He was the awkward kid with goofy teeth who showed courage and resolve to survive football's bearpit. Now, Gareth Southgate is on the brink of England's finest hour since 1966

Some people don’t like the cut of Gareth Southgate’s jib. Too polite and respectful for what they perceive a strong leader to be. The noisy minority have been out in force during these Euros, bolstered by some under-par England performances en route to the final.

It’s fair game to be critical but these trolls have had an extra agenda, doubling up on the mantra that Southgate was the problem and confusing his pleasant persona for being weak.

Whether intentional or not, it’s remarkable how badly the agitators have got their assessment of the 53-year-old England manager so badly wrong.

The figurehead leading Harry Kane and his troops into England men’s first major overseas final is an unashamed patriot whose beloved grandfather Arthur was a Royal Marine and who sings the national anthem as loudly and proudly as any of his players.

Even more significantly, that most quintessential of British Bulldog attributes, showing courage and resolve in adversity, has always been a clear part of Southgate’s DNA.

‘Gareth has never had it easy,’ reflects Alan Smith, his manager at Crystal Palace and close confidant for 35 years. ‘He has always learned from his knock-backs. People think he’s a bit posh but he has had to fight for everything he’s got.’

Everyone knows about Euro 96, when Southgate became a national scapegoat for missing a penalty against Germany. They’ll have seen England fans throw beer at him only three weeks ago following a draw against Denmark.

He was sacked from his first manager’s job at Middlesbrough, given the news minutes after a win had put them fourth in the Championship.

But the biggest test of all, the one that shaped his career and now sees him on the verge of greatness, occurred many years before he became a public figure — as an awkward 17-year-old outsider struggling in the harsh environs of Crystal Palace and fearing his football life would be over before it had begun.

Southgate opened his soul about the lowest point, when his youth- team coach Smith told him he wasn’t cut out for the challenges of professional football, in a little-publicised self-help book he wrote for children in 2020 called Anything is Possible.

‘I struggled from being a schoolkid to a young adult. Nothing about me was cool and I felt like I’d never fit in,’ wrote Southgate with disarming candour about his early days at Palace. ‘All my peers seemed so much more streetwise and I was just this kid from the suburbs with goofy teeth.

‘When I played in defence for the youth team, we lost five of the first seven games. Soon after that, I suffered an injury. The coach, Alan Smith, called me in for a chat and just spoke his mind: “You weren’t going to play anyway. You’re a lovely bloke, Gareth, but as a footballer you’ve got no chance. If I were you, I’d think about becoming a travel agent”.’ Southgate’s version is the polite one. Smith’s comments were laden with expletives. It was a test to see if the nice, bright kid from Crawley possessed the mental fortitude to survive in an alpha-male bearpit.

Many youngsters would have sunk but Southgate was able to swim with the help and guidance of a senior first-team player at Palace, Gary O’Reilly.

As he sits on the England coach this evening travelling to the Olympic Stadium, he might even reflect on another journey — the traumatic 50-minute trip back home in O’Reilly’s slate grey Ford Granada immediately after receiving his stark ultimatum from Smith.

Like the car-less Southgate, O’Reilly lived in Crawley and would save the teenager two train journeys and a long walk to and from work.

O’Reilly reveals the moment Southgate began to develop the toughness that has seen him walk through a hurricane of criticism in Germany to within 90 minutes of glory. ‘Our Palace training ground in Mitcham looked like Grizzly Adams’s log cabin. It was Chelsea’s old complex from the 1960s and hadn’t been developed,’ said O’Reilly.

‘It was next to the River Wandle, which flooded every time it rained. We’d get in to training and there might be swans in a giant puddle on the pitch, followed by a whole load of ducks.

‘The environment was testing. It was south London. Geoff Thomas, strong character. Alan Pardew, Mark Bright, big personalities. Andy Gray, very big personality. Ian Wright, as big as they come.

‘With Gareth, I got a vibe. You could see he had intelligence. He was a good listener.

‘This one day, Gareth was 45 minutes late for a lift back. Is this kid mucking me about? But when he got in, he was visibly upset. Alan had been brutally honest with him.

‘I’d been told at 17 I wouldn’t make it at Tottenham so I knew how he felt. I tried to stress he was being tested and he had to go out and show people.

‘Alan was looking to see if this quietly-spoken young person had strength. I knew Gareth did, he just didn’t wear the T-shirt.

‘But at that stage, nobody had ever spoken to him like that in his life. It shook him.

‘When people ask me what Gareth is like, I say tougher than you think. I just hoped he could find a path forward, and we know the answer to that one!’

In Anything is Possible, Southgate confirms the importance of that traumatic journey.

