeni Yakubu before breaking their transfer record to secure Brazilian Afonso Alves.
Whether Southgate was the driving force behind the Alves transfer is a matter of some debate, but the £12.7m flop became a stick with which the club’s supporters were able to beat him.
That beating became increasingly intense at the end of the following season, with a Boro side shorn of a number of experienced players suffering relegation.
Southgate had been instructed to slash his budget in the face of falling attendances, but many of his signings failed to flourish and a chronic lack of attacking firepower eventually proved crucial.
Nevertheless, Steve Gibson and Keith Lamb opted to keep the faith, and handed him a chance to turn things around in the Championship.
“We didn’t achieve what we wanted to, so collectively we failed and, as a manager, I failed,” said a candid Southgate earlier this summer.
“You can’t hide behind finance.
I made certain decisions and certain players didn’t deliver. So collectively we didn’t get there.
“I don’t want to hide behind finance. It’s not a time to be making excuses, and in the division we’re going into, we’ll have one of the highest wage bills. So we’ve nowhere to hide.”
The truth of that final statement is apparent this morning. In many ways, Southgate will bequeath a club in an enviable position.
Middlesbrough are a point of the Championship summit, and boast the best away record in the league.
Yet like so much else in his career, those successes will mean little. He might be a Middlesbrough legend to rank alongside Mannion, Camsell, Slaven and Juninho, but Southgate left the club earlier this week with his reputation in tatters.
