MSS Magazine Issue 131

Injury special

mmssssEXCLUSIVE

INTERVIEW

The magazineof Middlesbrough Supporters South ● Winter 2000/2001

Winterwonderland?

we talk to Robbo…

mss Winter 2000/2001 3mss Winter 2000/20012

■ Issue number 131 Winter 2000/2001 (First issue 1975)■ APFSCIL Newsletter of the Year:

1998-1999, 1999-2000 ■ Editor: Julie Yates (020 8546 0382)

■ Designer: Andy Smith (020 8347 6462)■ The editorial team: Shaun Keogh, Steve Smith,

Paul Thompson, Clare Smith, Nigel Pringle, Claire Carvello,Tim Hetherington, Gemma Roulston,

Geoff Thomas & Tim Spaffordwith thanks to: Geoff Vickers, Jan Sanders, Gerard Walker,Paul Readman, Harry Pearson, Jason Allen, Andrew Jagels,Darren Morrow, Mike Fenton, Stew Wylie, Rob O’Connor,

Alan Ebbs, Jason Speck, Peter McGough, George Johnstone,Alan Bestford and Nick Smith

■ Cover picture by Paul Thompson

■ Repro by Fastpoint, London E14 (020 7454 7801)■ Printed by East End Offset, London E3 (020 7538 2521)■ The next issue, number 132, the Spring collection, will be

out in February. Postal address for editorial: Julie Yates, 3 Latchmere Lane, Kingston-upon-Thames,

Surrey KT2 5SQ Tel: 020 8546 0382, or email:[email protected]

■ To join MSS (£15 per season and £2 for any other member ofthe household) send your cheques, made payable to MSS to:

Jan Sanders, MSS Membership Secretary, 6 Valley Rise,Wheathampstead AL4 8JF. Boro fans living outside Europeplease write for rates. All members receive a free MSS diary. ■ For any correspondence or calls regarding match tickets or

MSS itself contact: Geoff Vickers, 45 Thorpe Road, St. Albans, Herts, AL1 1RF Phone: 01727 839106,

or email: [email protected]

■ MSS 2000-2001 COMMITTEE: Chairman: STUART BEADNALLSecretary: GEOFF VICKERS

Magazine editor: JULIE YATESTravel Secretary: GERARD WALKER

Membership Secretary: JAN SANDERSSocial Secretary: ANDY WALKER

Treasurer: JOHN LIGHTFOOTAPSFCIL rep: GEMMA ROULSTONWithout portfolio: ANDY SMITH

■ Views expressed in these pages are not necessarily the views of Middlesbrough Supporters South

We would like to point out that in a recent article published in mss andwhich appeared on our website, references were made to a legal case

involving Charles Amer, former Chairman of Middlesbrough FootballClub. We would like to set the record straight and say that the

allegations were made without foundation and we are happy to pointout that Mr Amer successfully won his court case with Private Eye

magazine. We apologise to him for any distress or embarrassment thiscaused. The article has been removed from our website.

mmssssthisPictureA marvellous tribute to WILF MANNION by

sculptor Tom Maley. Picture: Paul Thompson

mss.org.ukhttp://

Well it’s been a funny old startto the season. As I’m writingthis at the beginning of No-vember we’ve only had threeSaturday away trips. The

other three games being Manchester City(Sky Sunday game), Charlton (Londongame) and Derby (mid-week match). Still forthose of us who have been on the tripswe’ve had the pleasure of watching Borogain six of their current haul of 10 points!!

It really has been an odd start to theseason in so many ways. Our first trip toCoventry was such a great start. A decentnumber were on the trip, the trains were ontime and the pub in Coventry was as wel-coming as ever. If you add to this a fan-tastic performance from the Boro you’vegot a recipe for a damn good day out. Itseems so long ago now. On the day welooked like a team.Boksic looked like hecould be a superb acqui-sition, Karembeu lookedlike Emerson in the earlydays and the sun shone.Trailing round the pubs inCoventry City centre, look-ing for a new MSS meet-ing place for next year,may well have affectedour opinions. But those ofus travelling home a fewhours after the matchwere full of optimism.

Somehow things hadchanged by the time wewere on the return tripfrom Southampton. Okay,the sun had shone, thepub was great and the Boro won 3-1. Sowhat had changed? I’ve seldom been on atrip back from a Boro match where we’dwon and people were so pessimistic. Thegeneral view was that we were extremelylucky to win. More importantly it was obvi-ous that Karembeu was at the very leasthaving difficulty in settling down. The teamseemed very ragged. Without a bit of bril-liance from Boksic, a howler from PaulJones in the Southampton goal, somewoeful finishing from Southampton and afantastic defensive display from the wood-work, the result would have been very dif-ferent. Overall there was a sense that allwas not well at the Boro.

Results since have only added to thisfeeling. By the time we travelled to Ipswichit really was all change. It rained, the trainswere well and truly up the creek and theBoro just weren’t in it. At least the newMSS pub for Ipswich proved to be a greatchoice – great food, great beer and ex-

tremely friendly locals. Whether we get touse it next season may depend more onour form than Ipswich’s.

There’s been a lot said about Boro’scurrent plight. Much of this has centred on‘raised expectations’. I can only speak formyself and admit that the Robson/Gibsonrevolution did raise my expectations. How-ever, I never believed that a fantastic newstadium and money to burn gave us adivine right to success. Course I’d like tobe arranging trips to the Millennium Sta-dium in Cardiff for the Worthington andF.A. Cup finals. But I’m realistic enough toknow that this might not happen thisseason – I can live with that. What is con-cerning is the way we are playing. I meanat Ipswich, we were totally outplayed in vir-tually every department. There doesn’tseem to be a long-term game plan. I can

only hope that by the timeyou read this that ourgame plan won’t be rele-gation avoidance.I hope this hasn’t drivenyou to drink. So what canwe do about it? Well youcould get out and getbehind the lads. Our nexttrip is to Sunderland on9th December. We havevery limited travel ticketsfor this so get in touchquickly if you want to go.Contact me for details.Before that we are atWest Ham on 2nd De-cember. The MSS pub forthis is the excellentMarket Porter on Stoney

Street near London Bridge Station. Whatbetter way to spend a Saturday? A fewpints, watch the Boro then on to the MSSSocial in the evening.

Just before Christmas we are at Tot-tenham (23rd December). We meet in theHaringey Irish Centre, Pretoria Road (closeto White Hart Lane British Rail) at the invi-tation of the Tottenham supporters club.This is another welcoming meeting pointserving ‘good honest non-fussy food’.

After Christmas there will be no trip toLeeds on New Years day so we recom-mence travelling with a trip to Liverpool on20th January. Followed by Aston Villa on10th February. Details of all the trains willbe on my answerphone at least two weeksbefore games. Please try to book at leasta week in advance.

Any questions? Just get in touch■ GERARD WALKER, Travel Secretary Telephone: 020 8352 2374e-mail: [email protected]

It has not been the best of starts to a league campaign, hasit? A side strengthened by four or five acquisitions over theclose season and we could have been forgiven for expectingan assault on a European place this season. As the longnights draw in, we face another worrying run of poor results

culminating in a bottom three position going into December.As I trudged solemnly out of Old Trafford earlier this month

after our 2-1 defeat, I could have been forgiven for asking whythe spirit shown by the team that afternoon had not been ondisplay at some of the earlier matches. Christian Karambeufor example showed glimpses of why he has won top honoursin the game. Therefore why he couldn’t he put the same per-formance in front of 3,000 spectators at Selhurst Park on acold wet Tuesday evening as he did in front of 67,000 is a bitof a mystery. And the answer to that therefore is the reasonperhaps why a team of talent, assembled at no small cost,has not been able to establish itself beyond third bottom of thetable.

True we have had injuries. There is no denying that we havehad key players missing from an early period. Neverthelessthis is not entirely the reasons for total lack of form and confi-dence. We have had players significantly under-perform, it hasnot been at all pleasant to watch and I guess the managementwould not shirk responsibility for that. Pressure is definitely onnow because crowd expectations are higher than the reality of

the pudding served. The atmosphere at home games thisseason has been, to be frank, very poor and we all need a lift.And after all, it is the crowd that determines ultimately whetherperformances are satisfactory. I am not alone in showing con-cern at the growing rows of empty seats which are slowlyspreading from the corners of the West Stand Upper.

Steve Gibson is on record that it will get worse before it will

get better. It is a firm ‘Chancellor-esque’ state of the nation ad-dress which I took to mean that we would lose at Old Traffordand at home to Arsenal (which we did) but once the injuriesclear up, then we have every right to expect an improvement inresults. It has been done over the last two seasons so a cer-tain amount of faith exists that this can be achieved but Borocannot afford yet another traditional post-Xmas slump thisseason. Starting with Leicester and Bradford the tide has toturn because it really is soul destroying driving back down theM1 after yet another poor home performance.

And the verdict on the new signings so far? There is nodoubting the quality of Alen Boksic (when he plays), and thepedigree of Karambeu (when he decides to show it), but wehave seen little of Job, Okon and Whelan to pass any kind ofof judgement. And Ehiogu? Well that’s just very bad luck. Thedisappointment for me has been the form and the recent atti-tude of Ricard. Storming off pitches and ambiguous commentsin the press don’t really endear him to many. However it hasbeen his form in the past two seasons which have kept us outof trouble. It will take a major attitude and confidence boost tobring him back to his level of play last season.

Going back to the matchday at Old Trafford, as we weremaking our way back to the tram station after the game wesaw an odd sight. Parked up in the Cricket Ground car parkwas the Boro team coach. In the front window of the coachwas what appeared to be a Christmas Tree! And strung acrossthe front window were those doily paper chain things we usedto hang up in infant school classrooms at Xmas. This must bean effort on behalf of the Club to bring Christmas forward thisyear and get our traditional post yuletide slump out of the way?These sports psychologists think of everything!

And to Christmas itself. I want to finish on an optimisticnote. Our infamous night out is approaching with the MSS partyon 2nd December. This year we have gone for a different venue(details on the back) and we hope to have a great turnout towelcome the Club. This year we want to be able to say that de-spite the disappointments so far this season, that MSS canmake you forget the trials and tribulations which just seem tocome watching Boro these days. So come along and shareyour views, toast the good things to come and forget thosebad results. With that I would like to wish everyone in MSSand at the football club a very happy Christmas and this timea very good start to the new year.

Come on Boro.■ GEOFF VICKERS, 45 Thorpe Road, St. Albans, Herts, AL11RF. tel: 01727 839106, email: [email protected]

It has been decided not have an APSFCIL dinner thisseason, but to have an end-of-season party instead. Thedate has been set for 18th May 2001. If anyone is inter-ested in going, then please contact me nearer the time.

What do members wish APFSCIL to be campaigningon? The football fans charter? The powers of the new foot-ball commission which has just been set up by Chris Smith?The end of the transfer system as we know it? If you haveany ideas on what you want raised at the meetings I go to,or that APFSCIL should be campaigning on, then pleasecontact me and let me know.

Unfortunately, due to the poor weather and the speedrestrictions imposed after the Hatfield crash, I was unableto get to November’s meeting. So we still have not receivedthe ‘Magazine of the year’ award.

I have been in contact with one of the regulars fromthe Back Cats (Sunderland), who told me that the maintopic of conversation and debate last Monday was abouttravel. Apparently Virgin have come up with a way of givingus fns group travel. This has not been discussed withBritish Transport Police or any other interested organisa-tions. If a group of people wanted to obtain 30 percent offthe standard either standard/super saver, then they haveto arrive in, say Manchester, three hours before kick off(12.00 for 3.00 k.o.) If they wish to get 40 percent off, thenthey have to arrive between three to five hours ahead ofkick-off. If, by any chance they wish to get the maximum 60percent off, then they have to arrive definitely five hoursbefore kick off. That means that they have to leave LondonEuston at about 6.00 am to get the maximum benefit. APF-SCIL have asked them if the British Transport Police havebeen consulted for their views – Virgin admitted that theyhave not even asked them. APFSCIL have thrown this pro-posal back at Virgin to say that it is unworkable, and that itwill more than likely lose them business rather gain themany. We await further developments.● GEMMA ROULSTON, APFSCIL Rep for MSSTelephone: 01737 277607, email: [email protected]■ APFSCIL is the Association of Provincial FootballSupporters Clubs in London

APFSCILreport

Tottenham on 23rd Train trouble

mss Winter 2000/20014

Secretary’s Saywith Geoff Vickers

Travel news

“Pressure is definitelyon now because crowdexpectations are higherthan the reality of thepudding served”

Al the latest on the MSS website: www.mss.org.uk

Post-Xmas revival anyone?from Gerard Walker Gemma Roulston

mss Winter 2000/2001 5

We need cheeringup, as Boksic’sgoals did atSouthampton

At present we have a total of 575 members – 345full renewals, 153 household renewals, 48 fullnew members and 29 household new members.This compares with 626 at this time last year,and 756 in 1998. You can draw your own con-

clusions from this decline in the membership. Perhaps it’sthe lacklustre performance of the team? (The ‘exciting’new signings haven’t really helped!) Or perhaps it’s the in-crease in the membership fees set last year? Let’s hopethe post-Christmas slump has come early this year andwe’re now on the way up.

Membershipnews

Jan Sanders…but not unlucky. Fly Me To The Moon hitissue number 259 against Leicester, in itsthirteenth season. With a great newwebsite online and a superb new annualout, don’t forget you can get the bestfanzine in the world sent to your front door. Write to Boro Programmes, c/o 58 Parliament Road,Middlesbrough TS1 4LA. You can e-mailthem at [email protected]

13th season…

it didn’t take the press long to attribute some juicy anti-Boropropaganda to Mrs. Karambeu. “I don’t like the food, I don’t goto the pub, I HATE the weather,” screamed the headlines. In anarticle full of truly shocking revelations such as “Britain does nothave great weather”, we await to see whether reporter Ally Rossis nominated for an award for investigative journalism.

Mr. Ross wonders what a Wonderbra would look likewrapped round some of the other women who attend the River-side. No doubt Mr. Ross will never know, as the extent of his ef-forts at undercover journalism merely stretches to researchinga picture of Ms. Karembeu’s cleavage. Plus, no self-respectingBoro lass would allow someone like Mr. Ross anywhere nearunless she was giving a quote which only involved two words.

Robbo called the signing of Ehioghu a “calculated risk”.However, as Ehioghu limped off at Charlton, The Guardian wasalready declaring that “the £8m gamble falls flat”. With toler-ance on Teesside at an all-time low, the press will not allow anymore questionable decisions to go unpunished. “The honey-moon is over Robbo, so pack your bags,” declared the headline

in the Sunday People on 1st October, inviting readers to sharetheir views. “Crisis? what crisis?” responded Andrew Vickers inthe Gazette on 14th October. Surely this is like Railtrack asking“delay what delay?” as the trains crawl along at the speed of aconstipated tortoise.

