Ben Gibson was a nervous schoolboy invited to a barbecue at the home of a family neighbour, England star Stewart Downing.
The 16-year-old had just finished his GCSEs and was joining the academy at Middlesbrough, the club owned by his uncle Steve and where he and his mates still had season-tickets.
Gibson’s idol was Jonathan Woodgate, the Teesside-born defender who had left home to play for Real Madrid and Spurs among others.
’I went to the house and I was still dead nervous being around Stewie, but I had no idea his sister was going out with Jonathan Woodgate,' recalls Gibson, now 23, in an interview with Sportsmail ahead of his first North-East derby at Sunderland this weekend.