‘Aware that I was upset, Gary talked to me all the way home. By the time he dropped me off, I felt much more positive about my future in football as a player.’

Southgate himself described Palace as a ‘bearpit’ but one that helped to define him.

The environment was challenging, 40 men sharing one toilet and not enough hot water for showers. Fourteen or more players packed into a small mini-bus for matches.

Southgate earned just £27.50 a week as a YTS apprentice. Even one of the senior players sold second-hand goods from the back of his car to supplement his income.

Having seen how Southgate had responded to his broadside, Smith became his major champion. He badgered first-team boss Steve Coppell and for the 1990 FA Cup final against Manchester United, Southgate was named 14th man.

There are pictures of him at Wembley in his cup final suit but the reality is his main job was to fetch and carry for agent Eric Hall, who ran the players’ pool.

‘Nord’ as Southgate was nicknamed —after TV presenter Denis Norden — was beginning to win respect from his peers.

‘Gareth was a thinker, not a fighter, but we knew if you ever needed him on the pitch, he’d be there for you,’ explained Thomas, the captain.

Coppell handed Southgate his first-team debut shortly before his 21st birthday, in 1991. ‘Alan was always pushing him, but I was reluctant at first. He was so skinny and physically not up to the big centre halves we had,’ Coppell told us. ‘In an early game against Norwich, he did a great job on Robert Fleck, who lost his rag and committed a bad tackle.

‘At the end, I went over to Fleck and said, “You’re a big player, aren’t you, picking on a young lad,” and he gave me a mouthful back. Gareth was nonplussed. He was happy to go along to get along.’

Coppell has been proud to see the baton handed on. In Germany, it’s been Southgate protecting his players, giving Bukayo Saka an extra-big hug after his redemption penalty against the Swiss.

‘Gareth has handled it brilliantly,’ added Coppell. ‘More than anyone I know, Gareth is able to cope with it. Even if we’d been knocked out against Slovakia, he’d have coped.

‘The stereotype is that managers have to be some kind of performing gnome on the touchline, jumping up and down so people think they’ve got passion. Real passion is on a Tuesday evening when there’s no-one around and you’re studying film to find the best way to beat the opposition. You don’t have to hop around like an idiot.

‘Ron Greenwood said he picked an XI because he had confidence in them, so why should he want to change it quickly? Gareth is like that. He picks a team to do a job and doesn’t break that plan at the whim of all the pundits, who are obviously so much better qualified!’

Smith’s relationship with Southgate has remained strong. He was given the honour of chaperoning Gareth’s parents, Clive and Barbara, to the last Euros final against Italy at Wembley.

Back in 2009, Smith was working with Southgate at Boro when chairman Steve Gibson unexpectedly sacked his manager following a 2-0 win against Derby, having kept faith after relegation the previous season.

Next morning, Southgate did the school run in a shirt and tie until the other parents reminded him he could wear jeans as he didn’t have a job to go to. A daytime gym session shortly afterwards ended with him sipping a drink surrounded by pensioners, wondering what was next.

This time, however, Smith had no doubts. ‘It was an unjustifiable sacking and I knew he’d come back. Underneath that very nice, polite way, there is real steel.

‘The England Under 21 job was ideal. What he does better than anybody is managing these different people from different clubs and backgrounds.’

Southgate was only 13 when he made his first football trip overseas, to France with Hazelwick School. It must have sparked something, because after Middlesbrough, international rather than club football beckoned him.

He joined the FA in 2011 as head of elite development. He left after 18 months but returned in 2013 to replace his friend Stuart Pearce as England U21 boss. John Stones and Luke Shaw, both of whom will be involved tonight, were in his first selection against Moldova.

With the new generation, Southgate introduced ideas that now look obvious but weren’t at the time. Players were encouraged to express themselves on and off the pitch. ‘Enjoy the ball’ was the mantra during coaching drills.

WhatsApp groups were set up so players could keep in touch with each other in the long periods between England camps.

The powers-that-be were taking note. Initially, Southgate didn’t want to be considered for the big job when Roy Hodgson left after Euro 2016. But when Sam Allardyce was sacked later that year, he changed his mind.

As for the scrutiny, as Southgate remarked in a Mail Sport interview: ‘When you have been through what I did in 1996 and then having to manage in the Premier League with no experience at 35, I think I can cope with anything.’

Victory against the Spanish would kill the argument that Southgate has never won anything as a manager and Coppell is sure he won’t become an ego out of control. ‘It’s not his nature to turn to the people with the big mouths and say, “I’ve proved you wrong”.

‘Gareth sees the big picture, he knows what it’s all about. He’s taken on board everything he’s seen and learned, starting with us.’

From those very challenging formative years at the Palace, Southgate is just 90 minutes away from claiming the throne.