Following the defeat – or rather the death throes – againstNewcastle, the knives were out. “Robbo’s on the Riverslide”declared The Sun. The Guardian reported that the team wereleft to “wallow in their own inadequacies”. For the first timeRobbo mentioned the possibility of quitting. He told the SundayPeople that he would consider his position in April. All this beforeChristmas as well!! If things continue surely MiddlesbroughCouncil must consider banning the holiday which traditionallysees the Boro getting stuffed more often than the turkey! ■

Claire Carvello’s regular watch over the press gangreceives a great addition to his CD collection…

Was it Santa’s clause?A

week is a long time in politics and in football it’s a life-time. By the time you are reading this column the mediacould be applauding Robbo as the ‘Riverside Revolu-tion’ gets back on track or calling for his head as therevolution gains all the momentum of a drugged snail.

Back in August Robbo was interviewed by The Observer. Themanager was in buoyant mood as he faced his seventh seasonat the Riverside. He managed to avoid uttering the words ‘silver-ware’ and ‘Europe’, having learned the hard way that these wordsare akin to putting a voodoo curse on Boro’s forthcoming per-formances. The title of the article, ‘Robson’s last stand’, sug-gested that the reporter sees the 2000/01 season as somethingof a last chance saloon for Mr. Robson.

Earlier this year a couple of high profile signings, completewith obligatory international model wife brought a ray of sun-shine to the north-east. Now the dark cold nights are here anda bitter chill is affecting the Riverside. It’s not just the weatheroutside either. According to press reports this particular weatherpattern has firmly established itself in the dressing room andbackrooms of the club.

The season got off to a bad start almostimmediately, following the revelation that theinfamous clause in Ziege’s contract didindeed exist. There was no Christian charityfrom Ziege as he abandoned ship for Anfieldquicker than you could say “five-and-a-half-mil-lion”. Meanwhile his PR machine got into topgear and the Daily Mail reported that hatemail drove almost him over the edge. The Sunreported that Ziege was a persona non grataas club officials removed his face from the of-ficial Boro video. Speculation that Boro arealso planning to replace Karembeu’s headwith that of a donkey – should his form fail topick up – are so far unconfirmed.

Ziege followed the well trodden path to a‘big’ club, first carved by the prophet Barmby,closely followed by the Italian and Brazilian dis-ciples. The Mirror reported Robson was seek-ing ‘the last laugh” and that we were “close tocompeting with Liverpool now anyway.” Per-haps he was referring to joy-riding rather thanfootball.

Football really is a game of two halves and


Tackling the tabloids

ACD of last season might seem to most MSS memberslike the sort of thing a doctor might prescribe as ahealthy alternative to mogadon. In his narrative GaryPhilipson, Century’s genial bloke in the crowd de-scribes the 1999-2000 chapter of our club’s history as

“a roller coaster ride”. Well, maybe, but only if it’s an under-sevens’ roller coaster with a permanently jammed set of brakeshe had in mind.

With such delights as the opening day defeat to Bradfordand the 0-0 against Wimbledon to look forward to, boredommight seem to be guaranteed. In fact tedium is not allowed somuch as a sniff at this splendid endeavour, which is easily thesweetest and tastiest item to find its way into my CDplayer since my daughter wedged a jammy dodgerinto it shortly after her second birthday.

Though Philipson provides a droll narration

and there are occasional interventions from theplayers and Captain Marvel (“Bad run of injuries…dis-astrous start...” Oh, you can fill in the rest) the mainfun and frolics come courtesy of Century’s commentaryduo of Alistair Brownlee and Bernie Slaven who according tothe sleeve are “both lifelong Boro fans” (Yes, there was onecorner of Glasgow in the seventies where the bedroom wallswere covered in posters of Billy Ashcroft).

Bernie, whose scrupulous sense of fair play provides a wel-come counterpoint to Brownlee’s more, er, partisan approach,gets one moment of glory when he mysteriously describes Gi-

anluca Festa as “The Flying Pig”, but The Wolf-man is generally limited to muttering “I don’tbelieve it” in the background as if practicingfor his Victor Meldrew turn at the CenturyXmas shindig. In the main though this isBrownlee’s potato.Like most MSSers I only get to hear AlistairBrownlee occasionally. My life is the poorerfor it. There is something so joyful about himthat it transcends cliché. Phrases that might,in the mouths of lesser mortals such as JohnMotson or Alan Green, sound forced orpompous, are transformed by the Voice of

Teesside into something delirious and wonderful. When he cel-ebrates Mark Schwarzer’s penalty shootout heroics against Ar-senal (“He pounces like a possum”) by intoning, “Schwarzer!Once, twice, three times a hero!” I laughed so hard I thought I’dcracked a rib.

Brownlee has many such great moments during the courseof the CD and most of them involve one player. Every great artistneeds a muse. Shakespeare had “the dark lady”, Bob Dylanhad Sara Lowndes and Alistair Brownlee has Hamilton Ricard or“Ham the Man” as he invariably styles him. There is somethingabout the burly Colombian with the head like an Easter Islandsculpture that inspires the commentator to flights of brilliance.“Magni-goaaaaal!” he yells as Ricard bangs one in against Wim-bledon; “Wham, bam, thank you Ham” he bellows after the bigman’s cracks one in against Sunderland. Against Arsenal Ricardis eulogised as “Cool Hand Ham”; versus Coventry his shot“Almost sent the net to North Ormesby!”. At White Hart Lane“Ham is once again the Man”, while in that Coventry win “Hamis definitively The Man”.

All of these encomia to the strapping Colombian are de-livered by Brownlee in an ecstatic voice so packed

with genuine, raw emotion he makes MichaelBolton sound like, well, a crap white pub-singer

with stupid hair really. The tumultuous effectis heightened by Brownlee’s habit of ex-

tending vowels in the manner popularisedby Brazilians and employing a crisp,

rolling “R” apparently lifted from PuertoRican rhythm-ace Tito Puente, a notiongiven further credence by Alistair’s con-fused insistence that every strike by

Ricard signals “salsa time at The River-side Stadium”, a piece of Latin American

confusion that matches the Brazilian sombrerofor fun-filled inaccuracy.Marvellous stuff. Indeed the only down note inthe whole thing is Gary Philipson’s summary ofthe season. In this the Bald One concludes that

with Ziege and Juninho on hand the 2000-2001season looks like being a really good one. ■

A letter from Bob Fischer:Dear MSS,I’d like to object strongly to Harry Pearson’s compar-ison of my good self to 80s Boro star Micky Angus in

his review of The Boro Alphabet (MSS magazine No129) – not least because it’s far too flattering! Mickyhas more than an air of the ‘dashing cavaliers’ abouthim, whereas I’m more your ‘overweight, long-hairedlout’, so for a more credible lookalike, check out RayHankin’s photo in the same publication.While we’re on the subject though, am I the only oneof your readers to have noticed the distinct similaritybetween Harry himself and 80s Boro reserves regularMichael ‘Rodney’ Trotter? Sadly no entry for Trottskiin the Boro Alphabet itself, but you can see him in allhis glory on page 30 of last year’s Fly Me To The Moonannual. Nothing like a cheap plug is there? Said theman in B&Q’s bathroom fittings section. See you all ina drunken haze at this year’s MSS Xmas do, in themeantime, cracking mag as always,Best regardsBob Fischer

Harry Pearson

Middlesbrough FC,a Season Review1999-2000, TheCD costs £9.95.http://www.megaworld.co.uk/sport/mfc.html


Hamming it up a treat

“Every great artistneeds a muse.

Shakespeare had ‘thedark lady’, Bob Dylan

had Sara Lowndesand Alistair Brownlee

has HamiltonRicard, or ‘Ham the

Man’ as heinvariably styles him”

Sorry, we couldn’t resist it

“The Sun reported that Ziege’sface was removed from theofficial Boro video. Speculationthat Boro plan to replaceKarembeu’s head with that of adonkey are so far unconfirmed”


22nd AugustBoro 0 Tottenham 0A long haul to Washington to visit acouple of clients, followed by a shorthop down the A19 to meet brother-in-law Vince and his sons in the Ironopolisclub for some extremely cheap pre-match beers. I got in a round of sixpints, and it cost just less than £7.When I told the guys back at the table,they said I was robbed – it should onlybe £1 a pint on matchdays. I was wellpleased though. If only buying a roundof drinks could always be so easy onthe pocket.

All the pre-match talk was aboutBoksic, so even though we all knew hewas not 100 percent fit, it was disap-pointing not to see him take any part inthe game that followed.

There were a few changes from theCoventry game, but the game startedbrightly for both teams, although Borohad the edge in the first half. Theylooked very organised and confident inmidfield, but Deane and Ricard stillhave no pace whatsoever. I can under-stand having one lumbering, intimidat-ing target man hovering around the box,but two is somewhat excessive. Theydo tend to cancel each other out, andit’s not as if though there are that manyballs being put in in the first place.

It was, however, a bit of a shock tosee Boro go in at half time 0-1 down.As we had looked the more likely teamto score up to then, no hair was beingripped out, as it looked likely that thebalance would be redressed in thesecond half, although the lack of paceof our target men was worrying.

The second half came, and Borowent to pieces. Complete disorganisa-tion and misunderstandings; here wego, typical Boro. The Riverside fallssilent.

The goal, from Summerbell, was outof the blue. It was a great cross and hemet it well, but it was not expected withthe run of play. Soon after, Robsontakes my extra sensory advice andhoiks off Ricard (or was it Deane? No

matter, they were both as ineffective asone another) and brings on Campbell.This had the desired effect of stretchingthe Spurs full backs, and on anothernight, could have won us the match. IfCampbell had been on the pitch fromthe beginning he probably would havewon us the match. However, as it was,Spurs put together a late burst, so itcould have gone either way.

A fair result in the end then, but Imust say the access from the stadiumto Marton Road via the underpass is adisgrace. This must be the only stadiumin the country where you have to form aqueue to get out of the bloody place.Whoever is responsible has had fiveyears to sort it out; there is no excuse. ■ Shaun Keogh

Above: We haveproof! MSSerDarren Morrowsends us thisrevealingdocument (alsoafter a long haulfrom Washington)which clearlyshows that theSkunks bossBobby Robsonsigned a piece ofpaper which says:“I, the undersignedagree thatMiddlesbrough FCare far better thanNewcastleUnited”. Ah-ha!

26th AugustBoro 1 Leeds United 2There haven’t been so many falsedawns since man first orbited the earthand saw the sun rise every 90 minutes.One excellent performance was rapidlyfollowed by a return to earth. Boro dom-inated the match for… oooooh, about90 seconds before Leeds took charge,and frankly, it should have been all overby half time. Bowyer put the visitors infront, having collected Bridges’ flick -onand comprehensively losing Okon.

In retrospect, the Socceroo can beforgiven as he’d just had his footbroken, but Gazza would have gotcloser to the (alleged) GBH merchant.The second goal was lucky, as Da-court’s shot was covered by Schwarzerbefore getting a huge deflection offSmith, but it wasn’t undeserved. Boroswitched to 4-4-2, and later to 4-3-3when Job came on to replace SicknoteO’Neill, but it didn’t make much differ-ence. Karambeu seemed to be takingLeeds on by himself, and ten againstone are hardly level odds. If it had been4-0 at half time, we couldn’t have com-plained.

Unsuprisingly, things improved inthe second half. Karambeu was every-where, but Curtis was having a bit of anightmare following his man-of-the-match performance against Spurs.Again and again the ball was givenaway, or wasted in park style. It was anact of mercy when Ricard was pulledoff, and the new front line of Whelan,Job and Deane looked passably lively.Stampy got himself on the scoresheetas Leeds tired, and we could even havescraped a draw, but that would havebeen more, much more than was de-served. I had to laugh at some idiot onthe Century phone-in blaming the ref-eree, who actually got just about every-thing right. ■ Andrew Jagels

This was a good benchmark to see ifBoro can attain status as a top six sidethis season. Driving up the motorway in

6th September 2000Derby County 3 Boro 3There we were, the three of us stood inthe pub before the game talking aboutBoro’s amazing ability to squanderseemingly unassailable leads, amongstother things. I made the comment thaton several occasions when we’d beenthree up I was never entirely satisfiedthat we’d hold on to it, Stew and Stevesaid they’d known worse!

The irony of this conversation didn’tstart to become apparent until thelatter stages of a game that Boro hadtaken by the scruff of the neck rightfrom the kick-off, taking a 3-0 lead withgoals from Boksic, Deane and Job. Thiscoupled with a superlative performancefrom Boksic, clearly a class aboveanyone else on the pitch, left the travel-ling Boro contingent seemingly in an-other away win wonderland. What’smore, we actually looked like a side ca-pable of realising our ambition of a topsix position and the Holy Grail of a Euro-pean place.

Inevitably, still lacking full match fit-ness, Boksic ran out of steam and wassubstituted on the hour to a standingovation, a gesture that seemed to say‘there you go lads, that’s how it’s done;now you have a go’. Boksic gone, thenext thirty minutes were a bit like whenyour Dad finally takes the stabilisers offyour little pushbike when you’re a kid.You try and adjust to the change, startoff a bit wobbly and then crash head-long into the kerb. Even Derby’s substi-tution in the 70th minute which broughton Kinkladze didn’t make me think backto our pre-match conversation or triggerany thought of the complete collapse Iwas about to witness. I was toowrapped up in one of those dizzy highsyou get on the Boro rollercoaster,matched only sometimes by thosestomach-churning lows. I found myselfthinking that maybe Robbo had finally

found the right blend and that a goodseason lay ahead.

Suddenly the side that had beenstrolling around Pride Park like so manyteams seem to be doing at the River-side lately, looked absolutely terrified ofthe little Georgian. Kinkladze wholooked like he’d had a pie or two overthe summer took centre stage and pro-ceeded to kick-start Derby into anamazing fightback. When they pulledone back after some blatantcheating/unsportsmanlike behaviourfrom Deon Burton, I naively thoughtthey’d just got themselves a consola-tion goal. Only when Derby pressed for-ward cutting the previouslyimpenetrable Boro ranks at will with Kin-kladze the orchestrator did the alarmbells start ringing.

Suddenly my mind mind raced backto the pub, our conversation, it couldn’thappen could it? Think again, a secondDerby goal soon followed and you allknow the rest because the mediaseemed to take great delight in tellingthe nation about our capitulation thenext day. To add insult to injury as weleft the ground at the end the Derbyfans were singing ‘three nil and youf***** it up’ and you couldn’t reallyargue could you? Because that’s ex-actly what we’d done. Our next pre-match chat is going to be about thedelights of a home win, it could happencouldn’t it?■ Darren Morrow

roundup roundupthe morning, the weather deterioratedinto a Teesside scene of humidity anddampness in the air. This, in hindsight,was an indication of Boro’s currentstate at the Riverside.

Boro’s plan was simply to hold upLeeds until the opponent’s legs tiredand hit back at them during the secondhalf. It didn’t work. Leeds’ young gunshad too much pace and thought in theirplay. The opener, when it came beforeten minutes, was inevitable. Bowyerfired in from 20 yards right in thebottom left hand corner through theBoro defence. Suddenly, it was 2-0.Boro were rocking as Smith scoredbefore the quarter hour.

