His first managerial role ended in relegation and the sack, but some qualities he has brought to the England job were apparent
A dozen years on, Justin Hoyte still keeps the letter in a safe place. It was delivered to him at Middlesbrough shortly after Gareth Southgate was sacked and the first thing that came to mind, given how fraught the situation must have been, was the rare humanity of the gesture.
“I’ve had a lot of managers and there’s never been another that sent me a personal note like that,” Hoyte says of the message scribed by Southgate, who had brought him in from Arsenal the previous year. “It was wonderful that he’d even consider doing it. He said it was great to work with me and that hopefully we’d work together again down the line, and that I’d do well under the next coach. It just shows you the character he is, and the man you see today.”
