Gareth Southgate: Changing the Game for Young Men review – boys are crying out for help like this | TV & radio

EHe added to his play, Changing the Game for Young Men, in a relaxed opening scene in which the protagonist sits at home, reminiscing and talking about their lives. Gareth Southgate reveals he didn’t know what to do after stepping down as England football manager. Many of his admirers wish he had entered politics: they dream of him as a wise, kind man in Westminster, a compassionate antidote to liars and sorcerers.

Southgate has stepped down so far, and here’s a look at what he can do in his place. Changing the Game, examining how Britain is failing a generation of young men, and politics with a polite “p”. Every problem it identifies is the result of a major political decision, which Southgate ignores before giving a small answer. It makes perfect sense, but the limitations are disappointing.

After a trip to a seminar on the importance of a thinktank, Southgate’s first visit takes him back to his old place Middlesbrough, where as a player and manager he saw the decline of the town after deindustrialization. He talks to three men between the ages of 19 and 20 who can’t always find a job: with hundreds of people applying for every job, they don’t get any answers because they weren’t qualified. They are simply ignored. Another says he had to pull himself out of suicidal thoughts. All three are incredibly confident.

“You’re doing well not to go too far,” Southgate assures them. “You have to give yourself the best chance.” He tries to use the obstacles he has overcome in his sporting career as inspiration for a message of hope, a theme he repeats later when he speaks in prison. “You can’t do anything about the past,” he tells the group of inmates, many of whom came from the same backgrounds as Middlesbrough’s children and succumbed to the influence of crime. But whatever your future is, you can do something about it.

Southgate knows his luck, and from him these families do not feel as romantic as they would from anyone else. It’s advice from the heart, given in the spirit of comradeship that’s all you have if you don’t discuss how the industries that kept places like Middlesbrough afloat were deliberately not replaced, leaving whole communities to perish because economic stimulation was dismissed as “waste of money”. What would happen if, say, a government scheme to block every house in Britain gave the boys a job in Middlesbrough? Soon they will return the money, but we are working in a world where the very least chance is a reality.

When Southgate looks at British schools, he sees that boys who struggle in the classroom can be quickly dismissed as troublemakers; that it would be better to have more vocational training on top of formal training; that young boys with fathers in the house yell at male counselors, so it would be beneficial for more schools to run a policy like the one (interesting) they have, where male teachers put in an extra class that allows boys to talk about their feelings and desires.

Gareth! The main issue there is the lack of money, because of development politics! Teachers may be able to give male students what they need if they have smaller schools, if there is still a teacher in the classroom, if the school can afford better equipment! This is not specified; talking to a “policy advisor” about the problems faced by schoolboys is difficult.

The final part of the film calls for success of a different kind, which Southgate achieves by arranging for one of his three Middlesbrough friends to volunteer with an environmental project. A day of wellies, wheelbarrows and socializing with other adults is beaten to stay at home, alone and neglected. Meanwhile, on a match day at Hitchin Town FC, Southgate wanders the pitches, challenging blokes to give up an hour a week to help a local soldier, Dan Gaze, whose after-school schemes keep the boys from doing bad things.

Focusing only on the underground has its value: on average, a single citizen cannot break through many political opinions, so organizing people is the best way to get it, even if you can’t forget why such work is important. One informs the other. Southgate’s role in this does not include television, as he shows himself here to be good at every skill needed, from stories and pieces to the camera to do well with the interviewees.

A second job as club ambassador, somewhere between Freddie Flintoff and Gareth Malone? This could be as far away, politically, as Gareth Southgate is ready to go.

Gareth Southgate: Changing the Youth Game aired on BBC One and is available on iPlayer

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