It became obvious during the firsthalf that Boro had no change in strategyto hand in trying to get back into thegame. Boksic was conspicuous by hisabsence and his quality is needed tohassle defences. Job was brought onjust before the interval and his enthusi-asm – though not altogether skill – gavesomething for Leeds to think about be-cause until then they were coasting.

The second half was better andBoro got more into the game with Inceimproving his tenacity that was lackingin the first period. However, no realchances came until the consolationgoal arrived in the final ten minutesfrom Stamp, and when Boro threw menforward in search of a fairly undeservedequaliser, Leeds broke away quicklyand forcefully.

With so many new signings, Borohave longer to go in creating a cohesiveunit. The players seem to have a com-plex in front of their own fans. We needto go at teams from the start, espe-cially the top four or five, to show thatwe are able to compete and show truerespect. Otherwise we immediately losethe psychological edge and the fansbegin to lose their optimism, but Ihasten to add, not their faith. ■ by Jason Allen

“Boksic gone, the next thirtyminutes were a bit like whenyour Dad finally takes thestabilisers off your littlepushbike when you’re a kid”

Hello, Captain We Won The League LastYear here. After winning the league lastyear I wanted to keep the same groupof players and make one of twoadditions to the squad. Unfortunately

one of players, Richard “Buffy” Moody had aclause in his contract which said that if any teammade a bid of £5m for Christian Ziege then hecould resign from the pool team. I knew nothingof this clause and after trying to talk him round Ieventually had to resign myself to losing him. I’d like to thank Rich for all his efforts, despiteplaying like a girl recently he’s been a valuablemember of the team over the years and we’ll all

miss him. He assures me he’ll still make the oddappearance in the pub.

We’ve played one game so far, againstDerby at home. Over the years, one criticism I’vehad of the team is that we don’t win games by abig enough margin, we’re usually too pissed.Not this time though as we won 8-1, a recordunder my captaincy. To put the result intoperspective, Derby finished runners up in theleague last year (which we won, did I mentionthat?).

You always need a bit of luck to win a gameby such a big margin and we certainly had it. Iapologised to Jim, their captain at one stage,

he’s big fella and I didn’t want him getting anybounty hunters to freeze me in carbonite. Derbyare a good set of lads and to their credit they allstayed to the bitter end. A lot of teams wouldhave gone home in a sulk after such a result(No offence, Sunderland)

We’ve got two more games beforeChristmas but we may have played them beforethis magazine reaches you. I am currentlyconstructing a web page will be accessible fromthe main MSS web site. I will keep this up todate with results and fixtures. If you feel like afew beers, why not come along and support?■ Steve “1999/2000 League WinningCaptain” SmithEd: Did you win the league last season then,Steve?

pool team

Boro really thrash Derby shock


mss Winter 2000/2001 11

30th SeptemberSouthampton 1 Boro 3There are some matches you have afeeling Boro are bound to win, this wasone of them. Boro were up for thismatch and after a scrappy openingKeith O’Neill proved it. Pahars was insuch turmoil he disappeared to the leftwing, Kachloul taking his place, untilO’Neill put the manners on him also.

Boro scored through Super Al anddoubled up with a mini-volley fromFesta. Southampton showed a bit ofspirit and after hitting a post scored aconsolation goal, Boro immediatelyscored again and the game was over(Super Al again, via Man of the MatchO’Neill).

Only Curtis Fleming looked out ofsorts, not knowing whetherto attack the flank or passback, mostly doing thelatter. Karembeu wasflashy, to little effect, butthis was a very good performance awayfrom home.

Do it again, Boro – only this time atthe Riverside. ■ Peter McGough

Boro last won at Southampton in the1988/89 season which, funnilyenough, was when I moved here,thereby creating a jinx. The omens priorto this game were far from positive,with Boro falling away heavily after thepromise of the first game, Southamptonreaching the heady heights of mid-tableand rain being forecast for the Dell.

As it was the sun was shining and,after a swift pint at the Waterloo Arms(have we thought of a new venue fornext year – I am happy to act asguinea pig!), off we went. Withtaunts of ‘Here for the weather’ringing in our ears we settled downin our seats for the after-noon’s entertainment.

Keith O’Neill was thefirst to make his markon the game withsome firm challengeson Pahars whichsoon saw the Lat-vian lose interest inthe game. Having

said that, having to part-ner an ineffective UweRosler up front can’t havehelped matters. O’Neill

had a reasonable game blotted only bya pathetic dive for which he was rightlybooked. Incey was having his owntussle with Le Tissier so we were left toadmire the skills of Boksic and Karem-beu with the two combining well forBoksic to cut inside for what seemedan eternity before curling the ball intothe far corner to make it 1-0. This wasfollowed by Festa’s close range effortand I was in heaven.

Southampton did not have toomuch to offer until Beattie was broughton to try and barge a way to goal. Asusual Boro started defending far toodeeply allowing the opposition too muchspace. A frustrated Boksic was left iso-

lated up front with support too slowin arriving, end result being the ballback in our half in no time at all.When will we learn? With a midfieldcontaining two hustlers in the

shape of Mustoe and Ince weshould be harrying the oppo-

sition, not sitting in front ofthe defence and allowingthem to come on to us.

Pahars header wasalways going to happenbut thanks to an abber-ation by Southamp-ton’s goalie, who had

roundup

previously saved excellently fromRicard, we had a two goal cushionagain. As ever we had made it difficultfor ourselves and had to rely on thewoodwork twice and Walshy to keep theScummer’s at bay but bearing in mindthey had little to offer until they weretwo down I was satisfied with the result.

And so to the new Dell. Here’shoping it’s not another 10 years beforeI manage to see another victory inSouthampton. Yes, the weather wasnice but the three points were nicer. ■ Graeme Blacklock

“Let’s goto work…”

Pre-match exercise: Saintand Grevious bodily harm

Hooray, the pieshave arrived!

Geoff sorts out thetickets in the pub

“It’s like that sausage,only bigger…”

Pre-match exercise: Saintand Grevious bodily harm

During the match exercise:Serious sun-tanning

“O’Neill was shite…”mss Winter 2000/200110

TVm

ssSunday

More comedy capersas Officer AndyDibble is outwitted(9.01 Saturday)

Saturday6:00 The Boro TV Learning Zone

Remedial GermanA specially designed course for those having difficulty withthe small print in players’ contractsSerbo-Croat For Beginners. A modern language just incase!!Special Maths The Boro Administration Team consider theequation:BLACKBURN (No Show) – 3 POINTS (FA) = RELEGATION.

8:00 Muffin The MuleReturn of the old Barrack With Mother favourite. This week,Phil Whelan tries to kick a ball straight.

8:30 The ClangersStarring Steve Vickers

9:00 Mr Ben Mr. Ben Roberts goes into a Wembleydressing room and comes out the other side in a total fantasy world. (Running time: 43 seconds)

9:01 Top CatMore comedy capers as Officer Andy Dibble is outwitted(Repeat)

9:30 The Addams FamilyMore laughs with Uncle Gianluca

10:00 Paul Gascoigne’s Coaching SkillsPaul Gascoigne shows how to crash a new team coach

10:15 Can’t Pass, Won’t PassCurtis Fleming cooks up some interesting new ways to holdhis hands up after failing to find his team mates with a pass

10:30 FILM: The Wizard of OzStarring Mark Schwarzer. Join Paul Gascoigne, Mikkel Beck,Joseph Desire-Job and Alun Armstrong in their search for abrain, a heart, a decent hairdresser and a first teamopportunity respectively. Fun for all the family as MichaelThomas clicks his red shoes together; “There’s no placelike Liverpool reserves, there’s no place like Liverpoolreserves…”

12:00 Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads?Starring Anthony Ormerod and Alan Moore

12:30 Top of the Pops“And it’s good evening and welcome to Top of The Popsfrom me, Mark Page, tonight featuring…” (…the sound often million television sets being switched off)

13:00 Turds of a White FeatherFabrizio Ravanelli comes out with more shite

13:30 Film: Forrest GumpStarring Andy Campbell as a boy who can run fast

15:00 Gordon McQueen’s Speech**** the ****ing ball you ****ing *****

15:30 Celebrity Stars in Their EyesAll your Boro favourites doing their party pieces. Phil Stampis Butch Dingle, Alistair Brownlee presents his JonathanPearce on helium, laugh at Phil Whelan’s ‘Ed the TalkingHorse’ and be utterly amazed as Viv Andersondemonstrates some knowledge of football management

16:00 Who Wants To Be aMillionaire?Are you over 30? Past your best? Ring Bryan on 01642 227227. Callscost Boro supporters a European place

16:30 The Vickers of DibbleCrazy sitcom featuring Steve Vickers and Andy Dibble. This week Steve slices the ball past Andy. (Repeat)

17:00 CasualtyThe return of this annual favourite as Bryan Robsonbemoans his massive injury list after the second game ofthe season. Watch out for a special extended editionbetween the middle of December and the end of February

17:30 Whose, err, Line err, it is, err, Anyway?More sparkling wit and improvisation from the team. Thisweek featuring Bryan Robson

18:00 FILM: Jur-Ayresome Park In a bid to re-unite Cooper and Pallister with their formerteam-mates, mad scientist Bryan Robson recreates theBoro team of the 1980s using DNA. The plan starts to gohorribly wrong when Slaven climbs the fence and escapes…

19:30 Big BrotherLast week Fabrizio Ravanelli was voted out of the house by100% of the viewers. Who will be next: Adolf Hitler, GenghisKhan, Benito Mussolini or Saddam Hussein?

20:00 FILM: Merry Christmas Mr. LawrenceLenny Lawrence takes a trip down memory lane to whenBoro last won a match at Christmas

23:30 The Old Grey Whistle TestTonight featuring Fabrizio Ravanelli, Clayton Blackmore,Branco, and some other old has-beens looking to make aquick buck. (And probably some American that only BobHarris has heard of – younger readers ask your dad)

6:00 The Boro TV Learning ZoneMedia Studies Special seminar where the Boro PR teamdemonstrate ‘shooting yourself in the foot’General Science Bryan Robson searches for the vitalChemistry to produce a winning formula and watch VivAnderson’s search for the missing link to the team’ssuccess. (Warning for those of a nervous disposition – in 1995 this experiment produced Phil Whelan)Special Maths Boro fans consider the equation:£2.5m + (£60,000 x 52) = A bargain

7:00 The Big BreakfastFeaturing Paul Gascoigne

7:30 The Bigger Breakfast Starring Phil Stamp

8:00 Teenage Mutant Ginger TurtlesChildren’s animation with Turtles heads provided by Andy Campbell and Phil Stamp

9:00 Skippy The Bush KarembeuChristian Karembeu explains how to pull fit birds

9:30 Tales From The RiversideMore fun and frolics with Hammy the Columbian hamster

10:00 Songs of PraiseA Boxing Day special from the North Stand at the RiversideStadium. Sing along to all the old favourites such as “StandUp If You’ve Shagged His Wife”

10:30 Neil Cox’s Coaching SkillsNeil Cox shows how to chin an Italian gobshite on a coach

11:00 Wish You Were HereLive coverage of Juninho’s debut for Vasco de Gama

11:30 FILM: Rebel With A ClauseSummer mayhem ensues when it turns out that ChristianZiege has a clause in his contract allowing him to talk toteams offering £5m for his services

12:00 Star Trek Bryan Robson as Captain Kirk and his trusted sidekick MrSpock (Viv Anderson) boldly go to the ends of the earth insearch of new talent, co-starring Gordon McQueen asScottie. Special guest stars Fabrizio Ravanelli, Paul Mersonand Christian Ziege masquerading as friendly aliens

12:30 The Travel Show Last in the series Join the Boro backroom staff as they check out Madrid,Barcelona and Milan for next year’s European campaign.Watch out for a new series in March when Keith and the ladsplan their routes to Crewe, Portsmouth and Norwich

13:00 FILM: Look Who’s TalkingStarring Hamilton Ricard. A heart warming comedy aboutlittle Hammy’s first Sky interview. “Play ball, ball good, Mill-Boro, good team”

14:30 Dad’s ArmyIt’s Christmas, don’t panic Mr. Mainwaring!

15:00 MagpieHeart wrenching tear-jerker about a team who came so closeto glory only to fail at the final hurdle. (Black and White)

15:30 Big Break Paul Gascoigne gets one last chance to resurrect his career(Repeat)

16:00 FILM: Liar LiarFabrizio Ravanelli stars as he tells mss magazine that hewants to manage Middlesbrough

17:00 Proctor WhoMark Proctor attempts a sort-of-time-travel by reliving hisyouth with the Boro youngsters

17:30 The Clothes ShowA Fashion Week Special showcases the democraticallychosen new away kit (even if it looks like a cross between aRugby League shirt and some atrocity from the Mackems)

18:00 Eurovision Song ContestBoro take the back door into European competition. How willSteve Vickers fare with “Can I Kick It? (No I Can’t)”?

19:00 Changing Rooms Steve Gibson gives the red team £50m for a make over

19:30 Secret HistoryHarry Glasper & Dave Allan present the Boro’s history

19:45 Points of ViewPaul Readman reviews the previous programme, pointing outthe factual mistakes. (Warning: this programme may overrun,all subsequent programme timings are approximate)

20:00 MastermindCurtis Fleming, you have scored two, with no passes

20:30 Auf Weidershen, GetChristian Ziege moves to Liverpool

21:30 FILM: A Miller’s TaleAlan Miller as a vampire very afraid of crosses

23:00 Drop The Dead DonkeyCome on, it must be obvious by now…

Star Ratings***** Billy Whelan**** Liam Whelan*** Ronnie Whelan** Noel Whelan* Phil Whelan

Key to films(W) Widescreen(S) Subtitles(P) Premiere(F) First Division(L) Strong Language(X) Sex(V) Violence(I) Ineptitude(E) Tired Excuses(T) Tactical Naivete(P) People(W) Who(R) Read(T) These(T) Things(A) Are(S) Sad

Compilers:Steve SmithPaul Readman

mss Winter 2000/200112 mss Winter 2000/2001 13

Having seen the recent piece inthe magazine, I thought Iwould add a bit more aboutthe Ayresome Angels. I won’tbe the only one to confirm that

the Angels HQ was near the Gazetteoffices in Woodlands Road, next doorbut one from the Education Authorityoffice. Some of the away trip coachesleft from outside there.

Now we have a few more members,it might help in tracking down the insti-gators of the Angels. I was a friend ofDave King, whose brother Bryan wasone of the founders of the Angels.Thus, like with MSS, I was one ofthe original members. Bryan andDave lived in Ayresome Street andtheir bedroom backed on to Ayre-some Park so you could see theHolgate End goal from there.

