One of our own with FIVE Champion League winners medals and at times he almost reached the performance level of Ronaldo and Messi. What a stellar career at club and international level with him now the highest goalscorer for Wales by quite a distance. When I first saw him play for Saints (all too briefly) you just knew what a special talent he was and would quickly outgrow us but we can all bask in his reflected glory.
I remember hoping he would leave that free kick for Bradley Wright-Phillips ‘Who the hell is that?’ I was young ok….
I thought he had retired after depositing two goals past the Liverpool.keeper in the CL.final. His finest moment!!
Probably. We have had some gooduns. Wallace lads Shearer Le Tiss But Bale was probably the all round most talented and has the medals. Shame our love story with him was just such a short fling
He asked my niece out on a date after she sang at St Mary's at one home game and she turned him down, the silly girl!...
My daughter actually had a few dates with him...he even came round as a 17 year old to the house to pick her up. She went on 2-3 dates in London when he went to Spurs and decided to leave it as he was too chavy lol. Ah well, She has a nice husband now anyway.
My daughter never reached the radar of the lothario Mr. Bale, which is just as well or the authorities would have to be called. An incredible talent and unlike a lot of previous academy/youth from these parts, actually has the trophy collection to match. congratulations on a great career
Quality Player, proud he came from our academy and always had time for us and no doubt will continue to. I never got the fuss about the Wales, Golf, Madrid banner. It reminded me of a parent with their kids names tattooed on their arm. First born Wales goes on the arm first, then Golf is born and goes under. Finally the youngest Madrid, is born and goes at the bottom. It doesn't mean the parent loves any more than the other(although in this instance Wales is his obvious big love). I wouldn't be bothered if he stood in front of a Wales, golf, Saints banner, I'd see that as a positive!
Certainly one of my proudest achievements, mentoring Gareth through his early days. At least that's how I like to think of it. In reality I was just sat in the Itchen North shouting advice like 'GET RID!' and 'TAKE HIM ON!' as he made his early starts at LB. But I'm sure he heard it all and took it on board.
Absolute legend. Easily the best player to come through the academy since I started following Saints in 2003. Up there with Lallana and JWP as my all time favourite player, a bit gutted he didn't get to make some more memories at SMS!
Blame that c**t Billy Davies for that!! If he hadn't got his players to kick the f**k out of Gareth in the first leg of the play-off semi then we may have won the play-offs that year and I reckon he would have given us at least one season in the Prem
But then in that parallel universe, there would be no Administration, no drop to league one, no JPT win, no Markus Lieber, no Nigel Adkins, no back to back promotions. With the benefit of hindsight, I prefer the journey we had
I suppose it was always inevitable that Gareth would leave us for a PL team once we lost that playoff. As well as the obvious regret of losing him, I still nurture a burning anger that we didn’t get more for him, especially a substantial sell-on fee. And then there was Tommy Forecast…
