Next time Gareth Southgate puts the band back together, they will know the task awaiting them at the World Cup in acoustic Qatar - Iran, the USA and possibly Wales or Scotland.
And at Charlton Athletic, a club with an enviable conveyor belt of young talent, academy director Steve Avory will be thankful for his role among the supporting cast in the rise of the teenager who now calls the tune with England. As a teacher at Hazelwick school in Three Bridges, near Crawley, Avory spent his first term trying to persuade Southgate to play cricket.
Although he could turn his arm over and hold a bat at the thin end – a trick some of the England cricket team's current top-order dunces have yet to master – 'Nord' (because his elocution was like TV presenter Denis Norden's ) had his heart set on playing football. A champion schoolboy triple jumper and decent 200 metres sprinter, Southgate could have taken his pick of several sports to pursue as a career option, and Avory's lobbying to get him in the school cricket team was always destined to meet a straight bat.