The build-up in support is welldocumented, culminating in thatfinal match against Oxford in 1967.That was an enjoyable day all round,as I took a day off from work and trav-elled up from the south. I joinedmy cousin and friends to queue

roundup roundup21st OctoberCharlton 1 Boro 0As one of my birthday presents, my mumtook me to see my first ever Boro matchat The Valley. Before we left, my dad tooka photo of us in our Boro tops, [left] withme holding up my mum’s Boro scarf. Wearrived at The Market Porter pub at 1 o’-clock and mum introduced to me to herfriends. We left there at 2 o’clock and ar-rived at The Valley at 2.35 pm and mumpointed out that I should be supportingthose in black, and not those in red.

The Boro started well and tackledthe Charlton players well. The Boro fansshouted “Come on Boro!” – a chantwhich I had been taught by Mike on theway to the match. I joined in with glee. Infront of me were some boys who keptstanding on their seats, which meant Icould not see – and I had to stand on myseat. Our new signing did not last long.The referee was poor, we should havebeen 3-0 up at half-time.Thepace of the game got quicker

in the second half. The crowd got noisierand noisier. The Boro fans chanted:“Bring Marinelli on! Bring Marinelli on!”to our manager to inject some pace intoour team. This was after the home teamgot in front by a goal by their substituteonly after coming on 30 seconds before.This was their only attempt on goal.

Boro kept on pushing forwards, andeven got into fights with the Charltonplayers. The noise got louder and louder.The noise became a bit too much forme, but mum kept getting me to look atthe game. The fourth official said thatthere was four minutes of extra time toplay. Boro really pushed hard but wereunlucky not to score. I really enjoyed thegame apart from the result. Thank youmum for taking me. My mum says sheenjoyed it too. We might see you at othergames.COME ON BORO!■ JAMES ROULSTON (aged nearly 9)

with a little help from GEMMAROULSTON

Car

toon

:Ste

ve S

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LETTER FROM PARIS by Alan Ebbs

James gets backto London Bridgefrom Charlton,clutching hisprogramme,perhapsunaware of whathe’s lettinghimself in for…

up outside the General Hospital about4.30pm so I probably got on to theHolgate at about 5.30pm, along withPete. Interesting to compare costs, fourshillings (20p) for an unforgettableevening. I ended up with Eric McMordie’s shirt (still unwashed!)because my uncle was sitting beneaththe directors’ box when the playersthrew their shirts from there after thematch.

I then got the overnight ‘United’coach back south. When I read IanTewson’s article, I remember I came upagain for the Victory Ball at the TownHall. When the players came on stage,I nipped round the back and joinedthem to pass on my congratulations.I imagine that higher security wouldnot allow such things now…

Ian mentioned Willie Whighamat Watford, fellow Angels will proba-bly agree that Willie was the last

piece in the jigsaw for Boro’s ‘renais-sance.’ The signings of Chadwick,O’Rourke and big John Hickton were

inspired but we still needed agoalkeeper. Maybe he was no

Gordon Banks, but he certainlybolstered the defence and that firstgame at Watford gave signs of betterthings to come.

Another memory from that seasonwas the new year’s eve match at East-ville against Bristol Rovers when JohnO’Rourke went for a loose ball in thearea with Rovers goalie Bernie Hall. Itleft Hall prostrate, eventually suffering abroken neck and I’m not sure he everplayed again. After the match, we metJohn on the station platform for thetrain back to Paddington. He seemedsubdued and I wonder if he still thinksof that incident. It was interesting tosee from the article that he decidedagainst moving to Spain in the end.

Finally, in this year of sad losses,our thoughts must be with HilaryMaddren and family. After Wilf, we havelost another very special person.Alan EbbsP.S. It was interesting to see the trib-utes in the press to George Carmen’ssuccess in court cases. I did notice thatthey didn’t mention his failure in gettingour three points back though…

A cautionary tale

Firstly, it is not often that I write to the magazine but I feel thatI should on this occasion, after having read the article on‘Fabrizio Ravanelli: Villain or Victim?’I agree totally with the opinions expressed by Rob Skilbeck.

The first point I would make is that the jury (i.e. myself) hasreached a verdict in relation to the management of Messrs.Robson and Anderson guilty of professional misconduct. This isalso supported by the Ziege affair.

There is no doubt that Ravanelli was a great player and gavea lot of pleasure with his goalscoring. But the question remainsunanswered as to why did he leave? I for one would certainly liketo know the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Finally, I have not attended this season and have no inten-tion of doing so in the future while the guilty parties continue toenter on the teamsheet the names of Fleming, Vickers andStamp.■ George Johnstone

If you werewondering whathappened toMarco Branca,the answer isthat he is playing(and scoring) forMonza in Italy’sSerie B.

The final season at Ayresome Park and two of my children atmy side. It was a time of happiness and hope. They even al-lowed me to prose on, in an anorakish way, about the great

games that I had seen in my youth. That summer we seemed aunited family of Boro supporters.

My third child went to the first game at the Riverside: thesun, the jeers for Ruud Gullit and Craig Hignett’s goal. I nowhad three children accompanying me to matches and lookedforward to the day when I could usher all four children throughthe turn-styles.

You will say I was careless; but we had always been Mid-dlesbrough supporters (even unto the nth generation). You willsay I overlooked the most basic rule of family dynamics, whichpredicts that the youngest child will want to be different; butthere had been no signs of incipient deviancy.

‘Would you like to go to the game?’ I asked him one after-noon.

There was an uncommunicative mumble, not unknown inour family.

I repeated this question, this time with the rictus grin of thechat-show host desperate for a response.

‘No thanks.’Perhaps he was one of those strange creatures that nature

intended should follow rugby or cricket or even hockey, but hisnext words destroyed even this hope.

‘I support Newcastle.’To picture my reaction, you must imagine one of those hos-

pital films in which the patient is being given a blood transfu-sion. A prostrate figure with a sickly pallor which is slowlysuffused with pink until he opens his eyes and smiles weakly.Now run the film in reverse.

The paramedic said that it could have been worse; but hismention of Sunderland is acknowledged, on my medicalrecords, as a serious error of clinical judgement.

I was recommended counselling and a course of prolongeddenial. My elder son preferred a felt tip response; and theposters in his brother’s bedroom now features a team of Grou-cho Marx and Fidel Castro lookalikes in all-black strips.

The club has put me in touch with a helpful support group.We meet once a month and discuss our experiences. Some ofthe stories one hears are tragic. One fellow patient describedthe agony of a QPR family divided by a modish attachment toChelsea in terms that brought a manly tear to my eye. Anotherspoke of the recently discovered condition known as PoshBexSyndrome, in which children of a tender age are drawn irre-sistibly towards Manchester United. Luckily it is a conditionthat can be easily cured: they make the infants watch videosof Roy Keane.■ The author wishes to remain anonymous

MSSer Alan Keen MP writes from the House of Commons:“Thought you might be able to use this photo to cheer up the Boro chairman. SteveGibson was playing for the Football Trust (or its successor, I forget its new name!)against the Parliamentary XI at Wembley in the summer. The ‘congratulations’ signbehind us is because we beat them 5-1. They had two ex-professionals in their teamthis year but they’ll probably have Michael Owen in next time as they are not likelyto let us get away with another win like that! Steve was awarded the ‘Man of theMatch’ on their side – at least that was a consolation.”

Cheer up Stevie Gibson…

Why did Ravanelli go? Willie Whigham,the final piece inthe jigsaw

Tony Cascarino’sautobiography FullTime reveals thatMSS PresidentBernie Slaven“used to call hisdog every night.I’d be sitting inthe bed alongsideand Bernie wouldbe howling likeLassie into thephone, ‘Woof,woof, aru, aru,woof!’ He’d bekissing thereceiver andlavishing affectionon the dog!”£9.99, out now


He was recently described by Chairman Steve Gibson as the‘diamond in our crown’ but is attacked by many Boro fans, upsetat poor performances and results, so SHAUN KEOGH went tothe Hurworth training ground to meet BRYAN ROBSON

mss interview

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EXCLUSIVE

Underpressure?

So, here we are. The annual RobsonBashing Season is now officiallyopen. All welcome, especially thesouthern press. On the terraces, the‘Walking In A Robson Wonderland’

chant has been consigned to the bin of historyalong with ‘We’ve got Willie Willie Willie WillieWhigham in our goal’ and, more contentiously,‘Zeeegaaa’.

How enviously every team manager in theentire world must look upon Bryan Robson. Sixyears, virtually unlimited funds, nointerference from the Chairman, probably thebest training facilities in the UK, magnificentstadium, and, until last season, pretty much100 percent support of the fans. If the nextBoro manager is offered half of the time,money, facilities and support that Robson hasenjoyed, he will think he has died and gone toheaven.

One thing is for sure. When Bryan Robsondoes eventually leave the Boro – be it under acloud or, as is looking increasingly unlikely, on

the back of a ‘Don’t Go Robbo’ campaign – the Boro will be deluged with job applicants.Hell, I might apply myself.

So, a simple question: is Robbo a uselessmanager? Of course not. Three Wembley finalsand two promotions at the first attempt ispretty impressive. A much better questionwould be: “Is he the right man to take Boroforward to the next stage of development?”

Theories about the problems at Boro arenot exactly thin on the ground. Many fans doback him, but question the effectiveness ofGordon McQueen and especially Viv Anderson.It is the coaching of the squad that seems tobe questioned more than anything. We knowthat we have good players, and all credit toBryan for that. However, when he passesthese players onto his coaching staff, that iswhere the problems seem to start – anyonewho witnessed the appalling organisation,passing and understanding between theplayers in the four games starting with thecringeingly embarrassing televised Newcastle


you can go?My aims, and the Chairman’s aims are to go into the historybooks, we want to play in Europe and win our first majortrophy. So that’s the next step.Bearing in mind the 100 percent support you have enjoyedfrom Steve Gibson since day one, what would you have toachieve here between now and the time you leave to feelin your heart that your managership was successful?Success for me would be to establish this club in the PremierLeague, and lose the ‘yo-yo’ tag that everybody associatesthis club with. I feel that we have more or less done that, butyou’ve got to go six, seven, eight years without going down toprove it.If Coventry can do it for 30 years as they have, we shouldbe able to…That’s exactly right. Especially when you consider the founda-tions we have laid with the stadium and this training ground,and the quality of players that we have within the club now.But a few of them are getting on a bit…The fans sometime give me stick about having older playerslike Pally, Coops, and then we had Townsend and Gazza, butthe reason we have stayed in the Premiership these last fewyears is because of these players, who have been there andcan get results for you. When Townsend, for his own reasons,decided to leave, people were saying ‘Oh no, we’ve lost Andy,what are we gonna do now’ sort of thing, but we replaced himwith Paul Ince…how bad is that?Do you see Karembeu as a natural successor to Juninho?What was the thinking behind not re-signing him?No, he’s more of defensive minded player, although he isgood on the ball. [Not at Southampton he wasn’t. Or againstNewcastle. Or Charlton for that matter…] I know that the fanswere all for Juninho to stay, but I got Alen Boksic for £3m lessthan Juninho would have cost. I thought, the end product, asfar as scoring and making goals is concerned, there’s nodoubt that Boksic has got to be better value. I think Juninhowas a ver y good creator of goals, but he wasn’t a goodfinisher himself, and his record shows that; he missed thetarget too many times. So that’s the decision I had to make,it saved me £3m, £2.5m of which I spent on Karembeu.

How did Ziege get that clause in his contract?We never like to give anyone these clauses, I mean, Juninhoand Ravanelli and others all asked for get out clauses if wegot relegated, but we never gave. them. However, after meand Christian had tied everything up and agreed the deal, hisGerman agent put a hold on the transfer, unless he had thisclause. The reason for it was in case Christian and his familydidn’t settle in the north east…The north east? Not England, as has been reported? …That’s right, the north east, if he didn’t settle here, hecould go. It was very disappointing, because Christian is atop class wing-back. With Christian on the right and KeithO’Neil and Dean Gordon on the left, I felt we had the balanceright. I’m still looking for the player to replace him.

Alen Boksic has been a great success since he arrived,and has impressed everyone with his pace, ability to getbehind defences and goal-scoring... How much better do youthink he might have done if he had been able to link up witha Juninho, who has the vision and skill to thread passesalong the ground into the gaps behind defences?

It goes back to what I said earlier; I felt that the wholepackage of Juninho was a hell of a lot of money. To havebought Juninho and Boksic would have cost a total of £9m.Plus I feel that Marinelli is going to be a similar player toJuninho. He has all of the qualities of Juninho, exceptperhaps the lightening pace off the mark that Juninho had,but he has very similar aspects to his game.

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“I want to makethis club one ofthe top eight inthis country”

match could hardly disagree.However, I was unable to question Robson

about these games, as the interview tookplace on Friday 13th October – three daysbefore the encounter with the Geordies.

I arrive early at Rockliffe Park, and amgreeted by Robbo’s friendly PA. I am shown toa seat in the vast reception area, watchingplayers come and go…

For somebody who does not smile much onthe pitch, Hamilton Ricard appears a veryoutgoing character. He is talking to a journalistwho he clearly has not seen for some time,and they are both laughing loudly whenrecalling a previous meeting (Apparently, it wasin Paris. Ricard was so drunk he could notremember which Hotel he was staying in. Inhis drunken state, the most sensible thing hecould think to do was to phone his Nan on theother side of the world in Columbia, to ask herif she might have any idea of the name of hisHotel).

Karembeu slopes into reception like a littleboy lost. In his broken English and with adowncast look on his face, he asks one of thegirls why his mobile phone won’t work. Pah.Namby pamby mollycoddled footballers. Helifts his arm to pass the phone to her but itlands four yards away. (All right, I made thatlast bit up).

Keith O’Neill comes backwards andforwards, throwing the reception ladies a fewjelly beans with every pass, to their squeals ofdelight. I overhear the receptionists talkingexcitedly about the imminent arrival of the UPSdelivery man, who they all clearly think is a bitof a hunk. Unfortunately for them, ColinCooper, who is lurking nearby, overhears themand on cue, the UPS man enters, to begreeted by smiling, but professional ladies,giving no indication that he is anything butanother delivery man. At this point, Coopssteps in and says to the delivery man words tothe effect of “I don’t believe this lot, they werejust saying how much they fancied you, andnow they treat you like just another guy.” Thepoor bloke is deeply embarrassed; the girlsare absolutely mortified. Coops spends thenext ten minutes offering apologies thatbecome more and more grovelling (and witty).

This is a very happy place of work. Certainlya lot more entertaining than being at theCharlton away game.

I sit in on the scheduled 2pm pressconference, and immediately after the journosleave, it is just Bryan and me. I ask him if hereads MSS. He smiles and says he ‘flicksthrough it’. He also says he particularly looksforward to reading Steve ‘Fat Nacker’ Smith’shumourous articles. OK, OK, I made that uptoo.

