The pan bubbled on the hob and the aroma of newly boiled grass wafted across the kitchen. Once it had simmered for long enough, clingfilm was produced from a cupboard and Jonathan Woodgate clambered on to a table.
“I was at Real Madrid, I had a great tear in my thigh and the doctors had run out of ideas,” says Middlesbrough’s club captain. “Then this old fella offered to help. I don’t know how he got into Real but I met him at a house belonging to one of the physios.
“He got this pack of grass and started boiling it in a pan. He put in on my leg and began wrapping clingfilm around it. I thought: ‘What’s happening here?’ It was weird. Obviously, it didn’t work. But when you’re in that state of mind you’ll try anything.”
As he takes his seat in a quiet corner of Rockliffe Park, Middlesbrough’s magnificently appointed training ground near Darlington, Woodgate appears a picture of health and fitness. Unfortunately the long, lean limbs are deceptively fragile. So frail that one of the most outrageously gifted centre-halves of his generation is likely to start on the Wembley bench on Monday as Aitor Karanka’s Boro face Norwich in the Championship play-off final.
If only he had avoided an endless litany of injuries, the 35-year-old Teessider would probably remain a first-choice for England. Woodgate was that good. Invariably wonderful to watch even now, he is that rare player capable of elevating defending to an art form.
The irony for someone whose game is built on meshing flow, fluency and elegant movement with vision and incision is that his career has suffered far too many jarring interruptions. Few body parts have escaped unscathed as a “who’s who” of surgeons have performed countless operations intended to repair an assortment of injuries.
“Sometimes people just aren’t built for football,” he says. “When I was younger Craig Bellamy told me I was a bit too quick for my own body. Maybe he was right but, at the moment, I feel fine. When I’ve played this season, I’ve played at a decent level. I can still do it on the pitch. But I’m always going to get injured.”
The search for a fix has turned a defender, who apart from Real has represented Leeds and Newcastle (when they were good) as well as Tottenham, Stoke and England, into a worldwide medical tourist. “I’ve been everywhere and tried everything,” he says. “I’ve spent three months in Australia, I’ve spent three months in New York, I’ve been to Philadelphia, I’ve been to Leicester, I’ve been to Germany, I’ve been all over.” What was in Leicester? “An operation … that didn’t work”
He could easily have quit years ago. Yet throughout everything – the sometimes excruciating pain and the tedium of rehabilitation – Woodgate’s love of football has shone through. It perhaps explains why he cannot quite bring himself to confirm rumours he is set to retire after Wembley.
“I haven’t decided yet,” he says. “I’ll think about it lying on a sun lounger, somewhere hot. I’ll chat to my family, I’ll chat to the manager and we’ll see. If Boro are in the Premier League I’ll be having a few beers on that sun lounger. But whether it’s my last game or not, the final’s not about me, it’s about the team.”
So much so that warming the bench does not hurt or frustrate. “I’d be happy sitting anywhere as long as we’re winning,” says Woodgate, whose late father took him the length and breadth of England following Boro. “I’m a fan. I’ll be a nervous wreck watching. It means so much.”
He is not the sentimental type but senses tears could flow. “Walking out at Wembley in my Boro gear will feel fantastic,” he says. “My dad would have been buzzing. I’m not that emotional but I might start crying. It’s a massive game and I’ll be nervous. But I get nervous before every game, even friendlies. As soon as I wake up on game days, bang, there’s an ache in my belly.
“My career hasn’t been as fulfilled as I wanted. Especially when I went to the biggest team in the world. I should have stuck it out a lot longer at Real. The ability was there, it was just the injuries. But I don’t say: ‘What if?’ You can’t look back.
“All I wanted to do as a young lad was play for Boro in a final and I’m doing that. Playing for your home-town club makes it massive. This club needs to be back in the Premier League. Promotion would be fantastic for the town. Everyone criticises the town and the people. They say it’s a bad area. Well, it isn’t. It’s a lovely area. I love it.”
He is equally enthusiastic about Karanka. “He’s fantastic,” says Woodgate who, this summer, will marry his longstanding partner and mother of their two-year-old son. “He’s upped a lot of players’ performances. He’s made players think they can be really good. In the future he’ll move on to the highest level.”
As a formerly distinguished centre-half and, later, assistant to José Mourinho at Real, Karanka relishes swapping anecdotes with a captain who could join Boro’s coaching staff next season. Woodgate’s recollections of Madrid are particularly vivid. “I remember my first day,” he says. “I was going into breakfast through some swinging doors and Zinedine Zidane was walking towards me with a croissant and a coffee.”
Realisation dawned that Zidane expected the newcomer to carry these refreshments towards an appropriate table. “I think he just thought: ‘Who’s this runner?’” he says. “He couldn’t have thought I was a player. He probably thought I was a competition winner.”
The conversation reverts to the prize now within touching distance. “Winning promotion would be one of the best moments of my career,” says Woodgate. “Probably the best.”
