Return a no-brainer for Woodgate

English FA Premiership/Interview with Jonathan Woodgate: "Leeds United, Leeds reserves, Leeds youth team, Leeds Permanent Building Society pub team, Leeds and Holbeck pub team, Leeds ice-hockey team, East Leeds chess under-19s, South Leeds over-19s poker team, anyone with Leeds in their name. And Middlesbrough."

For a man known as Village, as in idiot, Jonathan Woodgate is responsible for one of the best-ever responses to a routine questionnaire about which teams' results he looks out for first. For the purpose of clarification, Woodgate now disputes that he mentioned East Leeds chess under-19s, just as he disputes that it was he who was known as Village at Elland Road.

"Ask David Batty, ask anyone," Woodgate pleaded, "it wasn't my nickname, it was Nigel Martyn's. We used to call him the Village Idiot. I was called The Llama - me, Alan Smith and Dominic Matteo were called The Three Llamas, I don't know why. But I wasn't the Village Idiot, Nigel was the Village Idiot. Nigel was 35 and we were all 18, 19 and he wanted to be like us. Which is fair enough."

Woodgate was a mixture of laughter and consternation as he talked about this at Boro's training ground this week. He cannot quite comprehend that in a certain football consciousness he is regarded as Village, but then private and public perceptions of the 26-year-old have not always chimed.

What Woodgate did not dispute is the Middlesbrough element of his 1999 response. Seven years on, via Leeds, Newcastle and Madrid, Woodgate has returned to his native Teesside. To say he is pleased about this is an understatement and his pride at being made captain today at Bolton will be immense. It was perhaps his happiness as much as his fitness that showed in his memorable debut at Arsenal last Saturday. A man sent out on loan by Real Madrid could sense rejection, and maybe part of Woodgate does, but another part definitely feels the comfort of home.

"I've always wanted to play for my hometown team, always been an ambition," Woodgate said. "My father's a fan, my family are fans, my friends are fans and I'm a fan. Ask Alan Shearer, ask Jamie Carragher, Steven Gerrard - he didn't go to Chelsea - ask them about playing for your hometown team. I'm no different.

"I went to every game at Ayresome Park until I joined Leeds as a schoolboy. I had to be ballboy and stuff at Leeds, so it stopped. But I then had a season ticket at the Riverside, went to the first match there - Liverpool, 3-3, Ravanelli hat-trick.

"I used to love it, went to every single home game. I'd go to Ayresome Park with my dad and my uncle, used to go all the time. I'll always remember the atmosphere, the Holgate. My granddad lived round the corner from Ayresome Park, on Brompton Street. My dad was born on Brompton Street and grew up there. It's in the blood, I'm a Boro fan, I love Middlesbrough and the dream has always been to play for Middlesbrough. I first went when I was six, and I was at the game at Hartlepool, that game. Twenty years on, I'm here."

That game at Hartlepool was Boro's first after liquidation, the gates of Ayresome having been padlocked. It is a definitive day in the rebirth of the club and for Woodgate to have been there seems fitting: he, too, is starting again.

It will not be as easy as symbolism, however. Woodgate has left Real after playing a mere 12 times in two seasons because of chronic injury, and Real's new manager, Fabio Capello, will surely have to see the centre-half play double that for Boro before wanting to recall him. For that to happen Woodgate will have to do something he has been incapable of recently, stay fit, but the way he dealt with Thierry Henry last weekend, plus the manner of the goals Real conceded in Lyon on Wednesday - through the middle of their defence - a spurt of form from Woodgate may see Capello under pressure to seek a way around the one-season loan.

"Even if Madrid did say that, I'd stay here because I want to play a full year," Woodgate said of the idea. "The agreement has been made. I'm on a year's loan at Middlesbrough and I'm not going to turn my back on this club after they've put their faith in me."

Boro have evidence Woodgate will keep his word. When he was 11 the club failed to persuade him to leave his local club, Marton Boys. "If you've promised to play for someone all year you can't go back on your word, can you?"

Having spent £13 million on Woodgate, Real will expect Capello to at least review the situation, as Woodgate will have to. "I'm glad to be back, but obviously I'm still a Real Madrid player and it hasn't finished for me there. But a new manager has come in, Fabio Capello, an experienced manager and he has different ideas. I wasn't in his plans but that's fair enough. It didn't help that I hadn't played enough games and it's hard for him to come in and say he can trust a player who hasn't played many games. I can't really call him a bad manager either. Look at his record. But I'll prove him wrong."

This showed a flash of will. Otherwise Woodgate was, as others will testify, niceness personified. He said he has matured in Madrid, that the injuries allowed introspection.

He knows that matters, because while physical fitness will be fundamental to this season, avoiding the distractions of old will also be vital. Woodgate's face sank when the issue was raised. He thinks he will never be able to escape his past, but Gareth Southgate, his former England team-mate and now manager, has made no particular point on socialising.

"Gareth hasn't really said anything about it, he knows I'm older, he knows the score. I think I've grown up now. I'm 26 years old. The only things that are important are your family and the way your mind thinks. It's about doing things at the right time. There's nothing wrong with going to a restaurant; you can't live like a nun. Everything in moderation. There's nothing wrong with having a few drinks, knowing where you are, just relaxing. I wouldn't say I'm doing the stupid things I did when I was young.

"People say it's the company I kept but they are blaming someone else when it's me. It's me, my body, I make the decisions. You can't pass the buck. I was naive, stupid; six years on I'm a lot more mature."

This was Leeds-era talk. Woodgate has been back, rehabilitating from his latest injury, and said: "I loved them to pieces, it is so sad what's happened because they are a massive club. But the new chairman, Ken Bates, has come in and he's done a fantastic job. I was training there all summer with the physio. I grafted all week there before I went back to Madrid and the manager was brilliant with me. Hopefully they can get back where they belong.

"No disrespect to Peter Ridsdale - I like him as a bloke - but the club got mismanaged. We spent over our means, banked on getting into the Champions League. There's living the dream and there's living the dream: Steve Gibson (Middlesbrough chairman) has lived the dream but he's done it properly, hasn't he? People say it's 'a dream' but it must have been for him, to go and rescue the club and then bring it this far . . . He's passionate about he club, that was one of the reasons why I signed, the ambitions of the chairman. And he's a fan."

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