In the following seventy minutes, it becomesrapidly clear that a fraud on a massive scale isgoing on and being played out in front of myvery eyes. This guy must think I am reallystupid. Take it from me, Bryan Robson has anidiot twin brother. It’s true. It is this

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monosyllabic imbecile who gives the post-match interviews. The grinding, slow answersto questions that are delivered by a flat,granite face in an almost tortured manner,with every other word punctuated by a strangeword that he pronounces as “Errrr”. Example:“The lads, errrr were really, errrr, up against itin, errrr, the second half…”

I clearly was not paying attention for a fewseconds, because it was the idiot brother whohosted the press conference, and somehow,while the TV and radio boys were packing uptheir stuff, a switch was made. Your secret isout Bryan, and now the world knows.

I have in front of me the real Bryan. This guysmiles throughout our time together, even forthe photos. I have listened to the interview afew times now, and a more free-flowing andyes, very likeable conversationalist youcouldn’t wish to meet. Not an “er” in sight.

Why doesn’t this guy do the mediainterviews? Hang on a minute; if they aretwins, could the guy in front of me be the idiotone?…

You said in your interview with us in 1994 that the firstthing you had to do was ‘sort out the defence’. The Borohave conceded some sloppy goals this year – is thedefence not due for a major overhaul?No, I don’t think it’s due for a major overhaul, because whenthe lads are fit, we do defend well and do well as a team.Against Ever ton for instance, Vickers went of f after 15minutes, so that meant across the back four we had Festamaking his comeback, Jason Gavin playing his first game ofthe season, and Dean Gordon making has first appearanceafter a 16 month lay off, so we only had Curtis Fleming therewho was at the top of his fitness and had played a fewgames. So in the last 20 minutes, three of those players werereally tired, which is why Everton scored their late winner.Festa is getting better now because when he made his come-back from injury in that game, he cost us a couple of goalsdue to sloppy defending. When my defenders are all fit andplaying week in week out, I think they are pretty dependable.However, I am currently looking for a couple of younger ladsto put in with the defenders I have got.Experienced defenders? Many fans are concerned thatyoung talent coming through the training academy are notgetting the opportunities within the club that they perhapsdeserve. Why not give a chance of an extended run toJason Gavin, and Robbie Stockdale? Similarly, why did yousell Craig Harrison?For me, you’ve got to look at young lads careers, and in myopinion, Craig was behind Dean Gordon and Keith O’Neil, andhe’s not quite as good a player as those two. So to get halfa million pounds for Craig to let him develop his own careerand to play at a level that he is comfortable at, was good forhim and this club. It shows that the youth policy is workingbecause you’ve brought a player through who has made yousome money and has become a league player. I want to makethis club one of the top eight in this country, and I look atCraig and think, well, he’s 21 now, and I don’t think he isgoing to progress that far.

Robbie as you know is on loan at Sheffield Wednesday,because Curtis Fleming looks as fit as he has ever beensince I’ve been at the club, and Robbie was behind him. SoI felt at this stage of his development, it was more importantfor Robbie to play league football in front of crowds, and thatwill keep him more on top of his game than playing in ourreserves. Playing first team football exposes him to thenerves and atmosphere that goes with the big game, and thatis totally different from a reserve game.In an interview with our magazine in 1994, Steve Gibsonsaid that ‘When we are established in the Premiership, wewill change our goals’ You said on taking over the job that‘success’ here means getting Boro into the Premiership –does that mean that you have now taken the club as far as


I came in for a fair bit of grief over the Ravanelli interview– some people think I am his biggest fan but…(Laughs) you should be! He scored 33 goals and was a bigsuccess!…with the hindsight of a few more years of managerialexperience, and the opening of Rockliffe, do you think thatthe comment made during the Ravanelli unrest by anItalian journalist that ‘you don’t buy a Ferrari unless youhave a garage to put it in’ was pretty fair comment?Fabrizio knew what he was coming into. He saw the plans ofthis (Rockliffe Park) and he knew it would be a year before itwas built. That’s why it annoyed me, Keith Lamb and theChairman, when he said to you that the facilities here wereno good, because he’d seen all of the plans for Rockliffe; heknew it was in the pipeline. So there was no need for him togo and spout his mouth off, especially as the Chairman hasput £8m into this place.

Paul Ince said after the Southampton match that Boksicwas constantly whingeing at his team mates during thegame, but that it is OK by them because ‘at least it showsthat he cares’. What is the difference between Boksicshowing that he cares by whingeing at players, andRavanelli being called a troublemaker for doing exactlythe same thing?The thing with Fabrizio was that he would shout and have ago and show that he cared, but it was his gesticulating withhis hands that annoyed the lads. Now Alen doesn’t do that,he’ll have a go at the lads, whereas Fabrizio would show hisanger to the whole of the crowd; that’s what the players didn’tlike. But some of the lads here now are really quiet. If theymake a run into the box and they don’t get the pass and theplayer with the ball shoots and misses, they just accept it.They turn around and get on with the game, and I say theyshould let the other player know they are unhappy. I mean,if it was me, I’d rip the blokes' head off (laughs).Alan Moore has not played since April 99 -what is thenature of his injury – will he ever get back to fitness? He’s had about six operations. He had circulation problemsin his calves, so he had all the veins more or less took out Ithink (laughs). He came back from that, and he has since hadtwo operations on his knees, because he has some sort oftendonitis problem. Now the kids' just starting to come backagain.Will he ever play again?Yeah, I think he’s got the ability, but for the past two and ahalf years he has had one injury after another. I mean, hewas one of the first players on my team sheet when I firstcame here.What about the youth set up – do we have a Kewell orScholes coming through?We have some good kids coming through who I think willdefinitely play at League level. How high they go is down totheir own determination. When do you see Marinelli getting a prolonged run inthe team?Carlos has showed some lovely skills, but he is stilldeveloping as a lad and a player. He has moved fromthe other side of the world, and that in itself is amassive step. The thing I’ve got to do is nurture him, so thatwhen he is physically and mentally right and can work like anEnglish player, then I can put him in regular. He did really wellagainst Villa and Macclesfield, but he’s only just turned 18,and he will develop into a good player.To me, the current squad has echoes of the relegatedteam from 1996-97 – some excellent individual playerswho just didn’t gel as a team. The Southampton match wasa good example, because even though we won the game,we got out of jail really, because Southampton wereunlucky not to take at least a point. There was somedreadful passing and movement by the Boro players – doyou think that is a fair analogy?When you are making changes all the time as we have had

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mss Winter 2000/2001 19

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to this season, the cohesion is not going to be there, andthere is no fluency in your play. It’s when you’ve been playingtogether for six or seven games and you’ve had maybe onechange rather that the three or four that we seem to havebeen doing every match, that’s when it starts to look right. Idon’t blame the lads for it, I think we have played 25 playersso far [up to the day of this interview, 13 October] which isridiculous.Do your achievements of the past five years match up to

what you aimed to achieve for when you took over ?Yes, I think so, I am pretty pleased. The Chairman gave

me a three year contract when I came here, and I saidwell, if we get promoted in that time, that will be agood achievement. That’s how it star ted anyway(laughs). But when you get promoted the first year,the pressure is on. The Chairman said to me, ‘We’ll

back your judgment on which players to bring in’. I thinkthe first year we had in the Premiership we did nicely, then

the second year we tried to go that one step further. Thedepth of my squad that year wasn’t good enough to cope. You mean the injury problems?No, it was more the number of games we played, what with thecup semi-finals and the replays. Big cup games really take itout of your players, especially those who have never beenthere before. Now, Ravanelli, Emerson they coped with it quitewell, but some of our players had big problems. If you look atthe records, you’ll see that in the League matches thatfollowed the cup games that year, we lost nearly every game1-0. (He’s right. Out of 12 league games that followed cupmatches, Boro won just one, drew three, and lost eight, fiveof them by 1-0. Interestingly, the Coca Cola second leg againstStockport which Boro also lost 1-0, was the first match afterthe FA Cup 6th round win against Derby). So that was a big

problem; some of the boys were just out on their feet.So if it wasn’t for the cup run we would have stayed up…Yeah, we probably would have done. So, the success of thesquad, with the cup runs, was there, but with the relegation,Ravanelli, Juninho and Emerson all wanted to go. But, on thebright side, we got great money in for them.

I was for tunate that at that time Andy Townsend waslooking for a new challenge, and then Merse, I couldn’tbelieve that Merse was available and would come to us justafter we’d been relegated. So for me, those were the twomain signings that year; it was so important for this club toget straight back into the Premier League.

The fans were brilliant, because they made it so mucheasier for the Chairman and I by buying up all of the seasontickets, even though we had just been relegated. That gaveeverybody here such a big boost, that the fans were rightbehind us.

During the summer after we got promoted, I had a differ-ent idea on how I should build a base first at the club ratherthan going in big like I did the previous time. That’s why mysignings that year were the likes of Gary Pallister, ColinCooper, Dean Gordon, Keith O’Neill. However, I didn’t expectto lose Merse, that was a blow.

Since we got back up, our League position was higher twoyears ago than it was last season, but two years ago wedidn’t have anywhere near as many injuries as we did lastyear, and OK, we finished in a lower position than the previ-ous year, but we had one point more. It was an improvement,but not the improvement I wanted. I was looking for an eightor nine point difference. This year, I want to finish higher thanlast year, but I don’t want 53 or 54 points, I’m looking tofinish with something like 60 points, to show that we aremaking steady progress..

What concerns many Boro fans is that they look at whatSunderland and Leicester have achieved on very muchsmaller budgets, and they feel that given the money thatyou have spent – albeit on some world class players –along with the backing of the chairman and the fans, Boroare still massively underachieving.You’ve got to remember that the dif ference between themoney I have spent and the money I have recouped is only£14m. (I have listened to this part of the tape a few times,and it is dif ficult to make out if Bryan is saying £14m or£40m. Anyway, I make it about £32.27m – see article thatfollows this interview, SK) During the summer I spent £10m,but if we get what we think we are gonna get from Liverpoolfor Zeige, put that together with the £0.5m from Palace forCraig Harrison, it shows a spend of only £2m.Have you ever ‘resigned’ from the club and beenpersuaded to stay? There have been many rumours to thiseffect, especially after the Everton game.No, I’ve haven’t done that.You’ve always been successful – what does it feel like toexperience the other side of the coin what with the fluc-tuating form of the team and the stick from the fans?Well, nobody likes criticism, it is a blow to your pride, but I justtry to be balanced in my thoughts; although if we are bottomof the League come Christmas, I’ll expect a lot of pressure.But you’ve just got to be level headed and do what you thinkis correct. Last season, during January and February, I foundit a bit difficult; I was having doubts. I would be out with mywife in a pub or something, and people would be saying thingsthat you can hear, but they are not saying it to your face. Thisyear has been a lot better; people are being much nicer.Would you relish the chance of being the next manager tobring the World Cup home to England? Having been

Ravanelli: “There was noneed for him to go andspout his mouth off…”

“This year, Iwant to finishhigher thanlast year, but Idon’t want 53 or

54 points, I’mlooking to finishwith somethinglike 60 points”


England captain, although being unfortunate to sufferinjury problems when you could have lifted the World Cup,do you feel that it is almost your destiny to manageEngland? I hope it is! I’d like to get more experience and success as aclub manager, and then if I felt prepared mentally for it, andit was offered to me again, I will find the right time to say yesand give the job my best shot. If either the England or Man U job came up today, wouldyou consider them, or reject them out of hand to enableyou to finish your job here? Do you have a get-out clauseto enable you to take either job?I could go if I wanted to.What is Christmas like in England for the foreign players– for instance, the British habit of training on Christmasmorning – do the foreign players find it a bit strange?It’s completely alien to them, because most other countrieshave winter breaks; they just call us crazy Englishmen(laughs). When the fixture list comes out, they look at all thegames around Christmas and they can’t believe it.Is training on Christmas Day a fun occasion with lots ofwind-ups and practical jokes?You tend not to prat about on Christmas Day because every-body is focused on the game the next day. On end of seasontrips if you take the lads away somewhere, that’s when youget people having their eyebrows shaved off, or being lockedout of their rooms and having their clothes thrown out of thewindow (laughs).Do you remember any times from your playing days whenyou were up against or playing alongside people whoclearly still had too much alcohol in their system? [I tellBryan the Arthur Horsfield story about Boro’s disastrousperformance against an overhung Rotherham side on NewYears Day 1966)There was a similar one when I was at Man United. We hadplayed on the Saturday and had won our game, and then Villa,who were the only team that could catch us, were playingOldham, who beat them 1-0 which meant we had won theLeague. We still had two games left, and the following daywe were playing Blackburn at home. After the Villa match, allthe players were phoning one another, and we all arrangedto meet at Steve Bruce’s house. Every member of the firstteam squad turned up, and we were at Steve’s house untilabout four in the morning; everybody was absolutely blitzedout of their heads, and we went out next day and beat Black-burn 3-1. (Laughs)Do you still get Xmas cards from West Brom or Man U fans?Oh yeah; even now, 60 percent of my mail is from Man U fans.Are there any funny stories about how the Brazilians orItalians have reacted to coming in for training the firsttime that they experienced a bitterly cold north easternwinter morning?Juninho hated the cold; he wouldn’t even put an ice pack onwhen he was in the treatment room – he said that it burnedhim (laughs).

There was also a time here when Vladimer Kinder andEmerson were injured; Vlad had an ankle injury, Emerson hada knee problem. Bob Ward, the Physio, took them down toRedcar – it was winter, and he made them stand in the seaup above their knees. When they got back, he told me thatEmerson was fine, standing in the north sea in the depth ofwinter with his mobile phone, – probably talking to someonestanding in the sea on a beach in Rio – but Kinder keptrunning out saying “Too cold! too cold!” and Bob had to keepshoving him back in. In view of the club’s very poor performances everyJanuary and February, have you considered campaigningfor British clubs to have a winter break?(Laughs) Yeah! We’re just gonna pack in this year – gonna goto Rio for a month. On a serious note, it does concern me.I’ve tried to do things different every year – I’ve tried lettingthem sleep in their own beds, I’ve tried taking them to Hotels,I’ve even given them Christmas Day off. I’ve tried so manydifferent ways to prepare the lads for the Christmas games,but I still haven’t got the answer.Have you tried fining them if they lose?(Laughs) Good idea!Copyright Shaun Keogh, 2000No part to be used without permission.Telephone 01763 287596, mobile 07768 [email protected] ■

“If we arebottom of theLeague comeChristmas, I’llexpect a lotof pressure”

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If any Boro fans are curious as to what Brian Robson’s mainachievement has been since taking over the managers chairsix years ago, they need look no further that the transfer bal-ance sheet. Ever since he announced his first managerial sign-ing, the free transfer of his old Manchester United mate

Clayton Blackmore in the summer of 1994, Robson has spentabout £78.9m of Steve Gibsons’ hard earned readies.

Has it all been worth it? There is no doubting that the threeWembley appearances mean something special to Boro fans,but if the past twenty five years are anything to go by, Boro seemdestined to be a yo-yo club; either too good to stay in DivisionOne, but never good enough to achieve stability in the PremierLeague.

Coventry and Southampton fans may complain that everyyear is a struggle, but at least their teams have been consistent;they struggle every year and every year they survive. The onlyconsistent thing about Boro is their inconsistency.

