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Up until that point, Boro hadnβt really registered with me. I knew there was a football team there who were rivals with Sunderland and Newcastle. I knew they were seen as something of a yo-yo team that played in an old-fashioned stadium set amongst rows of terraced houses. I even remember their exciting cup ties with Everton in the 80s with all the replays and late goal drama. But that was essentially that. I was a Manchester United fan, following on from my dad. I say fan rather than supporter quite deliberately, because I always watched or listened from afar. I attended very few games of theirs other than the odd cup tie here and there.
I canβt say the attachment was a deep one, more like the loyalty one feels towards a kind of food or a band. Kids like me who lived in many places - army brats, for want of a better term - almost always followed teams like Man United or Liverpool, unless they were Scottish and the choice was between Celtic and Rangers. Β Working with Teessiders was a baptism of roaring Wilton flare-stacks. I was a shy, quiet, Grammar-school-educated young man with a Middle Class accent thrown into the deep end of a working environment with people who had a wickedly sharp sense of humour and who pounced on the smallest of foibles in the name of banter and craic. I eventually learned how to give as good as I got and not take it too personally. Eventually.
Β Football banter was always popular, and being a Man U fan made me a target for more teasing. Iβm sure it would have been ten times worse had I professed a liking for Newcastle. As time progressed I learned more and more about the area, the people and the local football clubs and rivalries. I heard names like Archie Stephens, George Camsell and Wilf Mannion. I heard about the Anglo-Scottish Cup and Jack Charltonβs legendary team. I learned that Boro had achieved their best league positions just before both World Wars, and that there was allegedly a gypsy curse on Ayresome Park. What was impressed upon me was the real attachment local people had to their club. It wasnβt like following a franchise, this was deep-rooted and very, very important.
The local rivalries with Sunderland and Newcastle were passionate and forceful. I remember catching a hard-fought Boro v Sunderland game on Tyne Tees TV that bore testament to this fact. It wasnβt a world I knew much about, but the more I heard and saw, the more I wanted to learn. Β In the background, things were afoot at MFC. The club had gone through a torrid period in the mid-β80s, flirting with complete oblivion in 1986 when the Ayresome Park gates were locked by receivers and the team had to play at Hartlepoolβs ground and even train in public parks. A young local businessman called Steve Gibson came to the forefront as part of the consortium who saved the club from winding-up, and when he became Chairman, began putting his unprecedented vision for the club into action. This ambition was made tangible by the announcement of the construction of a new stadium on a patch of redundant industrial land near the river.
Thin, grey pieces of steel began to rise from the ground, slowly taking the form of a brand new all-seater, 30,000 capacity stadium. It was the first to be built to the specifications laid out in the Taylor report following the horror of Hillsborough in 1989, and the largest new stadium to be built for several decades. Boro were pioneers in this respect: many other clubs would follow suit, with the likes of Derby and Sunderland building their own new stadiums. As I drove past the site on the A66 on my way to measure holes in the ground in South Bank or Redcar, I watched the new stadium take shape with growing interest.Β Β Β It was also hard to miss the way the club were moving in terms of team management and playing personnel, and in the summer of 1994 the Manchester United legend Bryan Robson was appointed player-manager of the team, and his former team mate Viv Anderson joined his as assistant. An all-too-brief stint in the shiny new, much-heralded Premier League during its inaugural 1992-93 season had obviously whetted the appetite, and Gibson wanted to move the club to the next level. Being a yo-yo club was old hat. The new stadium and the new manager were clear signals of intent. These moves captured mine and probably many othersβ imaginations.Β Β Β In the early years of the decade Football was becoming sexy and popular again after the hooliganism -scarred days of the β80s. England had failed to qualify for the World Cup in β94, but even the USA was getting in on the act with their razzmatazz soccer extravaganza. TV coverage was becoming more and more widespread, and the airwaves were dominated by Sky TVβs adverts featuring the Simple Mindsβ song Alive And Kicking. Britpop and Cool Britannia were just in their infancy, and England would be hosting itβs own international tournament in a couple of years, which was sure to make football even more popular. The future looked bright for everyone.Β
Β On a Tuesday night in August of 1994, I managed to convince my father to come and watch Boro play Manchester United in a testimonial match for Clayton Blackmore, the welsh full-back who came with Robson from United. We drove up to Middlesbrough and parked in the narrow terraced streets surrounding the compact ground. It was my first taste of Boro live, and my first time inside Ayresome Park.
We squeezed in through the narrow, antique turnstiles and made our way up to our seats. The smell of beer and pies filled the air. We sat high up in the main stand, and when we emerged onto the terracing to see the glowing green carpet of the pitch, with the noisy Holgate End to our left and the away fans in the East stand to our right, I was impressed. It was very different to the few United games I had been to. It felt more convivial and more authentic, and there was a definite spark of electricity in the air that nightβ¦expectancy was everywhere. The match was well attended, but ended up being little more than a pre-season work-out and an easy win for United, who were just at the start of the most successful period in their history under Alex Ferguson.
Of course, Boro were also at the start of something, and that night under the bright floodlights, I felt a slight but significant shift in my feelings. Β The following season saw these feelings shift more and more. Heightened interest turned into genuine keenness to see the games and watch their progress. Something special was happening, and it seemed the team were destined to play their first season in their new stadium at the top level of English domestic football, back in the Premier League. Boro played their last season at Ayresome Park to increasing crowds and heightening expectations, and promotion was sealed in the last game at the old ground on 30th April, 1995 with a 2-1 win over Luton Town. There was a real party atmosphere, and it was an emotional farewell to the stadium for the fans who had stuck by the team during the last decade; the closing of a chapter in the clubβs history, but also the opening of a new, exciting chapter for Middlesbrough Football Club. It was really just the beginning of the adventure.
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