A lot of people, some of them close to me as well, have said that I sacrificed myself by doing what I did in bringing Terry on board. I didn't see it that way.
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Nobody is that thick-skinned that it doesn't hurt you. Still, you always know what happens in football. I have got used to criticism, I suppose, having been high profile with England and Man U.
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All the stuff about being a drinking club, or having players who were not good enough, I treat as rubbish.
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Last season when things weren't working out, I thought we needed a different voice around the place.
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If I'd been able to put the collection together in one go, say over two years, we'd have had a special team, most wouldn't stay. One or two glory seasons and they were off. To them, the north-east was too far out. They wanted to be with the big hitters.
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In a way, certain sections of the media always wanted to knock me because I had captained my country and been skipper at Old Trafford. It was all a bit odd really.
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I was determined to get it right on the pitch. Then, if I had to leave at the end of the season, so be it. I never felt threatened or isolated by the arrangement. We worked together and it worked out.
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I had to make a change. It was no slight on my staff either. We'd all been at Boro for seven years. But certain players had got too familiar with the set-up. I had to turn it round. Terry was the one man I could think of to do it. So I went for him.
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They wanted to jump on their own bandwagon. Bobby Charlton had never made it as a manager. Bobby Moore hadn't either. I think they never stopped trying to put me in the same category. That was the road they went down with me.
