THE EXIT of George Boateng is a massive, massive blow. General George is almost irreplaceable. True, his mono-paced on the pitch performances may have faded in recent years - but in front of a microphone he still oozes star quality.
The Gazette Sports posse will have a day of reflective mourning when the Boat finally sets sail for Hull, probably on Monday. The quoter-mouthed Dutch destroyer has been far and away the best interviewee at the club throughout his lively spell at the Riverside.
We call him "Five Intros" because a few minutes grabbed in the tunnel with George leaves you in a quandry as to which brilliant line to lead with and which incredible quote to back it up.
With Boateng there is no soul destroying sifting through your notes, desperately looking for a something among the cliches, the semi-literate syntax mangling spin and the begrudged admissions that "like you say it was a bit disappointing" that can be beaten and stretched and polished enough to make something worth reading. With Boateng it is a question of selecting the best of several excellent lines.
After the demolition of Man City I grabbed six minutes with him at pitchside - it would usually have been longer but his kids were in one of the boxes to watch his swansong and kept on shouting down for Daddy so he was distracted - and that briefest of chats produced half-a-dozen decent stories of real interest.
In that brief conversation he came out with a combination of honest emotions and financial reality about his own future, hints at the political intrigues behind the scenes over his status and his demand for respect, a joyful celebration of the 8-1 victory that he said fans deserved because so many home displays had been terrible, a claim that he asked the ref to blow the whistle early to release City from their suffering, a sentimental and sincere review of his Boro years and the glory of Cardiff and Eindhoven and a glowing testimonial of the gaffer who he said could even be a future England manager.
Some players don't manage to cover that kind of quality or quantity of quotes in their entire career at a club. Some have said less of substance or colour in their autobiographies.
He has always been like that. Polite, friendly, articulate, prone to flourishes of Biblical imagery and rhetoric and from the Dutch dressing room culture that mixes disarming if sometimes damaging honesty with a tendency for unashamed self-promotion, he is a reporters dream.
He was readily quotable in the Gazette before he even arrived at Boro, saying he had no sympathy for Gazza after the Dunston Rocket broke his wrist on George's chin with an attempted forearm smash and then later telling Riverside-bound Gareth Southgate he would be foolish to join Boro because they were going nowhere while Aston Villa were a big ambitious club.
And his career at Boro has been punctuated with brilliant outbursts made with total disregard to internal politics or external sanction. For instance, he got an slap across the wrist from the FA after James Morrison had wiped out smug step-over prima donna Ronaldo and George almost revelled in it on his own web site and then warned darkly: "one day someone will hurt him properly."
He told Gareth not to take up the Boro manager's position when McClaren left saying he was inexperienced and probably not up to the job risking a backlash but then praised him for handing the right man the captain's armband and was soon tipping him for the England job.
As a committed Christian he feels it his moral duty to tell the truth (although we are all sinners so he can be forgiven the occasional lapse, like that time when he claimed little Nolberto Solano had decked him with a haymaker or had the spit spat with Nicky Barmby after he "insulted my brethren") and that frankness is refreshing in a duplicitous industry built on layers of deceit and riddled with self serving spin and a blatant disregard for what they fans think or what they deserve to know.
He was also quite emotional, expressing a despair or elation that echoed the crowd, bubbling hysterically with glee as he led the jubilant EIOing after the Carling Cup triumph or with optimism over Eindhoven, or sullen and stony faced after a defeat, searingly critical of himself, his team-mates and manager or dancing along the line of a disrepute charge by blasting the referee, which always makes for good copy.
Over the years, as access to players has been squeezed by the Sky Sports piper increasingly calling the tune in press conferences and with club's trying to control the flow of information through official sites and publications, it has been harder to build up a picture of players as individuals with real opinions and characters rather than tools in a marketing machine. So people like George, keen that supporters actually know how he thinks and feels, are a Godsend for us, and by extension, for you.
There have been other great speakers over the years of course. Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink was prone to colourful sweeping statements about his own ability and vital contribution to Boro victories while Bolo Zenden (you may see a trend of orange gobbiness emerging here) was a witty, urbane polyglot - he is fluent in six languages - and was only too eager to talk. Most players are reluctant to do the press and have to be cajoled or bullied into the pressroom but a snap shot of Zenden's willingness came away at Egaleo when the assembled hacks having interviewed him told him the local Athens papers wanted to speak to him. "Me? Well, my Greek is a bit rusty but I'll give it a go," he said.
Of the current bunch the local lads are always willing to make their Mam's proud by appearing in the Gazette, Julio Arca and Luke Young will chat at length about pretty much anything and Emanuel Pogatetz is officially the nicest man in Europe and talks - quickly and passionately in a deceptively gentle voice, a strange Simpsons cross-match of Rainer Wolfcastle and Dredrick Tatum - within a glowing embracing aura of smiling friendly warmth that is totally at odds with his on field persona while Jeremie Aliadiere, with his hypnotic lilting French-Cockney gangsta patois is another regular volunteer, innit? But none of them are as guaranteed colourful page-fillers in the way George is. We'll miss him.
BOATENG'S exit is the end of an era. His departure -hot on the heels of Mark Schwarzer and Gaizka Mendieta - means there are no longer any players at the club that played at the Millenium Stadium when Boro won the Carling Cup.
Stewie Downing, Chris Riggott and Brad Jones were unused subs and Southgate has stepped up to the dugout but the organic link with the on-the-field heroes has been broken. How time flies. It is only back in February we celebrated the first calendar anniversary and there were three still on the books and two in the team.
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