The Tottenham midfielder has overcome countless obstacles to establish himself as one of the game’s most coveted talents
Back when selecting Gareth Bale felt akin to ducking under a ladder while a black cat crossed his path, Harry Redknapp fielded a telephone call from Sir Alex Ferguson. “He came on saying: ‘You can’t pick him, you’d be mad,’ and he had a point,” said the Tottenham Hotspur manager, recalling the opening 24-game sequence to Bale’s Premier League career in which he never once tasted victory. The Manchester United manager might be tempted to repeat that trick today in the hope that Redknapp takes notice.
At Old Trafford this afternoon Tottenham can complete a stunning hat-trick of victories and Bale, a player resurgent over the last month, can make Ferguson regret yet further his inability to secure the Welshman from Southampton three years ago. The 20-year-old was in blistering form in the eye-catching defeats of Arsenal and Chelsea. Neither Bacary Sagna nor Paulo Ferreira, his opposing right-backs, was capable of completing either contest. If Bale once appeared a liability, superstition suggesting his inclusion would condemn Spurs to failure, then he has fast become this team’s inspiration.
Gary Neville may shudder at the prospect of snuffing out a player who so embarrassed Ferreira last Saturday, with the Portuguese withdrawn for his own good at the break. “Gareth’s game has gone up so many levels this season,” said Redknapp. “He’s stronger, mentally tougher, a fantastic athlete, and has great ability. He can do everything: he’s 6ft 1in, can head it, got a good right foot, a great left foot. He’s had a great four months, but needs a great two years. Then we’ll start saying he’s definitely the best left-sided player in the league.”
As if to prove his all-round ability, the goal struck beyond Petr Cech that afternoon with Ferreira dazed and confused was dispatched with his right foot. It is little surprise that United are apparently considering reviving their interest in a player whose prospective value has doubled to nearer £20m. They may have to trump interest from the likes of Internazionale and Juventus to secure their target. “But he’s the future of the football club,” said Redknapp. “There’s no chance of him going there.”
The interest is understandable. Where Bale had been becalmed, injuries and that uncanny winless sequence nullifying his impact, now he appears the player who had scouts flocking to St Mary’s in 2006-07. The plaudits for his staggering recent displays are justified. Blackburn’s Míchel Salgado, once of Real Madrid, compared Wales’s youngest international, at 16 years and 315 days, to the experienced Valencia winger Vicente. That is a fine compliment. The former Wales international Cliff Jones, a member of Tottenham’s double-winning side of 1961, recently claimed his compatriot was already “one of the best players in Europe”, destined to become the first Welshman to 100 caps.
He is propelling his team’s current thrust for fourth place, inspiring confidence in team-mates who once, if only privately, might have wondered what the fuss was all about. “It was just a case of him starting to play in games as he did in training,” said Peter Crouch. “He is really showing it now. He is maturing and is stronger and quicker. He has got everything, really, and can go on to be a top, top player. He is probably the best I’ve seen in that position at that age.
“He never stops running and the energy he shows getting back to defend as well as going forward is phenomenal. Chelsea had an experienced full-back out [in Ferreira] last week and they wanted to change him, and that’s credit to the way Gareth had gone about that game. He’s settled now and is playing the football of his life. It was never going to take long for it all to click into place.”
Bale is only living up to the hype generated since he was spotted by Southampton scouts at the age of nine playing for Civil Service, a team coached by a friend’s father, in a six-a-side tournament in Newport. The coach Rod Ruddick worked with him in the close-knit community of the club’s satellite centre in Bath before the teenage Bale began travelling three times a week to the main academy in Southampton from his home in Cardiff. By then, Whitchurch high school’s head of PE, Gwyn Morris, had limited him to playing one-touch and banned him from using his left foot. “It was the only way we could have an even game,” he said.
Yet the youngster’s progress was anything but serene. Bale, born in mid-July, was always one of the youngest in his age group and was shy and reserved. More worryingly, growing pains briefly had the Southampton staff wondering whether to retain him even as a scholar. The player recalls periods of being “disorientated” by pain shooting up his back and hampering his running. Attention instead focused on his room-mate at the academy, Theo Walcott. Indeed, Bale’s very place at the club was in doubt until a performance in an Under-18 game at Norwich in January 2005 earned him a future at St Mary’s.
“The pressure was on him because, ridiculously, this was make or break, and he and his family knew it,” said Malcolm Elias, Southampton academy’s head of recruitment at the time who now works in a similar capacity at Fulham. “He’d had so many injury problems that evaluating his progress had been so difficult – he never played back-to-back games. But that day his performance was flawless. Theo scored a hat-trick, but Gareth was calm, composed and didn’t put a foot wrong.
“The strength of character he showed that afternoon convinced everyone that we had to take him on as a scholar. That game was a turning point for him. His parents, Frank and Debbie, deserve huge credit for helping him through that difficult time. They were rocks, and they have been again while things weren’t going so well at Spurs. Now, every club in the world would want him.”
The youngster was receptive and willing, taking on board the advice of the likes of Huw Jennings, Georges Prost and Steve Wigley at the academy before George Burley promoted him into the first team at St Mary’s. The Scot believed he had “the potential to be better than Ashley Cole”. “He found the pace and physical nature of the Championship tough at first, but he had exceptional talent,” said Burley. “He wasn’t the finished article but he was learning: he was quick, terrific going forward, a good tackler and good in the air.”
Back then the priorities were positioning and judgment. Arguably they remain the areas in most need of improvement with his best form at Spurs reserved for left midfield rather than left-back though, at 20, there is time ahead to tinker. “He has all the attributes to flourish in the modern game,” said Jennings, now head of Fulham’s academy. “He has excellent technique – look at the goal he scored with his right foot against Chelsea – and has pace, power and strength these days.
“He has clearly become mentally stronger for the problems he endured during his early teenage years, when people wondered whether he would even make it as a scholar, let alone as a professional. It’s no surprise that he’s come back after that initial blip at Tottenham. He’s experienced similar before and come through. His story serves as a great lesson for young players out there, that they should never give up. There’s a lot more to come from Gareth Bale, believe me.”
Bale was five months old the last time Spurs won a league game at Old Trafford. Another eye-catching performance today would both enhance his own reputation further and strengthen Tottenham’s challenge for fourth place. “Playing against him must be so difficult because he just keeps going at you for 90 minutes,” added Redknapp. Gary Neville beware: an awkward afternoon may lie ahead.
Tottenham HotspurPremier LeagueDominic Fifieldguardian.co.uk
