HAVING been invited for a post-match meeting with chairman Steve Gibson at the Riverside last Tuesday, Gareth Southgate was expecting a celebratory drink after a return to winning ways and was preparing to ask for a new striker. Instead he got the sack.

That was the final moments of Southgate’s time as Middlesbrough manager. To rub salt into the wounds, he found out the next day that Gordon Strachan had been interviewed to replace him two weeks earlier.

The events of last Tuesday, having led his players to a 2-0 win over Derby County before being sacked in the boardroom as midnight approached, will live with Southgate forever.

“The whole thing was surreal,” said Southgate. “It was normal for me to go to see the chairman in the boardroom after a home game. It was usually a happy experience if we’d won. I didn’t have the slightest inkling I was in trouble. We’d won the game, I’d spoken to the media and had a celebration drink with my staff. After a difficult few weeks, there was a positive mood around the place. As I walked up to see Steve, I thought about asking him about signing a striker on loan.”

Southgate soon realised things were not normal in the boardroom and things were about to change.

“After the handshake, Steve always asks me what I want to drink. But this time there was no offer,” said Southgate.

“He said there was something he needed to talk about. Even then, I didn’t get it. He seemed serious but I thought it might be about someone else, not me.

“Then he told me straight that he’d been monitoring the team’s results over the season and that poor results meant I was losing my job. It didn’t sink in, it was so unexpected.

I was too stunned to mount a defence. I regret now that I didn’t say a few things, like the fact we were only one point off the top of the table.

“It wouldn’t have changed his mind but it might have made me feel better. I’ve heard different reasons since then for my sacking – low crowds was one. I understand that Steve might feel a new manager could lift the fans at this stage but the reason I was given was poor results, which is surprising.”

Having returned to his family home in North Yorkshire, he spent the early hours of Wednesday morning writing down a list of the things he had to return to the club later that day.

“At three o’clock in the morning, my wife, Alison, came downstairs wondering where I was. She saw me, pen in hand, and asked, halfjokingly, ‘You haven’t been sacked, have you?’. I don’t think she expected the reply: ‘Actually, I have’. We sat Mia, my daughter, down in the kitchen the next morning and told her what had happened.

She was meant to do a reading in her class assembly that morning, and I am proud she went through with it despite what she was feeling.

“Flynn was easier to deal with. He is too young to understand, which was probably a good thing. He was charging around the playground the next morning, shouting: “My daddy has been sacked” as if he was proud of it!”

Where Southgate was calm in the boardroom, his temper was tested when he arrived at the club’s training ground.

“Keith Lamb (chief executive) was quite open in telling me he had interviewed Gordon Strachan in London for my job more than two weeks earlier, on the night before we beat Reading (on October 3),” said Southgate.

“Apparently, I was going to get the sack then but we’d played so well that Steve decided he couldn’t do it. I found it bizarre that Keith should tell me all that. I didn’t know whether I should applaud him for being so honest or get angry for taking the mickey.

“I was very close to Steve and Keith but on that occasion Keith was lucky that I’m calmer than some managers. They might have taken a swing at him.”

Having worked hard to follow Gibson’s orders in his three-and-a-half-years in charge, Southgate actually felt he was finally growing into the role as manager.

“It ended up in relegation last season and that hurt me badly, and I accept my responsibility for that,” he said. But I am proud of what I’ve done since to put things right. This season it felt like my team on the pitch for the first time and the spirit was excellent. I was confident I could take Middlesbrough back into the Premier League.

“This won’t scar me. I don’t even feel like I need a rest from football. I’ve always been able to handle pressure, it’s not a problem for me. And if a good opportunity comes along on Monday morning, I’ll be ready for it. I’m more motivated than ever. And I guess I will be like any out-ofwork manager now, waiting for some other poor soul to lose their job and seeing if I get the call.”