There hasn’t been too much to shout about at Middlesbrough this season, but the performances of Matthew Bates have provided a series of highlights in an otherwise disappointing campaign. Andy Richardson met the latest Teessider to roll off the Rockliffe Park production line.

THE football scout from Marton FC had a knack for spotting gifted players. Show him a field of schoolboy footballers and he’d sort the headless chickens from the one who might just lay a golden egg.

His eight-year-old son was already at the Marton club, based just yards from the birthplace of Captain Cook. A skinny lad with a left foot so sweet you didn’t need to be an eagle-eyed football scout to see that one day he’d become a special player.

Both scout and son shared the same name – Stewart Downing.

But some days, even the best scouts take their eye off the ball.

Perhaps it was the distraction of the tombola or the lure of the face-painting stall, but after watching the five-a-side tournament at Links Primary School fete, Stewart Downing senior passed-up on young Matthew Bates and instead offered his mate Glen Hutchinson a place with Marton.

At the school fete, Bates and Hutchinson had both shone as part of the winning team of six and seven-year-olds who’d outplayed lads four years their senior to take the five-a-side trophy.

But Downing senior initially didn’t offer Bates a place at Marton and the youngster from Eaglescliffe felt the first painful clout in a career where his ability to recover from brutal blows would come to shape him as a man.

Bates’ determination eventually saw him join Marton and he quickly made an impact on the same pitch where former players like Jonathan Woodgate and Downing junior ensured the touchline was regularly littered with football scouts sniffing out new blood.

Nowadays, Bates rarely passes up an opportunity to rib his team-mate about his dad’s error of judgement.

“Yeah, Stewie’s dad was a rubbish scout,” joked Bates when he recalled the memory of his first big knock as a budding player.

Bates’ three cruciate ligament injuries that forestalled his emergence as the Boro Academy’s latest prodigy is the usual stepping off point for anyone looking to find what makes the 22-yearold tick.

But while Bates is happy to acknowledge that his injuries are part of him, he refuses to be defined by them.

“Each time I did my cruciate it hurt like hell but it never crossed my mind that my career was over. Cruciates are serious but can always be mended,” insisted Bates about a problem that, a couple of generations earlier, put paid to the career of Brian Clough.

“As much as the injuries are a part of me, it’s not something I look at and think ‘Oh God, this is terrible!’ I feel like I could face anything in football or anything in life after going through those injuries.”

Called-up for Stockton schools under-11s, Bates, the Boro fan whose dad, Brian, had taken him to Ayresome Park, caught the eye of Ron Bone, head of recruitment at Rockliffe Park. But Manchester United had their own scouts ferreting around Teesside.

“The game was where the cricket ground is in Marton and I played pretty well, in midfield funnily enough,” recalled Bates.

“Afterwards I went back to the car and my mam wasn’t there, which was strange. But when she turned up she told me the Man United scout had watched me and they were probably going to offer me a trial at Durham.”

Bates became part of Man United’s school of excellence, training in Birtley, near Chester-le-Street and, in the Easter holidays, travelling to the club’s training ground, The Cliff, where the likes of current Sunderland skipper Phil Bardsley were among the young blooms being nurtured by Alex Ferguson.

“I was with United from age nine until I was about 12, but when the Academy system came in they closed the Birtley centre. That’s when Middlesbrough came back in for me – my dad was well happy with that,” he admitted.

Bates was born in Stockton and brought up in Eaglescliffe, the middle sibling of three brothers. His family were Boro through and through and both his father and mother (Lesley) have been a huge influence on his career.

Bates has vague memories of being taken to Ayresome Park, but vividly recalls sitting in the stands with his father for the first game at the Riverside: “I was in the North-East corner, we beat Chelsea.

Craig Hignett scored and I seem to remember Jan Age Fjortoft scoring in our end – brilliant.”

It was during his time as an Academy trainee that Bates moved a step closer to making the transition from fan to player.

“I was a ball boy, standing behind Mark Schwarzer’s goal – it sticks in your mind. You’ve the crowd behind you and the players in front and you’re neither one thing nor the other at that stage,’’ he said. “But it felt like one minute later, I’m playing in front of Schwarzer in the UEFA Cup!

“It could feel surreal to go from being on the sidelines and then suddenly you’re one of 11 playing for Boro. Some lads really struggle to go from being an avid fan to player and just can’t handle it. But for me it just felt right.”

After starring in the Middlesbrough side who won the 2004 FA Youth Cup alongside emerging talent like Adam Johnson, David Wheater, Tony McMahon and his great friend Lee Cattermole, Bates made his first-team breakthrough.

In front of a live television audience on December 6, 2004, the then 17-year-old was an injury-time replacement for Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink in Boro’s 3-2 victory over Manchester City.

He moved to Darlington later that year to gain more first-team experience.

“Darlington was brilliant and of the three loan moves I’ve had was probably the most successful in terms of what it did for my career,” said Bates. “Proc (Mark Proctor), who knew me from his time at Boro, and David Hodgson were great with me.

“I still look out for Darlo’s results and always will have good memories of my time there. It was a difficult league and stood me in good stead for coming back to Boro. I made my full debut against Tottenham the next season.”

Playing alongside Gareth Southgate, Bates made 28 appearances in his breakthrough season, which climaxed in his man-of-thematch performance in the UEFA Cup semi-final against Steaua Bucharest.

Had the young centrehalf’s rapid ascent continued unchecked, Bates could have become the heir to Southgate.

But during a loan spell at Ipswich, Bates tore a cruciate ligament and partially tore his left medial ligament. It was a month before Christmas, but his season was already over.

“Any parent reading this will know how my mam and dad must have felt,” he said.

“But they were brilliant and made sure I got through it.” Lesley remebered how she felt at the time. “It was horrendous,” she said.

After making a full recovery, Bates injured his other knee during a preseason game at Darlington and was sidelined for months.

“I learned a lot from being injured. It was a two-year period when I grew up a lot as a person and I also watched a lot more football than I’d have liked,” he said.

“But I learned a lot from watching other players. In terms of defenders, I admire Ricardo Carvalho, Jamie Carragher, Jagielka at Everton. I like the way they position themselves. You have to learn from top players, I’m watching midfielders a lot now.”

Bates’ strength of character was to be tested yet again when he suffered the third, and hopefully final, blow when damaging his left knee on loan for Norwich City against Hull.

“I don’t see myself as being unlucky – far from it,’’ he admitted. “Boro sent me to a sports rehab centre in France for six weeks where I saw rugby players who were in wheelchairs, so I’m the lucky one.”

Bates’ face didn’t appear on the club’s official team photo at the start of the current campaign.

“Yeah, I was away injured,” he noted ruefully. “I set myself a target of getting fit and playing ten games this season.

If someone had said you’ll end up playing 15 times and end up in midfield I’d have laughed at them. But to be honest, if we don’t stay up, I’ll not feel happy about my own achievements.”

Bates has had a remarkable and, aside from his sending off against Portsmouth, positive season.

His first professional goal earlier this month that helped Boro to a precious 3-1 victory over Hull had a particular poignancy for the club’s medical team.

“Grant Downie (head of medical) told me he had a tear in his eye when I scored the goal against Hull,” he said.

“He’ll hate me for saying it but it’s true. Grant is regarded as probably the best physio in football and I owe him and Nick Allenby (club physio) an awful lot.”