Love Gareth Southgate, loathe the knighthood – Taking a Pen. – thoughts of a small-time sports writer

Full disclosure: in the three years I worked for Aston Villa as one of the club’s programme and magazine writers, Gareth Southgate slowly demolished my long-held belief that you can’t have heroes younger than you.

He came across as a decent, switched-on guy and a model professional. On the bus to a pre-season game in Spain, he took an interest in the book I was reading. When I asked what type of books he went for, his answer was immediate. Self-help books.

Everything I’ve seen of him since has borne that out. Here was someone prepared to leave no stone unturned in making the most of every talent he had and every opportunity that came his way.

And the England job — please hear me out — was his zenith. Did his defensive background as a player and the conservatism that went with it ultimately work against him? Yes, I think it did.

Did the tournament-draw gods smile on him? Perhaps, but then you can only play what’s in front of you.

What he undoubtedly did, however, was meet the overriding objective of any coach. He moved his team onwards and upwards, in England’s case to a level unseen for 50 years.

Finally, we had a national team unshackled from the ghosts of 1966. A team interested only in the here and now that frequently projected a glorious self-belief.

True, that belief seemed to waver at the very moments when it should have acquired fresh vigour but it doesn’t alter the fact that Southgate handed over a much-improved unit when he stepped down in July.

For that, he was a nailed-on OBE.

That he has been awarded a knighthood instead makes me despair of this silly, childish nation.

In a grown-up world, the ultimate prizes should go only to the winners. If that means a knighthood finds its way into the sporting realm just once every ten to fifteen years, then so be it. These should be hard-won honours, not glorified confetti.

If you’ve done sterling work in a losing cause, we have several three-letter consolation prizes that everyone would be comfortable with.

Remember the wave of reactionary panic in the early 2000s when word got out that some schools were giving medals to kids who finished fifth on Sports Day?

No preparation for real life, wailed the critics. They’ll grow up with entitlement and false hope.

I think we undersestimated that all-must-have-prizes virus. It seems to have infected far more adults than kids and making Gareth Southgate a knight of the realm is just its latest manifestation.

Ultimately, and it pains me to write this, Southgate may have taken his team to a whole new level but once he got there — to borrow an old French saying — with the cup to hand, he died of thirst. Not once but twice.

How strange that in a country that loves Americanisms, the meaning of ‘close but no cigar’ seems to have passed us by somewhat.

I just hope that people in those countries that do win things at football, don’t get too curious when they see that the former England manager has acquired a new label. Let’s hope they just dismiss it as some strange British quirk and don’t dig too deeply into the significance of ‘Sir’.

Because if they do, I fear we’ll be laughed at the way Australians laughed at us in 2005, when cricketer Paul Collingwood was made an MBE as part of England’s Ashes-winning team. His contribution? One Test, 17 runs.

Now, as then, we would have no answer to the ridicule. Our participation-trophy mindset is an embarrassment that diminishes the very gongs we hand out.

As any winner will tell you.