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It hasn’t quite worked out like that for the Teessider since leaving West Ham for a second spell at the Riverside.

“If I’d known what it was going to be like for me here, then I would never have come back,” he says. “Not in a million years.”

Within days of re-signing for his hometown club, Downing feared he’d made a mistake.

Lifting the lid on his troubled relationship with former manager Aitor Karanka, Downing talks for the first time of his heartache when fans who once idolised him blamed him for the Spaniard’s exit.

And the 35-times capped England international reveals his shock when new boss Garry Monk told him at their first meeting, he wasn’t part of his plans.

Life off the pitch, on the other hand, is good for Downing, who’s just become a father for the second time. And having starred in Boro’s 2-2 draw at Barnsley last week, he’s hoping to keep his place for Saturday’s home game against Cardiff and there could yet be a happy ending.

DOWNING ON… Signing for Karanka

“As soon as I walked through the door, it didn’t feel right. I just didn’t feel welcome.

“I remember going on that first Marbella pre-season trip and saying to my Dad ‘It’s not right but I have already signed.’

“He said: ‘It’s too late. Five years!’ I had to get my head down.

“I don’t know if it was a problem me being around. The manager has obviously given the go-ahead to sign me but the chairman obviously wanted me to come back.

“Had he said from day one he didn’t want me here, I would happily have stayed at West Ham.”

DOWNING ON… Karanka’s sacking

“We were playing Stoke and he put up the squad to travel but those who don’t travel aren’t told why. I asked why I wasn’t in the squad and he said: “I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

“That wasn’t the answer I was looking for. If he’d said I wasn’t training well enough, then I’d have trained harder or whatever but this had rumbled on for months and months.”

“The next thing I was getting booed, people thinking I got the manager out of the club but that’s a load of rubbish. He left after an argument with another player, nothing to do with me. Everyone in Middlesbrough thinks it was me but it wasn’t.

“Being booed wasn’t nice but I wasn’t allowed to say anything though I wanted to tell everyone what really went on and if you’d asked another 10 players they’d probably tell you the same thing.”

DOWNING ON… Splits in the dressing room

“It’s a million times better now. Even when we got promoted, it was a weird feeling because there were underlying issues.

“I honestly felt during that summer that the manager would leave because you have to think he had previously walked out on us.

“But there was a split even then. He might say everyone loved him but that changing room went from one of the best dressing rooms I have been in to one of the worst by a million miles.

“You can’t carry passengers, particularly as a newly promoted side and once Karanka left, I think people took sides and it was difficult.”

DOWNING ON… Meeting Garry Monk

“I got called ten days early. A few lads had already seen him and I was thinking he might want to hear my ideas, maybe as an older player.

“We had a nice conversation to be fair. It was fine. We talked about our careers – I had played against him.

“But right at the end, he said I wasn’t part of the plans. It was a big shock.”

DOWNING ON… The future

“I didn’t leave his office thinking that’s it. I’d been in a similar position at Liverpool under Brendan Rodgers who wanted to bring in his own players.

“Then one day, he said: ‘I’ve been impressed with you, I want you involved.’ He ended up playing me in every game.

“It’s been similar here really this season. When you get a chance, try to play well and go from there.

“If I’d left this club in the summer, it would have been disastrous for me. I’d love to leave on a high.”

Stewart Downing was speaking at a Middlesbrough Foundation event at the Herlingshaw Centre in South Bank, which he attended with four of his team-mates.

The players took part in activities with the Youth Employment Initiative, targeted at 15-29 year olds who are not in employment, Club Together, a programme aimed at refugees and asylum seekers in the area, Premier League Inclusion, for people with a range of physical and learning disabilities, and Team Talk, which engages males over 40 recently made redundant following the close of SSI Steelworks.

Middlesbrough's next game is against Cardiff at home today at 3pm.