Hagiography

This Sunday Times lady journalist gets carried away:

Gareth Southgate’s waistcoat is profoundly touching. It sums him up: it’s polite, almost formal, a bit old-fashioned — but precision-tailored, modern and right on point.

Its last button is jauntily left undone, as if to say: “See? I can be fun.” And that too is heart-rendingly sweet: this is not a man whose definition of fun involves anything louche or degrading.

Southgate radiates wholesome goodness, like sunbeams. He seems pure, in a way that’s affecting. “He’s so nerdy and passionate,” my football-mad eldest son texted me last week. “I love him.”

I also love him. We all love him. We love his modesty, his humility, his quiet hard graft, his talent and decency, the thoughtful earnestness you can see in his face. But it’s deeper than that: Gareth Southgate moves us. Imagine saying that about any other recent England manager.

Yeurrgh!   Pass the sick-bag.