On the drive to his digs, Colin Henderson went through what had happened in the last few hours.
Literally, it had gone down to the wire, everything had to be sorted out by 5-30, the final document had been signed at 5-20.
Ayresome park was still locked , initially Billingham Synthonia had been chosen for the game against Port Vale “trust me, the manager of the Synners club was over the moon, he could put it up to over a pound fifty a pint and he’d still sell out, but we decided against Billingham”
Henderson went on, Gibbo had an agreement with Hartlepool to play at the Victoria ground, with a 6-30 kick off.
“The only thing we had to sort out was how to get the team there, and thats when young Gibbo had a masterstroke” Henderson turned the cassette down at this point, which was a relief, frankly Gareth was getting sick of hearing Madonna sing “like a virgin”, for the 42nd time. He rolled his eyes “sooner the iPod gets here, the better” he thought to himself.
“Go on then, what’s the masterstroke?” Gareth asked Henderson
“Well, and you’ll like this, not a lot, but you’ll like it” Chuckled Henderson, whilst Gareth made a mental note that Paul Daniels had been as unfunny in 86 as 96 and 2006.
Henderson continued
“so, we are going to use next years TV money to sort out the transport”
“hang on, you have TV money lined up?”
“oh yes, and it’s cash and thats why the administrators never got his hands on it”
Gareth was now confused “go on”
“Aye, we have 58 quid in a tin, we’d put it aside to pay the TV license , that will pay for a coach to get the lads to the game”
Gareth let out a groan, things were bad.
Gareths digs were far from palatial, he had a black and white TV, and at least he could look forward to watching the Tube and then catching up on a bit of Brookside.
Maybe 1986 wasn’t so bad after all. He’s always had a soft spot for the blonde one out of Bananarama, all 3 of them in fact.
Gareth got the train to the game, it wasn’t a bad walk to the Victoria ground and he was pleased to see that nearly three and a half thousand fans made the journey. Colin Henderson had told him, that they club needed about five thousand fans at every home match to survive. It looked like it could be done.
On the walk to the ground Gareth was amused at the antics of a young kid, who walked with a limp one minute, a bad back the next, and was claiming to have a headache straight after that, the kids father was not amused “oh come on our Jonathon, if you keep pretending to be poorly like this you won’t get into the school team, never mind play with a proper club”
“sorry dad, but can buy me a sherbet dib dab, or an ice cream, dad, go on dad, please”
There was something about little Jonathon that was both familiar, and annoying, to Gareth.
As the team ran out Gareth pondered the fact that they average age was just over 21. It would be a long time before a team of Boro youngsters would take the field like this again.
As for the game itself 3456 fans crossed the River Tees to watch the rebirth of the club. Mind you if you believed what every fan would say in the years to come, it was more like forty thousand. Bruce Rioch fielded a Boro side with an average age of 21 years and 5 months. Absent was suspended Gary Pallister who was replaced by Alan Kernaghan.
The game was good football, Bruce kept it simple, the ball was played fast and on the deck, no over elaboration, and it was no surprise when Boro led 2-0 at half time with both goals coming from veteran striker Archie Stephens, the 2nd was a stunning 25 yard drive. In the second half the lack of fitness started tocatch up, and as the clock moved into the final 30 minutes the clubs lack of preparation and overall fitness levels finally caught up with them. Port Vale grabbed 2 second half goals through Richard O’Kelly and Paul Maguire.
Still, they were a club, they would survive.
At the next time they played at home, it would be at Ayresome.
<thanks to S71 and Bobster Marley >