The Southgate Trauma

How Gareth can find the hero inside himself

IT was an interesting theory and one that has chimed with me more and more as the week has gone on ahead of England’s Euro '24 quarter-final against Switzerland today. And it was my therapist, a sports nut, who came up with it.

Sometimes we talk therapy – though he says that we have been at this so long now that we have, more accurately, therapeutic conversations – and sometimes we talk sport. Other times we talk therapy and sport. Which is where Gareth Southgate comes in.

The mental trauma of that saved penalty in the Euro 96 semi-final against Germany clearly ran deep for him. And it will undoubtedly ever be etched on his soul. Forget all these takes that he banished it with any success in shoot-outs as a manager, such as England’s World Cup last 16 win over Colombia in 2018. For trauma defies being banished, which is not to say that there is no learning to live with it and finding peace and fulfillment.

Trauma waits, lurks, strikes when you think you’ve got some kind of handle on it. I have known this in 35 years of recovery from alcoholism and, more recently, through the grief resulting from the death of the love of my life (pictured above, from the back along with me, with Gareth at a Football Writers’ Association dinner some years back). At first it comes as a tsunami but abates to waves then ripples. It ebbs and flows. Rollers build and return.

The trick with trauma and learning to manage it - rather than be managed by it - is to acknowledge it, to own it and accept that rather than the desperate desire to be free of it, the aim is to see it for what it is: feelings from past wrongs and undermining insecurities, not facts impacting on current situation. That takes time, willingness and faith. It means, initially, revisiting it, which is painful and can be overwhelming. It is best done in session with a qualified professional, if there is the option of that facility – too often a luxury these days but hopefully something the new government will now look at seriously in these straitened post-Covid  days of damage to mental health with so many needing help and unable to access it. Lack of help has meant that too many will not or cannot deal with it as it frequently means experiencing the trauma all over again. For some, in some extreme circumstances, hard as it can be to imagine, death can even be preferable to the panic of being re-traumatised. I have known that sentiment myself.

Gareth will certainly have revisited it, as James Graham’s play Dear England suggested, with Pippa Grange, the psychologist often credited with altering the mindset of the national team set-up during that run to the 2018 World Cup semi-finals. However, psychology and trauma therapy are two different things. Perhaps Gareth has not delved as deeply as he might have. It would be understandable, given the terror-sweats it can invoke.

With a tenet of team dynamics being that a unit takes on the personality of its leader, it may explain why England so often begin so buoyantly then retreat into a shell once ahead or first wind and enthusiasm dissipate. Why Gareth is so often accused of being an over-cautious manager, especially given the attacking talent at his disposal.

I’ve made no secret of my admiration and respect for him, having known and worked with him in my previous professional capacity as a football writer for a fair old while. He sent a lovely message after Vikki died. He is intelligent, honourable, decent and loyal. It has been a sadness to see him so savaged critically for England’s patchy performances at this tournament given the enlightened way he has so rebuilt the national team’s ethos and identity through highlighting and showcasing the best of our diverse, largely tolerant nation these last eight years and taken us some way to being proud of ourselves again.

But while it is understandable that he should remain loyal to players who have done it for him and resists wholesale changes, there is validity in the criticism of at times excessive caution when the fear and agony of losing – of revisiting that recurring trauma – perhaps subconsciously holds him back from risking the pleasure potentially available from winning expansively. And after all the hard work in successfully empowering players, ultimately also holds back the players; that intuitive taking-on of the leader’s personality.

Today he will almost certainly just tweak again rather than bow to fan and pundit calls for such as Cole Palmer and Anthony Gordon to start the game. Personally, I’d like to see Jude Bellingham alongside Declan Rice in midfield and coming from deep so that England can field one more attacking player, rather than a safer defensively minded one.

But I will understand trauma’s reservoir of caution that restricts and restrains those affected, which is probably all of us in some way. What I hope Gareth can find within himself for his own and our sakes is to be bolder and braver sooner in his changes of personnel and approach should circumstances demand. He has always shown he has the right stuff. If he can hear his heart in the heat of the fray and find the courage to do the right things at the right times, then trauma, that thief of potential, need not triumph and leave him and us at the mercy of a moment of fortune. Or to die wondering.