Therefore, after spending so much money, shouldn’tRobson at the very least have a team who, backs against thewall, can dig in and hold on? As Boro, a bit earlier than usual,seem to be plunging into their now traditional Premiership col-lapse, the question is: What is going on?

Outwardly, everything is upbeat. Pre-Riverside, duringRobson’s first season, attendance’s at Ayresome Park were up10,000 on the previous year. Then for the first three seasonsat the Riverside, all season tickets were sold out, reportedlycreating a waiting list of 3000 fans with cash ready. Quite oftenin these first two seasons, the attendance was only kept belowcapacity by the away end being less than full. It was then de-cided to add an extra 5000 seats for the start of the seasonbefore last to accommodate the waiting 3000. However, lastterm, season tickets did not sell so well and this year has beeneven worse. It seems that the Robson magic has worn a touchthin – or are the fans unrealistic in their ambitions for the club?

It appears to some thatSteve Gibson’s dream isturning into a nightmareat the Riverside. After allthe hoo-hah of Robson’sappointment, and the mag-nificent stadium rising from thewasteland of the docks, the foot-ball watching people of Middles-brough are standing back and taking alook. What they are seeing is a club thathas spent nearly eighty million pounds onplayers who, notwithstanding the excellenttraining facilities and their hefty wage packets,have not fared that much better than the work-manlike grafters that Lenny Lawrence put to-gether before Robson turned up.

Sounds ridiculous? The facts speak for

very poor but well run business just as it is about to move to abrand new factory, with the bonus of a huge amount of cash de-posited at the bank. The new, inexperienced manager has triedlots of expensive, new-fangled methods, but has the return fullyjustified the means? Further, what has happened to the near£79m that he has spent? The one thing that all saloon bar pun-dits will tell you is that he has no excuse, given all of the moneythat he has spent. Or has he? This is where the tide turns inRobson’s direction.

The difference between cash paid and cash received forplayers since Robson took over at Boro, shows a total deficit ofaround £32m. Over the six years that Robson has been incharge that represents, at the very least, good business. Cer-tainly good value for two promotions and three Cup finals. Howcould anyone build a successful Premier League side whenspending a little over £5m per year?

However, dig a bit deeper and a very interesting situationevolves: Robson had brought in and subsequently sold or re-leased through retirement or work permit problems, 20 playersin his time at Boro. The difference in funds paid and receivedfor these players shows a surplus of £3.5m. Add to that the£2.6m that Robson received for players brought in by previousmanagers, and you have a whopping £6.1m. Impressive?Maybe. It certainly goes some way to explaining why Gibsondoesn’t want to let Robson go. He is some salesman.

So what about the current players? Boro’s squad, includingthe three faithful stalwarts still on board from the pre-Robson era, Mustoe, Fleming and the permanently in-jured Alan Moore cost about £39m. (Around £12m morethan last seasons’ squad, incidentally). Currently, it is es-timated that they would together fetch only about £25m.

Steve Gibson was quoted last year as saying of Robson:“If he goes, so do I”. But even taking that comment as perhapsbravado, the fact is that if Robson goes, Anderson and McQueenare likely to follow, as would many of the players. It would leaveBoro with a massive rebuilding job throughout the ranks alongwith the struggle to survive in the lions den of the Premier-ship.

Brian Robson has certainly helped raise the profile ofour club. People forget that this is his first managerial post-ing; a great player does not automatically make a great man-ager. Notable failures include the late, great Bobby Mooreand Sir Bobby Charlton – although neither of these hadthe facilities or funds afforded Robson when they were incharge at Southend and Preston. On balance, Gibson isprobably right in his thinking that Robson will one day bea great manager; but he knows these things don’thappen overnight and that Robson is human and willmake mistakes. Most importantly, Robson, contrary to

the southern press comments, has not really spent a lot ofmoney at all.

Gibson has to balance that against the fact that Middles-brough people are desperate for some success. The continueddrop in attendance’s at the Riverside may be the only thing toforce Gibsons’ hand on this; Robson may not enjoy such finesupport from his chairman if gates dip below the 25,000 mark.The trouble is that Boro folk are so used to being relegated thata drop into the second half of the table coupled with a lack ofpassion on the field sets their alarm bells ringing.

In any case, if Robson was to leave, who would take hisplace? There is not exactly a queue of top class people

waiting to fill his boots – certainly nobody who couldbring in the wonderful flair players that Robsondid in the early days.

Better the devil you know for the time being,eh Mr Gibson?

■ I am grateful to Paul Readman for proof read-ing and checking the enormous amount of infor-mation in this article. In addition, my thanks toVince Henderson-Thynne, Paul Readman andMartin Walker at MFC for contributing informa-tion in the various lists accompanying this arti-

cle. To the best of my knowledge, all of the figuresshown are correct. However, no-one is perfect (What

are you saying, like? P Readman) so if you have spot-ted any errors, mail me: [email protected]

My thanks to the various MSS members who e-mailed questions for me to ask Bryan. I used most ofthe popular questions, with the exception of the various

versions of “What will it take for you to resign?”

ROBSON’S SIGNINGS STILL AT BORO (excluding free transfers)Ugo Ehiogu £8mBrian Deane £3mJoseph Desire-Job £3mAlen Boksic £3mGianluca Festa £2.7mGary Pallister £2.5mColin Cooper £2.5mChristian Karembeu £2.1mNoel Whelan £2mHamilton Ricard £2mAlun Armstrong £1.6mCarlos Marinelli £1.5mMark Schwartzer £1.25mPaul Ince £1mDean Gordon £900,000Keith O’Neil £700,000Marlon Beresford £400,000Neil Maddison £250,000TOTAL £38.4m

Diamondor fake?

themselves. Lawrence presided over a total of 134 Leaguematches at Middlesbrough, including one season in the Pre-mier League. If you were to compare that against Robson’s first134 League matches at Boro, it makes quite startling reading:

P W D L pts pts per game average

Lawrence 134 52 35 47 191 1.42Robson 134 51 37 46 190 1.41

Viewed in this way, Robson’s record seems quite dismalwhen you consider the dif ference between the Boro thatLawrence worked for and the superb set up that Robson literallywalked into.

It doesn’t get much better when you look at Robson’s com-plete League record at Boro up to and including the 1-2 defeatby Manchester United:

257 99 74 84 371 1.44It could be said Robsons’ average of 1.44 points per game

(only 1.3 percent higher than Lawrence achieved) would resultin a swift exit at some clubs who think of themselves as ambi-tious. But Gibson is a decent man, and has made his choice;he is giving Robson the one thing that managers value aboveand beyond a multi-million pound transfer chest – and that istime. Time to build a team; to take a few chances; to learn fromthe mistakes that human beings make.

All this taken into consideration, the thing that seems toreally irk some Boro fans is that six years on, the club does notseem to be as better off as they may realistically have expectedin the heady days when Robson joined.

When Robson came under fire in the national press afterBoro’s abysmal 1-4 home defeat by a struggling Derby Countylast season, he was riled into asking his interviewer, with hisgranite features showing not a trace of irony “Well, where werethe club before I came along?” It is a debatable point, but manyBoro fans feel that any manager, given the funds and facilities

that Robson has enjoyed,should expect to achieve at

least what Robson has. So where were Boro

before Robson camealong? It appears they

were playing under a teammanager who was coping quite

miraculously given the (crumbling)ground, (lack of) money and (dread-

ful) training facilities that he had. Andthen the young freshman Robson took over

– just as some serious digging was being car-ried out; the footings on the new Riverside Sta-dium and the depths’ of Steve Gibsons’pockets, to be precise.

In industrial terms, Robson appears tohave done the equivalent of taking over a

PLAYERS BOUGHT AND SUBSEQUENTLYSOLD/RELEASED BY ROBSONIN COST RECEIVED BALANCEJuninho £4.75m £12m £7.25m profitPaul Merson £4.5m £6.75m £2.25m profitNick Barmby £5.25m £5.75m £500,000 profitMikkel Beck Free £500,000 £500,000 profitNeil Cox £1m £1.2m £200,000 profitEmerson £4m £4.25m £250,000 profitAlan Miller £425,000 £500,000 £75,000 profitChris Freestone £15,000 £75,000 £60,000 profitChristian Zeige £4.5m £5.5m £1m profitCraig Harrison Juniors £500,000 £500,000 profitJaime Moreno £250,000 £100,000 -£150,000 lossPhil Whelan £330,000 £175,000 -£155,000 lossGary Walsh £500,000 £250,000 -£250,000 lossMarco Branca £1m £500,000* -£500,000 lossAndy Townsend £500,000 £50,000 -£450,000 lossJan Aage Fjortoft £1.3m £700,000 -£600,000 lossNigel Pearson £750,000 Retired -£750,000 lossVladimir Kinder £1m Work permit withdrawn -£1m lossFabrizio Ravanelli £7m £5.25m -£1.75m lossPaul Gascoigne £3.45m Big fat zero*** -£3.45m lossTOTALS £40.52m £44.05 £3.53m PROFIT

ZIMMER TOP 10Age at next birthday as atNovember 2000:Gary Pallister 36Colin Cooper 34Steve Vickers 34Paul Ince 34Brian Deane 33Robbie Mustoe 33Curtis Fleming 33Gianluca Festa 32Mark Crossley 32Marlon Beresford 32

Bubbling under:Neil Maddison 32Alen Boskic 31Christian Karembeu 30

* Thought to be the amount paid toclub as insurance due to player’senforced retirement, although club willnot reveal any figures*** Obviously, this indicates theamount received for the player, not mypersonal view.

PLAYERS SOLD, NOTBOUGHT BY ROBSON:Michael Oliver £15,000Keith O’Halloran £50,000Craig Liddle £50,000Andy Collet £50,000Alan White £60,000Richard Liburd £200,000Derek Whyte £250,000Andy Todd £250,000John Hendrie £250,000Nicky Mohan £330,000Graham Kavanagh £500,000Jamie Pollock £600,000TOTAL £2,605,000Total spent: £78.92mTotal received: £46.65mDifference between purchasing andsales: £32.27m (£5.3m per year)

Shaun Keogh asks: We would like to hear MSSers views onthe Robbo debate. Write to us (turn topage 3) or email [email protected]

Profit and loss:Robbo made£7.25m on Juninhobut lost £1.75 onthe White Feather


thisPictureThe East Stand at the Riverside Stadium.

Picture: Paul Thompson


PAUL THOMPSON talks to STUART BOAM, Boro’s centre half in the1970s, who together with Willie Maddren, formed a rock solid defenceduring Jack Charlton’s reign. We then reprint an interview with Willie by

ANDY SMITH in 1993 as a tribute to a true hero who recently sadly died

mss interview

Were you always focused on being a footballer?Yes, I played for my school, my district, and my county, althoughI went to grammar school I spent most of my eveningsplaying football. From the age of 11 I captained everyteam I played for, including 20 years as a pro, 16 to 36. You signed for Boro in 1971.Stan bought me, and after my first seasonthey had a new manager, a new chairman,and a new captain, in Jack Charlton, CharlesAmer and me. I didn’t put my name forward, itcould have been Willie Maddren or Graeme Souness. I wasasked to do it, and it paid off, but Willie possibly shouldhave got it. He did everything else at Middlesbrough Foot-ball Club, including sweep the stands. I was rooming withhim at the time and it broke his heart when they gave it tome. Willie’s not one for shouting at people, that’s probablywhy Jack gave it to me. You’ll never meet a better bloke.He was so unlucky to have just a six year career, with theability he had, and then to get that disease. It’s not fair,but life’s not fair. I was more physical, but he was quicker,he could tackle, kick with both feet, great in the air. Ifanything came into the box it was mine.

My job was to get weighed in, but Willie could do itfairly. I never saw him deliberately foul anyone, he was sogood, he didn’t need to. If he fouled anyone he’d saysorry, I never did. How we developed the understandingwe had, I don’t know. We never had time to work at it,because I never used to see him till Thursday. He wasalways on the treatment table. He’d be last onto thepitch, after games his knee would blow up like a football,

he’d be in for treatment two or three times a day. Thursday orFriday he’d turn up for tactical work or free kicks, which didn’tinvolve running around. Saturdays he’d play. You or I wouldn’t

walk down the street with a knee that bad. Had it not beenfor that knee he would probably have moved onto a biggerclub and got England caps. Were you bought to play alongside him, or was it just

something that was tried and found to work?My first partner was Bill Gates. It didn’t really workbecause we were similar players. After Stan left HaroldShepherdson was caretaker for eight games and Iplayed alongside Willie for those games. Then Jackcame in. What do you remember about his arrival?He’d been watching us for several games before hearrived. He took us all up to the Country Club andspoke to us. He went through what he thought ofevery individual player. When he got to me he said Iwas crap. His exact words were ‘You’re crap. WillieMaddren’s doing your work for you.’ He pulled me topieces in front of everyone. I thought ‘This doesn’tseem quite right.’ It was probably a wind up, I don’tknow, he may have meant it. Willie and I had beenplaying together for a while, it was the start of a part-nership which lasted all Willie’s career and most ofmine. He slaughtered me, I couldn’t head a ball, Icouldn’t tackle. I’ve never felt so sick in all my life.

Don’t get me wrong, Jack and I get on great,but we argued every day. He wanted the best forthe club, I wanted the best for the players but we

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BoamStuart

Born: Kirkby-in-Ashfield, 28thJanuary 1948Signed from:Mansfield TownFirst game for

Boro: 14th August1971 againstPortsmouth

Appearances: 393, 16 goalsLast game:

11th May 1979against

LiverpoolInterview: 4th October

2000

Stuart Boam todayPicture by Paul Thompson

“You’re

Big Jack and some Boam truthscrap!”


never fell out. He’s still the same now as he was 25 years ago.We used to give him a lot of stick about his gear, he’d havesoup down his lapel, toast on his tie. He was with us for fouryears and he still couldn’t remember our players names, nevermind the opposition’s. He used to call David Mills; Foggon. Buthis training and coaching were brilliant. He organised us. Oncethat was done we saw less of him. He’d be shooting onWednesday, all the apprentices would go missing because he’dhave them beating for grouse at his farm. Thursday he’d bethere for pay day, Friday he’d put the team sheet up, and if hefelt like it he’d turn up on Saturday. (laughs) But it worked. Hehad a very good system, and he got the players to fit it. Was that the difference between Stan Anderson and JackCharlton, that Jack had a system?Everything was in place at the club whenJack came, his job was to mould ittogether. You’ll never get a better forma-tion than the one we had. You had adefence and a keeper who never let anygoals in, Armstrong, Souness, Foggon andMurdoch, a fabulous blend of players,Murdoch and Souness were suppliers,Armstrong and Foggon were the runners.Foggon was grossly overweight, but thefastest man at the club. Jack used to floghim to death in training. Not the bestplayer, the class was Willie Maddren andSouness. But Foggon breaking frommidfield was our trump card. Hicky andMillsy would make runs and create holesfor Armstrong and Foggon to run into.Everywhere Jack’s been he’s used thesame system. Even with Ireland he wasn’tbothered about the strikers. He’d have people who could holdit up, and make holes for midfield players to run into. Having told everyone you were crap, did he tell you whatyou should be doing?No. Jack came in as player manager. I thought I was on theway out. But I kept him out of the team, he didn’t play onegame. I was the biggest lad so I think he was picking on me toprove a point. He’s never told me if he meant it, he just laughs.The thing people criticise him for now is not spendingmoney on a proper striker, is that fair?We held our own in the old first division, but we wanted to winsomething. Had he spent more money, who knows? Theplayers he bought weren’t good enough, with respect, PhilBoersma, Alf Wood. Bobby Murdoch was the best player hebought, and he cost nothing. He was tight enough with his ownmoney, never mind the clubs. I’ve seen him climb over thefence at the training ground, knock on somebody’s door, andask for a fag. (laughs) It all helped to build team spirit. How has the game changed in the last 25 years?

