SACRE bleu! Franck Queudrue is on the verge of making a diagonal move to Fulham - or possibly Charlton - leaving a vacancy for a Riverside cult hero who can really connect with the crowd. And leaving an enigma.
The pin-up Frenchman will be missed, not least by the East Stand honeys who swooned as he cut a gallic dash on the pitch, because he added colour and passion to what at times in recent years has been a dull squad.
Red, that was a colour he added. His popularity earned him a leeway that other rash defenders who dived in to tackles in dangerous positions that either conceded a free-kick or let the opponent race through clear on goal would never have got. Five red cards - a record shared with Ugo's tally over a far longer spell - and countless yellows peppered his five years at the Riverside... but the serial suspendee was forgiven everything.
It seems at any one time there must be some players who are cruelly damned as donkeys no matter how well they play and some who are elevated to heroic status even if they are inconsistent or limited. And some who grip the popular imagination and have a real bandwagon of widespread vocal support behind them.
The selection for this appears to be some mystical process where favourites emerge in a flurry of stirring activity - crunching tackles, putting your head in where the boots are flying, fisticuffs, scoring against Sunderland on your debut - then are cemented in the consensus by a selective view of every game that follows, exaggerating the good but ignoring the bad in an individual's performance.
Franck is no Juninho. There is no tunnel visioned cult behind him ready to declare a fatwa against any non-believers who dare criticise. But there is a considerable group who were willing to forgive him almost any mistake because he "showed passion" and who are struggling to accept his departure. There is even misguided talk of a Craig Hignett style "don't go" petition. It is doomed: he wants to go.
But there is more to Franck than just being a player. He has also become a symbol in recent years for the struggle against McClaren. He was often made the scapegoat for defeats (often, it must be said, with some justification) and was sometimes dropped on the flimsiest of excuses. Last season he found himself behind new boy Emmanuel Pogotetz in the pecking order, a simmering player who made the Frenchmen look ice cool and meek in the tackle.
His case was taken up eagerly by the Macophobes as a stick to beat the boss with, just as Mark Crossley had become a weapon before him. It appeared perversely self-defeating to have a player on the bench who was by general consent better than the man in his position on the pitch. It proved the boss didn't know what he was doing. And it fuelled a flurry of rumours of bust-ups and worse.
Certainly there were things happing behind the scenes. In January with McClaren desperate to strength the fraying squad Franck was one of the few assets that would raise anything more than peanuts and it appeared he was being offered to other clubs as part of the attempted wheeler-dealing. Luckily for McClaren it did not come off as Queudrue's exit in January would have thrown petrol on the flames of anger then licking the Riverside - but it may well have left the left-back nursing a grievence and sense of betrayal and made up his mind to leave.
It would be ironic if Franck's departure was part of Steve McClaren's legacy because he should be rated as one of his best signings. Arriving on a loan he signed for £2.5m and gave the club four good years (and one indifferent) and some good memories. Queudrue has been at the heart of things as Boro have carved out a golden era. He played in the FA Cup semi-finals in McClaren's first and last seasons (and wore tres chic head bandages in both), he was in the historic team of heroes who lifted silver in Cardiff and he played a key part in both UEFA Cup campaigns and was in the team at Eindhoven.
He has made a massive contribution to the Boro story and deserves praise for that. Thanks Franck.
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