Biography

He is a former England international footballer and later a manager of Middlesbrough F.C., the England Under-21 side and the England men's national team.

His penalty miss in England's sudden-death shoot-out with Germany in the semi-finals of the Euro 96 Championships knocked the team out of the tournament.

He played for Crystal Palace F.C. from 1988-1995, Aston Villa F.C. from 1995-2001 and Middlesbrough F.C. 2001-2006. He was mostly known as a central defender, but also played at right-back and in midfield while at Crystal Palace.

He lifted the league cup in Middlesbrough's win over Bolton Wanderers on February 29th 2004 (leap year day) at the Millenium Stadium in Cardiff. This was the first time the club had won a major trophy in it's 128 year history.

He was the captain of Middlesbrough F.C..

Terry [Terry Venables] opened my eyes to things that no one else has. He has fantastic tactical awareness. Every senior player in the group went away having learned a lot from him, which is an achievement.

If you had said to the players when I started at Crystal Palace that I was going to be upheld as the sartorial model for the country, you'd have been hooted out of the training ground. [laughs] As a centre-half with a face like I've got then that's a very rare position to be in. I'm not David Beckham, so we're in trouble.

I was a volunteer, really [in Euro '96]. The type of character I was, I felt you should put yourself forward. It is probably braver not to, if you are not confident.

[in 2018] "Football's Coming Home" was a song I couldn't even listen to for 20 years, frankly, so for me it has a slightly different feel. It's nice to hear people enjoying it again, anyway.

The feel of this group of players [in 2018] is very similar to the players we had then [in 1996], but that team was a lot more experienced in terms of age and experience of big matches. It had tactical understanding, it had technically good players. We have emerging leaders, that team had six captains at their clubs. But we approached this tournament in the same way. We were a group of guys having a lot of fun, enjoying our football, learning and improving all the time - and that's what these lads have done.