Barnardo's review on Southampton FC coach Bob Higgins

Barnardo's spoke with twenty-six men who, as young boys, knew or were a victim of the now-62-year-old.

The ex-coach was jailed for 24 years in 2019 for sexually abusing young players in the 70s and 80s.

According to the review, young players saw Higgins as a "God" and a "father figure", and that boys were "vying for his attention".

Hampshire Constabulary undated handout photo of the police interview of predatory paedophile ex-football coach Bob Higgins who has been found guilty of 45 charges of indecent assault against 23 teenage boys. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Issue date: Thursday

One man told Barnardo's: "He was like a god like figure, untouchable. He was like Southampton Football Club."

Another said: "‘The way he groomed people was the most strange thing – he gave you things; he rewarded you.

"Even though he abused you, you were in awe of him. I was confused about a lot of things for many reasons."

The review said that Higgins also groomed parents and coaches, and that he was never challenged by other adults.

"He had contact with my parents; he came and stayed in my parent’s home... he ruled my parents," one man told Barnardo's. "It was frightening looking back as Bob Higgins had total control."

"I still have feelings towards Bob. I don't know if I still love him – I don't know if I'd hug him or hit him," added another.

Like many other football clubs, Southampton Football Club was, in the 1970s and 1980s, run by a ‘board’, which had very little contact with Higgins.

He had full access to club facilities in evenings and at weekends and it was rare for any full-time staff or management to be around at those times.

Bob Higgins, at the centre of accusations of historic child abuse at Southampton Football Club..

One coach told Barnardo's: "‘I, and [other coaches] should have done more...to question his behaviour...but without concrete evidence it would have been difficult to achieve anything.

"I should have done more."

The review concludes: "It is our view that the argument that ‘things were different then’ and society did not understand child sexual abuse two and three decades ago in the way we do now, is flawed.

"Regardless of what we know now, adults who were charged with the care of children and young people even then, owed them a duty of care which, in our professional judgment, was disregarded by those who were responsible for the safety and well-being of boys who played with the club.

Bob Higgins

"The issue of who knew about the rumours cannot be stated with any certainty and we know that Higgins’ abuse towards young boys was not reported by the boys themselves to the adults around them."

In response to the report, Southampton Football Club provided a statement. 

It said: "We have been determined to find an appropriate response for all of the victims and survivors of abuse at the club as well as their families. 

"We hope that the work completed by Barnardo’s may finally help us all to understand how it could be that a predatory paedophile was allowed to operate seemingly undetected at Southampton Football Club for more than a decade before going on to work elsewhere in football until 2016.

"None of the steps we have taken to improve the safety of the young players that we work with now lessens the pain or suffering of anyone abused by Bob Higgins. 

"However, we do hope that this report shows them that their experiences have helped to shape a world where it is far more difficult for anyone to be able to carry out such horrific sexual abuse."

Other shocking comments that victims told Barnardo's include:

• "I don’t have the best relationship with my son – I wonder if it affected me. It’s not a very nice place to be, being a very knowledgeable survivor."
• "It’s embarrassing to say but I saw affection on sofa, settees, cuddling. Sometimes he had two or three of us draped all over him."
• "He promised me he would be my father figure. He used to give me gifts, attention."
• "It was a tough thing to tell your parents someone was showing more affection than their own family. Higgins was quite good at targeting vulnerable boys and becoming like a father figure. He was confident no one would talk about it."
• "Bob Higgins was like a God sitting on a throne with boys draped around him."
• "I looked at him as a God."
• "The coaches put Bob Higgins on a pedestal; he was like God. You had to do what he said and make sure you didn’t upset him."
• "If he came in a room, I remember I’d want him to look at me, to say, “alright son” and just show a little endearment to me, give me a pat on my shoulder."
• "I used to get kit as well and I used to get extra expenses e.g., it would be £3 for a train, and he’d say take £5."
• "But you wouldn't question Bob as it might jeopardise you becoming an apprentice. It wasn’t brainwashing but we were all in awe of him and therefore didn’t do anything to upset his regime."
• "It was like a relationship with a man or a woman. You couldn’t think he might be with someone else. Mentally and verbally, he would say he loved me, and he would get me to write him letters. He would tell me he had letters written from other boys and said I had been a long time since I’d written him one."