“Nobody’s tough enough to deal with the immigration problem. But somebody needs to do it”.
If someone told you that was a footballing pantomime villain voicing their two-cents on the state of the nation, you might think it had been said by Newcastle United’s Reform-supporting former owner Sir John Hall, or ex-Southampton chairman Rupert Lowe, who is a Restore MP.
But those are the words of Sir Jim Ratcliffe. In a recent BBC interview, Manchester United’s co-owner swung another downward punch at immigrants, having initially claimed that they had “colonised” the UK. Some fan groups now want Ratcliffe to leave the club.
Is that not slightly trigger-happy? Yes, a billionaire tax exile scapegoating foreigners is inflammatory. And hypocritically bankrolling a squad full of non-British players douses those flames in INEOS-branded petrochemicals.
But Ratcliffe’s simply expressed an opinion. One which is totally tone-deaf, moderately offensive, and not abusive at all. In days gone by, some other United affiliates said and did far worse without being cancelled.
Midfielder Nicky Butt, for instance, was arrested in 2003 for allegedly assaulting a woman while on a night out. Butt continued to play for United. The year after, our former manager Ron Atkinson called France defender Marcel Desailly a “thick, lazy n****r” off-air on ITV. It ended his punditry career, but there remains a place for Big Ron in the hearts of many United fans.
And then there’s Jonathan Woodgate.
The Majestic Thug
The millennium was a tumultuous time for the defender and his then-employers. A good 1999-00 season for David O’Leary’s Leeds United side is best (and worst) remembered for two horrific incidents. In April, the day before the away leg of their UEFA Cup semi-final defeat to Galatasaray, two Leeds fans were stabbed to death by the Turkish club’s ultras following a brawl. Violent clashes involving Dirty Leeds and their ‘Service Crew’ hooligan firm are very common. The club’s players behaving like members of said firm, off the pitch, is more unusual. That’s what happened three months before the Istanbul tragedy, on 11 January 2000.
Woodgate was enjoying a boozy, birthday knees-up for his teammate Lee Bowyer. The celebrity pair were joined in the VIP lounge of Leeds’ Majestyk nightclub by a handful of their civilian mates. One of these, Woodgate’s lifelong friend James Hewison, had come down from Middlesbrough. The Teesider was anything but teetotal; Hewison was thrown out by the bouncers for his paralytic drunkenness. Outside, he crossed paths with Sarfraz Najeib, a 19-year-old IT student from Rotherham, who was standing near the club’s entrance with his older brother and three friends. Minutes later, Najeib was lying unconscious in a pool of blood.
What happened in the time between, exactly?
The ensuing trial at Hull Crown Court didn’t provide an answer. Amidst all the finger-pointing, arse-covering, and buck-passing, though, some very muddy details on that night did emerge. It sems Najeib and co. had been, like the LUFC entourage, another macho clique out on the town, with a stark cultural difference: they were British-Pakistani Muslims. Stone-cold sober and, according to the Guardian-led media storm, “foolishly provocative”.
There were funny looks, and some jibes about Hewison’s inability to handle his drink. Hewison, incensed, threw a punch at Najeib, who hit back just as Woodgate, Bowyer, and the others were filing out. They all went for Najeib, who fled down a nearby side-street… but he was never going to outrun two professional athletes. And these were athletes who kicked for a living.
Woodgate’s defence admitted that he and Bowyer caught up with Najeib, threw him against a bin, and broke (among other bones) his leg. But they didn’t tell the whole truth. Woodgate had already received police cautions in his youth, including one for headbutting someone following a post-pub argument in Middlesbrough. No one mentioned that to the jury. Thus, Woodgate couldn’t be found guilty of grievous bodily harm with intent (unlike some of his mates, including Hewison, who got several years inside).
Also omitted was the racial language heard by witnesses during the confrontation. “Do you want some, Paki?” were the last words Najeib could remember from the altercation, and he maintained that the attack was exacerbated by his ethnicity. But this was before CCTV facial recognition, and when few mobile phones were equipped with a camera. Zero footage meant that no one could be sure who had said what, exactly. Thus, Woodgate couldn’t be found guilty of racially-aggravated assault, either.
Woodgate’s solitary charge of affray meant a ‘punishment’ of hundred hours’ community service – twenty fewer than Eric Cantona was given for his one-man anti-racism campaign at Crystal Palace. Not a slap on the wrist, so much as a ‘get-out-of-jail’ nightclub wristband.
