How Bob Higgins stole lives with Southampton sexual abuse

Testimonies of former schoolboy footballers sexually abused by the coach show his manipulative and destructive behaviour

While Bob Higgins is almost two and a half years into a 24-year sentence for abusing schoolboy players, the men he preyed upon are left to untangle the roots he put down in their personal lives. A running theme among those interviewed is that he set himself up as a “father figure”, pulling the wool over parents’ eyes but also inveigling himself into the affections of children whose backgrounds were less stable. In many cases, psychological control was only the start.

One section of the Barnardo’s report into the horrific sexual abuse Higgins committed at Southampton explains how he would punish some of the boys – by failing to select them, humiliating them or physically assaulting them – to press home the message that he owned their claim to a football career, paving the way to further abuse. “My relationship with Bob was that I could never do well enough,” one is quoted as saying. “Sometimes I was physically sick from training. He created the opportunity to abuse me, mentally first, physically next, then sexually over a three-and-a-half-year period.” Another states: “Basically, if I let him abuse me, he’d be happy with me.”

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from Football | The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/nov/26/how-bob-higgins-stole-lives-with-southampton-sexual-abuse