MFC’s Golden Years through the eyes of a Boro convert

Episode 1

By Little Jimmy (he’s the bloke in shorts on the picture)

1970 to 1989 - Before Boro

Nobody chooses to support the Boro; you are born to it. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard or read this phrase since I started following the fortunes of Middlesbrough Football Club. I know it’s not strictly true, but I rarely argue with anyone who says it. It’s one of those generalisations with some foundation, but which isn’t completely factual. The truest part of it is that people do not choose to support Middlesbrough FC in the same way they might choose to support the likes of Manchester United, Chelsea or Liverpool.   The vast majority of people who support the club either hail from the Teesside area or have parents from there and have been brought up with the belief that only one football team in the world matters, above even the national team. In many cases this indoctrination sticks fast. Of course, there are kids from the area who decide, in defiance of family and friends, to support the more glamourous, successful clubs and who wear their replica kits at every opportunity. For these parents whose children go against their grain, there is still the hope that they might grow out of being a “glory supporter” and start follow their hometown club. On the flip side of the coin, I can’t imagine you would find many children in the playgrounds of Toxteth, Salford or Acton wearing Boro strips. I am probably classed as a very rare breed, and I don‘t mean a Middle Class liberal in Thirsk. I am a Boro supporter who isn’t from Teesside, and didn‘t feel compelled to support them through parental pressure.  I was born in the most northerly town in England where the local team play in the Scottish Third Division and where haggis is eaten more than once a year. Somehow - I think fortuitously -  I ended up becoming a supporter of Middlesbrough in the mid-‘90s.

I became an anti-glory supporter and personally speaking, I think I jumped on the Boro rollercoaster just at the right time…just as it was about to climb into the dizzying, rarefied air of what - for the Boro - was the stratosphere. If anyone’s to blame for this, it’s probably the man from the Army careers office who came to see my father when he was wondering what to do with his life. He was at a point where he had narrowed the options down to either life as a policeman or life as a soldier.

The Army sent a man to talk to him; the police didn’t. My dad joined up and went for training, and before long his young family were moving to West Germany. I only lived in the town of my birth for just over 2 years, and soon became accustomed to a nomadic existence; moving to a new posting every 3 years. Most of the next 17 years was spent living in various places in Germany, punctuated by secondary education in a North Yorkshire boarding school and 2 short postings to UK bases.  My father was a football fan (Manchester United were his team, he began following them in the late 50s when he was himself a boy) and he gave me my first taste of the beautiful game in the divided city of Berlin in the late 1970s.

I had watched some of the ‘78 World Cup on our tiny TV, but this viewing experience was completely overshadowed when my father took me to watch Hertha Berlin playing SC Hamburg at the Berlin Olympic Stadium. I was immediately captivated by the scale of everything.  Becoming part of something bigger than yourself could be quite overwhelming at the age of 8 or 9, especially when it’s in such an historic and frankly vast venue. I wasn’t afraid, I just watched the game with growing fascination, listened to the moans, groans, shouts and cheers of a football crowd, tasted the cold half-time bockwurst in stale bread and just enjoyed every minute of actually being there, completely immersed in it rather than just watching it on a little flickering screen. Kevin Keegan played for Hamburg, I remember, and with his hairstyle was easily spottable, even from the back of the stands. I think he scored as well.  When we moved to different places, we endeavoured to find a local team to watch, be it a top flight professional club or a semi-pro outfit playing to small crowds in a tiny stadium. Televised football was thin on the ground, rather than the wall-to-wall coverage we enjoy today, especially anything from England.

The British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS) linked up with the Radio 2 Saturday afternoon coverage, so we managed to hear the results and catch the occasional commentary on a United game. During my time at boarding school in England I managed to see some televised games. There was always a big crowd in the TV room for the FA Cup Finals and World Cups. I remember the buzz of Cup Final days, with the coverage starting around noon on one or even both main channels; the teams arriving and walking on the pitch in their best bib and tucker; the early summer sun blazing in a brilliant blue sky; the military band on the pristine Wembley pitch; Abide With Me…it was a real occasion. There were some cracking finals in the ‘80s: Man U v Brighton, “Smith must score,” and the replay…Everton v Watford…Coventry v Spurs and Houchen’s diving header…Man U beating Everton with Norman Whiteside’s wonder goal in extra time after Kevin Moran’s sending off…too many memories, and more than just a handful of teams competing, even if the cancerous undercurrent of hooliganism was a significant problem.

I also have some vivid memories of the 1986 World Cup Finals in Mexico, with the pitches permanently bathed in sunshine and England’s valiant effort after the dreadful start in the group stages. I can still see Lineker’s agonising lunge for Barnes’s second cross in the Hand of God game…so close yet so far.  My dad’s final posting was to North Yorkshire in 1989, the same year I left school. I entered the wonderful world of working for a wage, finding gainful employment with a construction firm in Darlington. A year later the recession took hold and the company shed a third of the workforce. I was one of the unlucky third, but was lucky to find another job fairly quickly with an engineering firm in Middlesbrough. I ended up working in Teesside for the next decade, and after I got married, also lived there  I didn’t know it back in 1990, but the seeds were being sown.