‘Thug and Liar Walk Free’ went The Times’ iconic front-page headline, referring to Woodgate and Bowyer respectively (the latter denied all involvement despite his teeth-mark scars being visible on Najeib’s face). When Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers are the voice of reason, you know something’s gone terribly wrong.
Spanish Inquisition
In 2003, three years after he swerved incarceration, Woodgate did the same with relegation. He jumped the sinking Elland Road ship and brought his proverbial Najeib-shaped skull-and-crossbones – complete with broken nose and cheek – to Newcastle. A small step up. Then a huge one, a year later: after signing David Beckham and Michael Owen, Real Madrid wanted a third English Galactico. It seemed the skeleton in Woodgate’s walk-in wardrobe was not haunting him all that much.
The Bernabeu, however, became a gladiatorial ‘kangaroo court’ for Woodgate, dishing out the only justice he has ever faced: karma. The defender, as crocked as he was crooked, had to wait a year for his debut, and then had the worst one in football history. In a La Liga match against Athletic Bilbao, he scored an own goal and got sent off. This comeuppance, coupled with constant injury problems, ended up in Woodgate spending most of his career afterwards in the comfort zone of his hometown club. He joined the Middlesbrough coaching team months after playing his final game there.
Head(hunting) Over Heart
When Michael Carrick took over at Boro in 2022, he kept things as they were, retaining Woodgate as his assistant manager. And continuity was key when Carrick was appointed interim United manager in January, too, with Woodgate selected as a first-team coach ahead of a plethora of bigger, more familiar names (Jonny Evans, of all people, was the one ex-United player who made the cut). This ruthless recruitment style has been seen before, here: Jose Mourinho’s backroom team was entirely devoid of former United stars.
Carrick, significantly, was made captain in that side by the Portuguese, his tactical awareness making him a near-flawless cog in a faulty engine room. Pivotal ‘supporting actors’ at the base of midfield is a common trope of Mourinho’s blockbusters: Claude Makelele at Chelsea, Esteban Cambiasso at Inter Milan, and Xabi Alonso at Real Madrid, to name three. Intelligent, deep-lying midfielders like those tend to share a wavelength with the Special One because they possess his archetypal trait: coldness.
There’s something to be said for the head. ‘Heartfelt’ can very easily cross over into heartless.
Mourinho’s predecessor, Louis van Gaal, misguidedly placed romance over reason when choosing his own assistant head coach. The presence of Ryan Giggs in the dugout was effectively nostalgic fan-service from Van Gaal, who believed that the Welshman’s record 963 senior appearances outweighed his solitary (albeit semi-incestuous) extramarital affair. Maybe the tarnished legacy should have been seen as a warning sign, not a blip. In 2020, Giggs was accused of actual bodily harm against his ex-girlfriend Katie Greville. When it came to the cheating, some could look the other way. Violence, however, is a criminal matter…
As is attempted rape. Mason Greenwood was arrested for both, two years later. Greenwood was a talented young striker whose goalscoring, not to mention transfer value, would vanish instantly with a conviction. Just as Leeds chairman Peter Ridsdale had misguidedly done with Woodgate, United’s CEO at the time, Richard Arnold, stuck by his player and thus failed the victim (in this case, Greenwood’s partner Harriet Robson).
Treble Standards
If Giggs’ hindsight was 2020, then his déjà vu came through Greenwood: a catch-2022. Both trials featured hung juries, withdrawn witnesses, and scant evidence. The two victims, ultimately, dropped the charges. Giggs’ retrial happened in metaphorical form only; the Welsh FA ushered him out of his managerial role. United have all but severed ties, too…
From our Giggsy. The dictionary definition of a club legend. The Class of ’92’s most decorated graduate. Scorer, in our greatest ever season, of the best goal in our history.
We had, in every sense, a wonderful run. We’ll always have those moments Ryan Giggs gave us. But he’s not who we thought he was.
Greenwood experienced the same kind of irreparable reputational damage. Following a public outcry, United did a one-eighty ‘drag back’ and abruptly jettisoned the striker to a loan move. Like Woodgate, Greenwood’s cardinal sin led to Madrid – except garden-leave at unglamorous Getafe was an obvious downgrade. Greenwood has since remained banished to the continent, having previously been at United since the age of seven. Loyalty to this club, it turns out, isn’t necessarily reciprocal.
