Maybe it's remembering the waistcoats. Maybe it's believing opportunities were wasted. Maybe it's the beer cups being targeted at him.
Maybe it's the cups chucked in celebrations, spraying beer in the air. Maybe it's forgetting the 55 years without a final, rather than lasting the distance in tournaments twice again. Maybe it is lamenting how it all ended, rather than forgetting where it all began.
Southgate quits latest: Frontrunners emerge for England job Perspectives on Gareth Southgate's England reign veer between short-sightednesses and short memories - sparked by short fuses of fans. Think back to the baking night in Nice - 26 June 2016. Recall the apparently easy Euros meeting with Iceland ending in perhaps English football's most embarrassing tournament departures.
What is expected of an England manager? Roy Hodgson complaining "I don't know why I'm here" after being told to face the media in his last act as manager? This was England's nadir. But never far from sinking to a new low. Sam Allardyce's appointment put the FA in farce.
Allardyce still holds a proud record as England's only manager with a 100% winning record because of being ingloriously pushed out after one game for unguarded bar talk to undercover reporters. "I was moving into a job where the profile was way beyond anything I'd had before," Southgate said. So Southgate's mission - initially as interim coach - seemed more about preventing England being a laughing stock and a punchline than producing a trop.