A major difference now is television is running the game. Weused to try to stop cameras coming to games because wethought it would knock 10,000 off the gate. Now they’re notasking clubs, they’re saying you will play on Monday night orwhenever.Do you like the less physical game we have now?I still love football. The difference now is it’s all one touch.There was a lot more tackling 25 years ago because moreplayers took opponents on. Rodney Marsh, Tony Currie, TrevorFrancis, they all took players on. Beckham is the best playerEngland have got, but he doesn’t beat people. Jack used tocoach Alan Foggon to beat people. His theory was that if youbeat a man, they’re playing with nine outfield players. Rodney

Marsh used to play 20 minutes for Q.P.R. but it was enough. Iremember giving two penalties away against RodneyMarsh, then he sat on the ball, to take the piss. Hewanted me to welly him. I could have killedhim, but he was class. Even keepersnow have to kick with both feet, andcontrol the ball. If Platty had evertried to dribble the ball out of hisbox Jack would have shot him.It was more physical but I wasnever sent of f in 20 years, Iwould have enough points for asuspension and two days off byChristmas. I had my own seat atLancaster Gate, I got so manybookings.

But I knew where to stop. OnceI’d whacked someone that was it. I hadthe reputation of being harder than I wasbecause Willie was the skillful one. I was alwaysgetting my nose broken, I wasn’t born with thisthing. I’d come off covered in mud, breathing it in,Willie’s kit would be spotless. My motto was ‘ThouShall Not Pass’. I was the same in training. Wealways finished off with five-a-side, no matter howknackered you were. Jimmy Greenhalgh used togive Mars bars to the winners. Men on £450 aweek, a lot of money then, would kill to win. I’ve

seen Souness take people out chest high for a mars bar. Weall shared the same bath afterwards, if you were last one inyou could walk on it. 40 of us in the bath, five eating Mars bars.All good for team spirit. Did you have a blacklist of players you’d played against?Not like Jack did. Jack was done over his little black book. Hetold me who was in it, but I’m sworn to secrecy. But it was allplayers who went over the top. It’s the worst tackle in the game.It’s quite often defenders who get done, because you’re clear-ing the ball, they come in late over the top, there’s nothing youcan do. It’s horrible. I can honestly say I never went over topto anyone, intentionally or otherwise. I couldn’t ruin a man’scareer. It’s the cowards that do it. Once they start to get a repu-tation they do it all the time becausethey’re worried that the next tackle will besomeone doing it to them. Referees don’tsee it. I had a blacklist, but it wasn’twritten down. You hardly missed a game in eightyears, did you not get injuries?I used to play with them. We went toIpswich once, I think they were second inthe league. We had a warm up on themorning of the game. I was doing someheading practice with Jimmy Headridgewhen I ricked my neck. It was so bad Icouldn’t move it at all. We had no subcentre half. I was rooming with Willie, hefetched Jimmy Greenhalgh, the coach. Wedecided not to tell Jack. I sat in the teammeeting looking straight ahead. I didn’t

head a ball all afternoon, Willie did itall for me. We got a draw and Igot man of the match for being dominant in the air.

(laughs)How did the move to Newcastle happen?Irving Nattrass had been bought from Newcastle for a lot ofmoney. The club didn’t have much money, so to finance the

deal they sold me to Newcastle. I didn’t want to go, infact I begged not to go. I had meetings with CharlesAmer, because I was only a couple of years away froma testimonial. But I had a good couple of years there.

Was Newcastle a good club at the time?It was a club that was run by the players. They’d just got

rid of a manager called Richard Dinnis who’d beenappointed from coach because the players liked him. BillMcGarry had taken over and he wanted someone to keep themin line. What happened when you went back to Mansfield?After two years at Newcastle, I went back to Mansfield to play.But they wanted me to manage as well. It didn’t go well, I’m notmaking excuses, we were crap. We were eighth when I got thesack, having just avoided relegation the previous year, but I’d

had enough. There was a clearout of all the expensive playerswhen I arrived. I went there with serious back problems, I hadthree prolapsed discs. When I did play we did all right. But Ineeded someone like me to play at the back, and I couldn’tfind anyone. I couldn’t improve what we had, and I couldn’t buythe class I wanted. I was making do with has-beens and never-weres.

I got the sack in the end, it was the best thing that everhappened to me. I was so depressed because it was my hometown, and I’m still here. They don’t remember what else I didin my 20 year career. They remember six months here, whenit didn’t go right. I go to Middlesbrough and I’m a hero, peoplestill know me. Even people who never saw me play.

After I left Mansfield we went on holiday then I decided I’dhad enough. I miss the game sometimes, but I did it for thefamily. I’ve got three daughters and I’m not one for movingthem around. I built my own house and we’re still here. After Ibuilt the house I went to work for Kodak, I was there for 12years. I was in total darkness making films, but it was boring.I was getting nowhere as regards promotion, but I got maximumredundancy, and put it into buying the business. What’s the business?It’s a newsagent and convenience store. It’s long hours, butit’s easier now I’ve got one of my daughters and her husbandhelping out. Do you get to many Boro games?I get up to see Middlesbrough occasionally and I’m very welllooked after. I was there for Willie’s funeral the other week, andbefore he died we had reunions two, three or four times a yearfor Motor Neurone Disease fundraising. It was always good tomeet the lads again, and raise some money. We’re speakingnow in the wake of Willie’s funeral, as you know for six or sevenyears he was probably my best friend as well as my workmate.What do you think of the wages players get now?People say to me, don’t you wish you were playing now, yes I

Left: Big Jackcollecting JohnCraggs’ tracksuittop before a kick-off. Above: Boroline-up before the1973-74 season.Nobby Stiles wentto Preston soonafter…

Above: Cheers!Promotion waswon as early as23rd March 1974.Right: Bob Lordpresents, gasp, aBoro skipper witha trophy; theAnglo-Scottish Cupin 1976

▲

▲

“His exact wordswere ‘you’re crap.Willie Maddren doesyour work for you’”

“I go toMiddlesbrough andI’m a hero, peoplestill know me. Evenpeople who neversaw me play”

“Six foot two, eyes of blue, Stuey Boam is after you…”


do, but my legs don’t. It was great when I played, different butgreat, and for the time I was well paid. I was one of the few tohave a sponsored car, the distant relations next doors cat hasone now. It made me laugh reading about Ravanelli having hisbills paid and so on. If I’d said that to Jack he would have cutmy head off. (laughs)You won the Anglo-Scottish Cup, how much does thatmean to you?That was a big competition wasn’t it? There only us and acouple of others in it. (laughs) There’s a picture of you being presented with the cup…Bob Lord presented it to me. He hated my guts. He was on thedisciplinary committee at the FA. I was up before them once,expecting a three match ban. They gave me four, and the fourthmatch was against Burnley. Bob Lord was chairman of Burnley.We beat them though. I appealed which put it back and I playedagainst them anyway, and we won. But the Anglo Scottish wasa nothing event.You also played in all the big cup games of the time,Orient, Birmingham…I could talk about Birmingham all night. It’s well known that wewent there and beat them 3-0 first game of the season. Wehammered them at home as well. We should have won the Cupthat year, but that’s football. Hicky let Bob Hatton run at acorner, the ball hit his head and flew in the corner.People now tend to say Jack was at fault because hewent there for a draw.We didn’t. We ended up playing for a draw because they wereon top. They were having a right go because they didn’t want areplay. It wasn’t our day, things weren’t happening for us, soyou start to think 0-0 will do. Then they scored with 20 minutesleft. Willie and I went up front, but it wouldn’t go in. That’s foot-ball.

The only time Jack ever sent us out for a draw, was againstLuton, late in the 1973/74 season. We had about eight gamesleft, we were top and Luton were second. A draw at Lutonmeant we could win the championship at home the followingweek. Jack wanted us to do it at home, so he said a draw woulddo. At half time it was 0-0 everything going to plan. Jack saidkeep it tight. Late in the game, Millsy mis-hits one, and it fliesinto the top corner. A great player David, put the ball in front ofhim, play it into the hole and he could run all day. But didn’tscore that many. At full time we did a lap round the pitch, thehome fans were chucking bottles and coins at us. Jack calledus in and went ape, because we’d won.(laughs) Tea cups wereflying. ‘Everyone sit down, don’t f*****g move. Where is he?’he was saying. Millsy had locked himself in the toilet. Jackwould have killed him. (laughs) We had to sneak him onto thebus. It’s the only time I’ve had a bollocking for winning awayfrom home.

It was funny, but you didn’t laugh in front of Jack. I’ve hadjaw ache from trying not to laugh. We had a team meetingbefore one game, and the team we were playing had a centreforward who’d scored six the week before. Jack sat us downand said, ‘Nothing to worry about, five of them were flukes.’ Ilooked at Craggsy and Millsy, and they’d gone. But they didn’tdare laugh. I couldn’t look at anyone, they were all holding it in.When he went we all cracked up. Players, coaches, everyone.I was in pain from laughing.What’s the highlight of career?That season we won the league. It was a great year, nothing

▲

“You’ll never meet a betterbloke than Willie Maddren.He was so unlucky to havejust a six year career, withthe ability he had, and thento get that disease. It’s notfair, but life’s not fair”

mss Winter 2000/2001 31

What did you think when you heard that Jack Charlton wasto be the new manager?There was a a fair amount of expectancy because of his playingcareer, what he achieved at Leeds, but I don’t think any of ushad any idea of what he was going to be like.

We first met him in the close season, when he was intro-duced to us at the Marton County Club, and he left us in nouncertain terms what he required of us. He said he didn’t want

any second raters, that he had seen us all play andthat there were some good, some bad and some

indifferent.Where did you fit into that?Oh, he never told us who fitted into which category!

We were all hoping to do well, and duringthe close season some teams had spent a lotof money. Portsmouth were one of them, and

we played them in the first match. Jack told me to play in midfield, which I didn’twant to, but we won one-nil and psychologically

that was very important for us. Then we lostour first home game to Fulham! But after

that we had a twenty one game unbeatenrun. After about four games GraemeSouness was picked as substituteagainst Carlisle United, after not reallyfeaturing in the picture at all. BrianTaylor, who was playing at the backwas unlucky enough to suf fer adepressed cheekbone, Graeme cameon and I was pushed back into theback four. And that was it.

Jack impressed us with hisapproach, he was very professionalin his coaching methods. We had notseen anything like him. As soon aswe were on the training ground wewere trying things. Like when in theFirst Division we tried a sweeper

system, which was something totally new. We introduced thissystem one week and we practiced it all week in training. Whenwe got together, I put my hand up and said “Yes, all right bossbut we’re playing Liverpool at Anfield on Saturday!”

The idea was that the full backs would push up on thewingers, Heighway and Callaghan, with myself sweeping upalongside Stuart Boam, with Toshack and Keegan coming at us!

We were to pack the midfield and leave Millsy on his ownupfront. So I said to him how were we to ever score? And Jacksaid that as long as we kept it tight for the first twenty minutesLiverpool would start to push more players from the back intoan already crowded midfield and we would hit them on thebreak. And it worked absolutely to a tee. We beat them 2-0. Andthe following week we beat Leeds away as well two-nil, againstthe likes of Eddie Gray and Peter Lorimer and Allan Clarke.

We developed a terrific understanding, and that gave us theconfidence. It was an exceptional side. In fact I do not think thatJack realised how good the side was. I think the ten yearssuccess at Leeds made him think there was far more to do thatthere really was.

I think if we had bought Malcolm MacDonald we would havewon the First Division. We were, after all, joint top at Christmasand Malcolm was tailor-made for our set-up. Him and Millsy upfront hitting the channels... he would have put three or four thou-sand on the gate alone and at the time there were the Proctors,the Johnstons, the Hodgsons coming through. The club could

mss tributeMaddrenWillie

“I DON’T THINK JACK REALISED HOWGOOD

THE SIDEWAS”ANDY SMITH spoke toWillie Maddren sevenyears ago for afeature looking back20 years to that great1973-74 team. Williedied on 29th August2000 after a long andbrave battle againstillness. We salute atrue Boro hero

▲


have hit another level altogether. Malcolm was the missing piecein the jigsaw.

I felt Jack took the safe way out. He got Alf Wood on a freetransfer, no disrespect to Alf but he wasn’t in the same class.Was that Jack’s responsibility or was it the club holding himback?No, the money was available but Jack wanted to balance thebooks. He didn’t want the club to get into debt. Maybe that wasto do with starting out in his managerial career, maybe if he hadarrived later he would have seen it. It was such a terrific side,very well balanced. Bobby Murdoch was an important signing early inthat promotion season...Yes, he was a crucial signing, he was one of the bestfirst-time passers of the ball I have ever seen.Together with Graeme Souness and David Armstronghe made a superb midfield trio. His legs were goinga bit but he was able to drill those fifty or sixty yardpasses across the field. He gave the side that extrabit of confidence to what was still a young side.There was the boring defensive tag...We were very professional. We were difficult to breakdown and they didn’t like it. Yet we scored 100 goalsthat season. Managers aren’t going to say what a fineteam you are when you’re taking points off them.

I remember John Bond praising the Boro team asthe best footballing team he had seen, this wasduring John Neal’s time in the late seventies afterJack had gone. But he had walked away then with the points! Hewould whinge on and on about us (Jack’s side) but it wasbecause we had usually beaten his teams!

You look at the second half of the 1973-74 season. Wescored eight against Sheffield Wednesday, beat Notts County4-0, West Brom 4-0, we scored lots of goals. That had comefrom the platform of the first half of the season. No-one scoredas many goals as we did.

When we went up we beat Spurs at White Hart Lane four-nil.The next day we got a terrible press, how dull and boring wewere, but we had taken the spoils up North, that’s what theydidn’t like. I think it was partly because Jack’s image followedhim. It was unfair really, the Leeds tag was passed onto Middles-brough. We were professional. So what? We used to outplayteams but not score anything like the goals we should havedone.

I used to say at the time before a game when people askedme how I thought we would get on, “oh, we’ll murder them one-nil.” Many games there would be chance after chance afterchance but we would win one-nil or two-one. If we had had alittle bit more up front we would have been a complete team.They were great days and there are plenty of fond memories.You almost played for England as well...I was picked for two England squads in the European champi-onships, but never picked to play.