Nor should it be. United were right, in those particular instances, not to take care of their own. But now, after setting those precedents, it’s strange for them to take care of a Leeds fan-favourite. Unlike Cantona, Woodgate’s playing career never saw him swap the imitation-brand ‘United’ in West Yorkshire for the genuine article in M16.
More importantly, unlike Giggs and Greenwood, Woodgate has a clear-cut criminal record. Yet those former Old Trafford poster boys are now personae non gratae, while Woodgate is sat in front of the Charlton Stand every other weekend. Surely, were he still with us, Sir Bobby himself would single that out as a double standard. Or an absence of standards altogether. Charlton, along with Sir Matt Busby and Sir Alex Ferguson, epitomised the United ethos of combining world-class calibre and working-class character; not just good players, or good coaches, but good people.
A penny – and I’d pay a lot more than that – for their thoughts on Woodgate?
The (Red) Devils’ Advocate
Fergie, a dyed-in-the-wool socialist, might sympathetically view uneducated young men as acutely susceptible to their environments. Woodgate was said to be slow-witted and easily led, which would explain the way he seemed to shape-shift around his influences: a provincial, post-industrial town in the North East, then nineties lad culture, and then glossy-mag metrosexuality.
How might Woodgate have differed had Gareth Southgate, his gaffer at Middlesbrough in the late noughties, instead managed him for England a decade later? The thought of Woodgate joining the Gen Z moral high ground and condemning racist social media trolls is surreal, but bizarrely plausible. A few years ago, on a Sky Sports interview, he spoke about how the football landscape has largely shed its culture of toxic masculinity and emotional bottling: “We’re a more open society now. Talk to people if you’re struggling. That could really help you”.
Clearly, Woodgate has matured since his playing days. But he was talking about his self-described “Real Madrid failure”. What about Najeib? The radio-silence leaves more questions than answers. Does Woodgate ever struggle with guilt? Has he told his children what he did? Above all, if talking about difficult issues is so important, why has Woodgate ignored his own advice and brushed that enormous taboo subject under the carpet?
United’s assistant coach, like the club itself, appears trapped in a cycle. Put together, that actually means the Woodgate issue is self-resolving. He and Carrick flopped upwards to arrive here (their Middlesbrough side finished 7th in the Championship) and are now, unsurprisingly, even more out of their depth. At the time of writing, United’s long winless run is ongoing and players are openly mutinous.
There’s no urgency. There’s no style of play. And, above all, there’s no point removing a right-hand man when the boss will soon be shown the door.
Carrick and Woodgate will be someone else’s joint-problem soon. Probably Tottenham Hotspur’s. Both men played there, and Spurs love a bit of drama. Newcastle, too, would be a fitting destination, each having ties to the Magpies. Not that sentiment is ever a factor for Carrick, however (the fact he never signed for his boyhood club says a lot about him).
Sentiment is a factor for fans, though. Especially United’s. The club motto isn’t ‘Think’. It’s ‘Believe’. We go by intuition and gut-feeling; the truth is just as important as the facts. Woodgate being at this (or any other) club will sit uncomfortably with many of those who know the truth about him.
Woodgate might be done with the past. We can decide whether the past is done with him.
‘Woodgate-gate’ (a tongue-twisting scandal)
I’m not saying we should bring out our Fred the Red pitchforks, and start a retroactive character assassination. And I’m not saying that every despicable act is an unforgivable one. But you can’t be given a second chance without first acknowledging the error of your ways.
More ‘inclusion and diversity’ lip service, ghostwritten by PR spin doctors, is not what we need here. Woodgate should provide his mea culpa himself. If he wants to avoid scrutiny, this could easily be filmed in-house and behind closed doors (MUTV finally put to meaningful use?!). Before mentioning Sarfraz Najeib, though, maybe the interviewer should start by asking Woodgate for his thoughts on the anti-immigration stance espoused by one of his own higher-ups.
Perhaps Woodgate would agree that Sir Jim Ratcliffe has inadvertently hit on a fundamental reality: these are two kingdoms which, at times, don’t feel very United. Over a quarter-century on from that night in Leeds, divisions in this country are just as insidious. The murder of Henry Nowak – a ‘house of mirrors’ role-reversal of Najeib’s attack – shows that the more things change here, the more they stay the same. British football tends to reflect British society. Especially its reluctance to face up to the ugly truth.
Nobody’s tough enough to deal with the Woodgate problem.
Does somebody need to do it?
The post Woodgate: Too Late to Cancel? first appeared on Republik Of Mancunia: A Manchester United Blog.