In a time where a 20-year-old Raheem Sterling can be sold for £49 million, after refusing a contract worth £100,000 a week from Liverpool, it seems somehow important for footballers to show that they have not completely detached themselves from the fans. Step forward, Stewart Downing.
Despite being a regular in the West Ham United team last season, Stewart Downing has opted to take the step down from the Premier League in to the Championship to rejoin his boyhood club, Middlesbrough, taking a pay cut on the way in order to do so.
In dropping down a division, Downing has effectively ended any immediate chance of an England re-call as the likelihood is that Hodgson would go for wingers playing at the highest level. Downing was at no risk of being dropped by West Ham, after having arguably one of his best seasons in several years last year, but the call to join the club he started his career for, the club he supports, was just too much for him.
For any football fan, the opportunity to play in your team’s colours would be a dream, yet, in the modern day game money dictates where a player will go, or is even willing to go in the case of someone like Sterling. It is for this reason that Stewart Downing should be applauded. From an outside perspective, it’s a brave move to step down a division, but from a football fan perspective, to join ‘your’ club; it makes perfect sense.
Middlesbrough will be overjoyed that Downing has made the step down. Despite costing a potential £7m, which is expensive for most Championship sides and even some Premier League ones, the capture of the local boy Stewart Downing is a brilliant one. Downing is still clearly capable of playing at the highest level and the impact he may have on the push for promotion at Middlesbrough may be great.
Downing offers Middlesbrough an attacking outlet that several clubs in the Championship would love to have. He won’t be afraid to challenge players on the wing, and he is capable of scoring goals himself having scored six for West Ham in the Premier League last season.
With the signing of Cristhian Stuani looking set to go through, Middlesbrough will feel that they will have suitably replaced the goal threat they have lost with Patrick Bamford, their leading scorer last season, returning to Chelsea. After coming so close to promotion last season, the added fire power up front of Stuani, supplied by Downing, will give Middlesbrough greater confidence that this coming season will be their year.
And who would want to deny Stewart Downing the chance of taking his football club back up to the Premier League? A dream that any football fan would give so much to do themselves.
In a time where footballers seem more interested in the money than they do that of the football club or the fans, Stewart Downing is a pleasant reminder that, actually, some footballers still do care.
