With Gareth Southgate having left on Tuesday, and Gordon Strachan’s appointment not expected to be confirmed until Monday, Colin Cooper will take charge of Middlesbrough for today’s game at Preston. Chief Sports Writer Scott Wilson met the caretaker to discuss one of the most difficult positions in the game.

WHEN Middlesbrough face Preston this afternoon, they will do so on the cusp of a new era.

Gareth Southgate is gone, Gordon Strachan is coming and for the weekend in between, the club exists in a strange state of flux.

The past and future stretch in divergent directions, and straddling the divide is a figure who has contributed more to Boro’s modern-day history than arguably any other figure.

When Colin Cooper takes his place in the dug-out at Deepdale, he will complete a full set of roles at the club he first joined as an apprentice in 1983.

He has been trainee, player, captain, Academy coach, reserve-team manager and first-team assistant. Today, he will finally get the opportunity to add manager to the list.

The circumstances of the transition are far from ideal – Cooper and Southgate were close friends as well as colleagues – but for 24 hours at least, a son of Sedgefield will aim to do his adopted club proud.

“I’ve been with Middlesbrough two thirds of my adult life, and that relationship will never waver,”

said Cooper, who made 420 appearances in two separate playing spells for the Teessiders.

“This football club has given me a great opportunity and I’ll never forget that. I’m very grateful to all the people who have given me the chance to cross over from playing to coaching and extend my career.

“The reason I’ve gone through the whole coaching procedure right up to Pro Licence is because I feel as though that’s where my future is. But all I can do is focus on this weekend and see what happens.

“I spoke to the chairman and chief executive on Wednesday, and they explained what they wanted over the next few days. That’s all I can focus on at the moment…”

The next sentence went unspoken, but Cooper is experienced enough to know that, with the arrival of a new manager imminent, the ‘next few days’ could be all he has left.

Strachan will arrive with new men and new ideas, and while Cooper is well-regarded amongst both the staff and players at Boro’s Rockliffe Park training ground, his future was plunged into doubt when Southgate was dismissed on Tuesday night.

Today’s game could be his last, a fact that underlines both the fickle nature of the football world and the difficulty of the circumstances in which he finds himself this afternoon.

“I’m big enough and man enough to realise that my elevation to first-team football was with a man who I played with and who I knew as a friend,” said Cooper.

“The new manager might have completely different ideas. He might not like me, he might not like what I do, he might not like the way I coach and he might not like the way I present myself. I have to accept that.

“I’ll always wear the Middlesbrough badge with pride, and I’ll always be part of Middlesbrough Football Club, whether I’m here or not. Of course I want to stay, but that decision is out of my hands.”

Loyalty, as the 42-year-old knows only too well, is not a concept that sits easily with the realities of a career in football.

Back in 1986, Cooper was a part of the Middlesbrough squad that endured life in liquidation. He queued at the gates of a locked Ayresome Park to get his kit and boots.

He trained at Albert Park and the Kirklevington Young Offenders’ Institute. He trudged to the Town Hall every fortnight to pick up his wages.

In short, he helped Middlesbrough Football Club through its darkest hour, yet after the club lost in the playoffs at the end of the 1990-91 season, manager Colin Todd effectively hung the defender out to dry when he signalled his intention to sell him.

Cooper joined Millwall, and while he would eventually return to Teesside seven years later, his loyalty in those difficult early years ultimately meant little.

After Tuesday, the same could be said of Southgate.

Plunged into his first managerial job with an instruction to trim the wage bill of an ageing squad, the former Middlesbrough skipper delivered three years of service with barely a hint of complaint at the constraints he was forced to operate within.

Last season’s relegation hurt him hard, yet after chairman Steve Gibson promised him an opportunity to make amends in the summer, the rug was pulled from under his feet this week.

Cooper was the first person Southgate spoke to in the wake of his dismissal, and the current caretaker admits it was an emotional moment when he learned of his former boss’ fate.

“Gareth spoke to the chairman and chief executive, and then came down and broke the news to me,” he said. “We were both in a state of shock.

“You’re up having got the reaction and result you wanted from the team, but then for things like that to happen was a massive surprise. We were both a bit dumbfounded, and I think everyone went home with all kinds of emotions.

“I don’t think there were many people who knew the news that slept on Tuesday night – I know I certainly didn’t.”

The next thing Cooper knew, Southgate was arriving at Rockliffe Park on Wednesday morning to start clearing his desk, but despite the suddenness of his departure, Boro’s recently deposed manager will be rooting for his former players to achieve a positive result today.

“I know for a fact I’ll be speaking to him at some stage over the weekend,” said Cooper.

“Hopefully, I might even get to take him and his wife out for dinner sometime soon.

“You don’t come and spend eight years of your life at a place and not have a bond.

Gareth has a real affinity with this football club and that will never go away. He lives in the area and has always said he has no reason to move south.

“He lives down in Yorkshire, and he’ll probably stay there for the rest of his life now.

Eight years out of your life at one place and you have a real affinity. As a captain, he wore the badge with pride, and as a manager, he managed this club with pride. That will never go away.”

The bond between Southgate and Middlesbrough survived some sustained abuse from the supporters at the Riverside, and while Gibson has hinted that the antipathy that was evident in recent weeks played a major role in Tuesday’s dismissal, Cooper insists it was something Southgate was perfectly capable of handling.

“Unless you’re Alex Ferguson and stay around for a long time, the one thing that is certain in football management is that you’ll be criticised in the end,” he said.

“You might be a hero figure at a club, like Gareth once was, but once you’re a manager, you can just as quickly become a hate figure.

“I’m not saying that the fans turned on Gareth to that extent, because I don’t think they did, but by the same token, nobody stays in management and doesn’t get stick.

“To lose your job at a football club, something has to go wrong.

“It’s difficult when you’ve been a hero figure, and then you get a certain amount of fans who start shouting for your head.

“We sat and listened and talked about it, and it’s not a nice thing to happen.

“But because of the guy he is, he took it on the chin and wanted desperately to get this football club back in the Premier League and turn those fans back in his favour.

Unfortunately, that’s not going to happen now.”

Whether Cooper remains in place to help finish the job for him remains to be seen.