I had played for the England Under-23s five times. I am notbitter but when you look at a player ike Brian Greenhoff, heplayed twenty five times for England. Now he played forManchester United. Always in the limelight, on the TV all thetime. We made it on Match of the Day once a season andusually it turned out to be nil-nil, so what chance do you have?You had to retire through injury...Not an injury exactly, I suffered from arthritis and although I hadan operation on my knee it didn’t do any good. I retired at theage of 26. But there you are, life goes on.

Do you see any of the team now?Well, John Craggs works for me in my shop at Teesside Park inthe golf department, Stuart Boam I saw about six years ago, Isaw John Hickton at somebody’s testimonial a few years ago,Terry Cooper still pops his head around the door when his sideis in the region. He’ll come in and we’ll reminisce for an hourand a half or so... but that’s professional football for you, peopledisappear all over the country.Have you been to Ayresome Park since being manager?I was at Gary Hamilton’s testimonial a few weeks ago, but whenI lost the job there I vowed I would work in my shop on Satur-days.

After all we take a third of our weekly takings on Saturdays.So I have got out of the habit of watching football except on thetelly. I have been to Ayresome Park four times in the last eightyears. My son’s keen but when I get the time I play golf, I dragmy gammy leg around the golf course...There’s a youngster there now called Alan Moore..Yes, I saw him play at Gary’s match. He carried the ball well andhas good control and I hope he does well.

It’s nice to see the youngsters coming through, after allthat’s what the Boro have to rely on. Liverpool and ManchesterUnited can afford to buy the genuine article but we have to bringon our own kids.

It’s good to see the Boro back on the right tracks.

▲

Willie’smarvellousautobiography,Extra Time, isrequired readingfor all Boro fans.MSSers canorder it on-linevia the Boro’swebsite:www.mfc.co.uk All profits gotowards finding acure for MotorNeurone Disease.

“When we went up webeat Spurs at WhiteHart Lane four-nil. Thenext day we got aterrible press, how dulland boring we were”

Willie with the England Under-23s,managed by Sir Alf Ramsey (far left) andtrained by Boro’s Harold Shepherdson (farright). Can you spot Kevin Beattie, TrevorFrancis, Bob Latchford and TerryMcDermott (they could all have done witha good haircut mind…)

Willie’s Boro team avoid relegation in1985 at Shrewsbury. His manager periodwas a tough job with a club in decline yethe signed Brian Laws and Stephen Pearsat bargain prices and discovered BernieSlaven. His youngsters formed thebackbone of Bruce Rioch’s wonder team.

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I’d just booked a holiday in Portugalwhen I heard that Boro were playingReal. This was a game I had to see. I’dalready got tickets to see Spor tingLisbon v Real Madrid and boy what a

game that was. I arrived in Lisbon on theWednesday lunchtime and was at thegame the same evening. Sporting shouldhave won five or six-one but it ended 3-1.I don’t think that mattered much, every-one was there to see Figo. They treatedhim like a God, even though he was play-ing for Real!

The best goal was scored by RobertoCarlos, collecting the ball in his own half,he ran the length of the pitch and hit ablistering shot past Schmeichel, whostood rooted to the spot. Now that wassomething worth watching.

On the Thursday I managed toarrange tickets to fly to Malaga viaMadrid. The flights were delayed and, onarriving seven hours later, we then spenttwo hours locating a hire car. It then tooktwo hours to drive to La Linea, arrivingabout 11 o’clock at night. We stopped atthe first hotel on the sea-front and gotthe last room. We were told the footballground was just along the road so wetook a drive. Two minutes later there itwas, overshadowed by the rock. Andguess what? The floodlights were on andthe gates open, they were fitting addi-tonal seating. We had a walk around andidentified the best seating position to buytickets for. Seats within touching distanceof the net.

The next day we found the Boroteam’s hotel and went in search of thetraining ground, which we never foundand got well and truly lost. We went backand bought our tickets and then went insearch of another hotel as there was no

room at the inn. We finally found one inGibraltar. We then decided to try our luckat meeting the lads at the hotel.

Bingo! Curtis Fleming introduced usto Graham Fordy who then introduced usto Christian Karambeu. Good job we couldspeak French. Then one-by-one the restof the team appeared. My Portugese girl-friend was amazed at how friendly andhospitable they were. Having got lots ofpictures and autographs we decided toseek out the opposition – Real Madrid.

After bribing our way past securitywho were blocking the roads to their se-cluded hotel, we waited with a small bandof privileged fans and a camera crew.Their bus pulled up, the players got offand pushed by everyone, ignoring their

The Real Madrid v Boro match inthe La Linea tournament tele-vised across Spain on the nightof 13th August did not turn outto be Spanish viewers’ favourite

programme that evening. We were in-formed of it by Madrid sports daily AS,“even though Del Bosque’s team finishedup as winners” and even though it meantthe goalscoring debuts of expensive newsignings Figo and Makelele, the latter’sshot from outside the box being seen as“sensational” and the Portuguese star’s“friqui” (freekick) via Hamilton Ricard’shead being “perfect”. In fact, the matchdrew 2,681,000 viewers with a “screenquota” of only 29.2 percent.

AS found it surprising that Antena 3TV should, by only 139,000 viewers dif-ference, hoist their “La Noche de los Er-rores” programme into Sunday’s top TV

ranking. Both programmes coincidedalmost entirely in their timing, and thiswas big news, because it’s not usual fora comedy entertainment programme tobeat a football match into second placeon Spanish TV, even less so when thecurrent European champions are playing.

The Boro-Real match lost almost tenpoints of screen quota with respect tothe Milan-Madrid match on 1st August, aconsiderable drop, although no insinua-tions were cast on the pedigree ofMadrid’s opposition in La Linea. The win-ning programme, “La Noche de los Er-rores”, (The Night of Errors), is similar toDenis Nordern’s old English TV pro-gramme, It’ll be all right on the Night,words of consolation which might wellhave served as a basis for Mr. Robson’shalf-time pep talk to his bewitched, both-ered and bewildered black-stripped Boro.

AS reporter, JJ Santos, apart fromobserving “important deficiencies” inthe Boro’s first-half performance, foundthe second half drained of entertain-ment, partly because of Del Bosque’sexcessive use of substitutes, partly be-cause the precarious sur face of thepitch became “insufferable” and partlybecause a ner vous Casillas in theMadrid goal gifted a goal to Deal (sic),after which he found himself necessarilysurrounded by white shir ts as RealMadrid tried to hang on to the trophy, atwhich stage Sr. Santos “despaired atBoro’s waster mentality”, and “evenKarembeu appeared in the match”, a bitof a sarky jibe at the same ex-Madridstar who had joked effusively before thematch with his ex-teammates, who hadbeen Boro’s busiest autograph-signer inthe club hotel and whose name echoedaround the La Linea ground as he took

to the stage.Boro’s best players were given as

Pallister and Ricard with two aces outof three each, AS’s “crack player” wasMakelele, their “dandy” Celades, their“What a day!” player Casillas, andBoro’s worst players with no aces atall were Karembeu and Paul Ince, thelatter being chosen as AS’s “hardman” who “left his football behind inthe changing-room so he could put theboot in”, the TV audience article evenbeing illustrated with a vivid portrayalof Ince appearing to grab by the wind-pipe one Michel Salgado, the samelad who, as a Celta de Vigo defender,blighted the life of poor old Juninho.You tell him, Paul! ■

The Real thing!

Pre-season friendly opposition for theBoro is no longer restricted to BillinghamSynthonia, York City and HamiltonAcademicals. This year it included RealMadrid! Two MSSers had differentexperiences of it: ALAN BESTFORDwatched it on the telly in his Spanishhome and scoured the press for itscoverage, while NICK SMITH wasactually there, behind the goal…

fans. All except Figo. Raul anda few others came out laterbut were very off-hand. Unlikethe Boro.

That night we arrived atthe stadium early to claim ourseats right behind the goal. Itwould be the end where all thegoals went in. This time Figoscored a free-kick with the

help of a deflection. At two-nil down athalf-time we looked like we were in for athrashing but this changed in the secondhalf. We got an early goal and had othersscrambled off the line. When the finalwhistle went we did not deserve to lose,and it passed so quickly, everythingseemed a blur. Especially when Job hadthe ball!

Outside the ground the fans weregathering with a wall of police betweenthem and the coaches. A few of the Boroplayers came out and climbed aboard butwhen Real came out the crowd became afrenzied mob. Even the Boro players satin awe, Andy Campbell’s face was agape.Job and Pally appeared at the side doorbriefly to sign autographs, then off theywent. The Real bus struggled to get awayeven with a police escort. Then out camethe ex-Real player Boro had left behind.He tried to run the gauntlet of fans beforehe was mobbed. He managed to pushthem off with the help of the police anddived into a French car with blackenedwindows and sped off into the night.

Wow, what a long weekend I had! I even succumbed to asking BernieSlaven for his autpograph, a player whowas never a favourite of mine. SorryBernie, though your goals were appreci-ated. I wish I could stop that ringing in myears, all I can hear is “Figo! Figo”… ■

Well done the Boroplayers who weremost friendly andhospitable to us.Here I am picturedwith Karambeu,Ince, Pally andWhelan.

Top of the page:What a view!

Below, the Spanishfans go mad forour ex-Real man


PAUL THOMPSON talksto ex-Boro defenderCRAIG LIDDLE, nowplaying for Darlington

mss interview

You started at Villa.I was at Villa for three years, two as a YTS,one as a pro. My last year was a nightmare,Joe Venglos was in charge, he didn’t want toknow the younger lads, and I was homesick soI asked to leave. So I came back and playedfor Blyth Spartans for two seasons. That’swhen the Middlesbrough opportunity cameup. Ron Bone saw me and invited me for atrial. That was when Lennie Lawrencewas boss. Didn’t you have a trial at Borobefore that?When I left Villa I went for a trial atBoro. But all Lennie could offer me was a monthto month contract. So I was about to sign for Lenniewhen he got the sack. Then Bryan Robson came inand I had to prove myself over again. But eventuallyI got a contract. Your debut was in the last game of the promo-tion season at Tranmere.A few of the younger lads had a run out, luckily I gota run of 13 or 14 games the following season in thePremier League.What’s your best position, because yourplayed all over for Boro.I played centre half, full back midfield, I even man-marked Teddy Sheringham once. Right centre halfis my best position. At the moment I’m the right sidecentre back of three. David Hodgson tried to get me toplay right back, but not being the quickest I didn’t fancy it.

When you were at Boro the papers were full of storiesthat the foreign players didn’t get on with the Britishones, was there any truth in that?

No. The foreign lads did tend to stick together because theycould talk to each other better than they could talk to us.

But there was big divide. The problems that did arisewere mainly down to Ravanelli. He was very arro-

gant.There’s only so many times you can claimto be misquoted in the papers. Yes, once or twice maybe, not 15 or 20.

Is there a highlight of your time at Boro?When we beat Liverpool 2-1 at the Riverside. Barmby

got the winner, I was man of the match. To beat a teamlike that, with the players they had, and get the man ofthe match was brilliant. My Dad’s still got the bottle ofchampagne. Is there one reason above anything else thatcaused us to be relegated the following season.The three points. That was what sent us down. If we’dgone there and lost 5-0 we would have stayed up. But

the decision was taken not to go, that’s that.Were you fit to play if the Blackburn game had goneahead?

I had an achilles injury. I would have played, but I might nothave lasted 90 minutes. Was there a player at Boro you looked up to more than

anyone else, not necessarily the best player.Big Nige. He’s one of Bryan Robson’s best ever sign-

ings. His courage was unbelievable. I’ve seen himcome off the pitch, get the ice packs on both knees

▲

LiddleCraig

Craig LiddleDarlingtondefender

Born: Chester-le-Street, 21st

October 1971Debut for Boro: versus Tranmere7th May 1995Last game for

Boro: against Bradford14th February

1998Appearances:

27 plus 7 as subInterviewed:Summer 2000

Craig Liddle Picture by Paul Thompson

LIDDLE BYLIDDLE


and sit there in agony. But he still played week in week out.Lots of times I thought I’d be playing instead of him, and didn’t.I hope he’s not stored up problems for himself later in life.What made you decide to sign for Darlington, becauseyou must have taken a pay cut.Bryan Robson was happy to give me a contract, but he madeit clear I was a squad player. I was about 26, and I needed tobe playing games. Steve Vickers is a mate of David Hodgson,and he mentioned Darlo might be interested. I met DavidHodgson, and he offered me the chance to play week in weekout, which is what has happened. Darlington can’t pay thesame wages as Middlesbrough obviously, but with signing onfees, and win bonuses, I’m no worse off.How does the Darlington against Hartlepool gamecompare with playing in a derby for Boro?I only played in the one derby for Boro, when Newcastle beatus 2-1 at the Riverside.When Malcolm Allison got sacked by Century, becausehe said “F*****g Hell” when Gary Walsh let the winnerin…

Yes. It was a strange game, because I’m a lifelong Newcastlefan. All my mates were in the away end that day. If anything theDarlington against Hartlepool game is more ferocious, becausea lot of the players are from the North East. They have thepassion for the game, and they understand what a local derbymeans, which isn’t always the case with Premiership players.Were you involved in the trouble after Darlington won atHartlepool in the play offs?No, Marco was hit by a fan, and David Hodgson was hit by acoin. But we won.George Reynolds is a very ambitious man, how far do youthink Darlington can go?If you’d asked me that 7 or 8 weeks ago I’d have given you adifferent answer. After losing at Wembley, losing 4 or 5 of ourbest players and all that’s happened pre season, we won’treally know until the season starts.You’ve had an eventful summer. Were you surprisedwhen David Hodgson resigned? I’ve never known anything like it. I was surprised at the timingof the resignation, I thought he’d probably go, he and the chair-man are both strong personalities. I think when the chairmanprinted our wages in the paper, that was the last straw.Do you have targets or ambitions in your career, or is itone game at a time? I don’t think I’ll get back to the Premiership, but I would defi-nitely like to play at a higher level again. We’ll see.What’s the overall highlight of your career so far?Scoring at Hartlepool in the play off semi final. It was strangebecause I fancied myself to score for some reason. I told mydad before the game, when I saw him after I asked him if he’dput any money on it. He hadn’t. (laughs)

▲

“Darlington can'tpay the samewages as Boroobviously but withsigning-on feesand win bonusesI'm no worse off”

LiddleCraig

mss Winter 2000/2001 39

thisPictureThis used to be Boro’s training ground, Hutton Road. Picture: Paul Thompson

If you have any memories of it, perhaps yousaw the Boro train, or had a trial yourself

there, or lived nearby, please get in touch…

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Saturday 2nd DecemberPlease send me .... tickets for the MSS Annual Party. I enclose a cheque for £......... made payable to MSS.

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MSS Magazine Issue 131

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Transcript of MSS Magazine Issue 131