The New Year was ushered in with an impromptu gathering of friends and family at our house. As new parents, my wife and I had expected a quiet night in front of the TV, waiting for Big Ben’s chimes. As it was, we had a good time, and ended up having to scoop a few people off the floor at the dénouement.

 Blackburn Rovers away on New Year’s Day saw a 1-0 defeat for the Boro, and the next day I was making the long trip back to the Orient. I was soon easing myself back into the Taipei routine of working and socializing.

 The first weekend of the New Year saw the 3^rd round of the FA Cup and Boro were dumped out by Chelsea, 1-0 at Stamford Bridge. With an early exit in the League Cup at the hands of Ipswich, there were no cup runs to add the odd slice of spicy meat to the bread and butter of the league, and the team stumbled onwards in its customary inconsistent way, drawing 2-2 at home with Southampton then winning 1-0 at Fulham before receiving yet another dismantling at home at the hands of Aston Bloody Villa. This time the score was 5-2. They seemed to enjoy coming to the Riverside.

 Into February then, and with the bad weather and FA Cup weekends, Boro played only two league games that month. There was a creditable 1-1 draw at Anfield, thanks to another goal by Geremi, followed by an impressive 3-1 win at Sunderland, with goals by new recruits Chris Riggott and Malcolm Christie. The scheduled home game against Newcastle was postponed the day before kick-off because of supposed safety concerns following some heavy snowfall. Some cynical Geordies questioned the real reason for the postponement, pointing out that Boro had a long list of injuries and were just looking to avoid the inevitable drubbing. Silly Billies.

 February was thus a quiet month for football, but proved to be anything but quiet in terms of my own personal life. By the middle of the month I had all but decided that I would have to return to the UK for good. I had formulated a plan which meant that I would spend another six months in Taiwan and then go home, and even had discussions with my boss to this effect. My wife, in the meantime, was busy arranging a trip to Taiwan in March or April. She would be coming for just a week, on her own. Our 2-year-old son would stay with the grandparents, to save the multiple inherent stresses of two long plane journeys within a week.

 Any doubt left in my mind about going home was vanquished completely in late February. I was sat in an Irish bar enjoying a few stout drinks after work with my friends when my mobile phone rang. It was my wife, and as soon as I answered I could hear in her voice that it was bad news. A deep personal loss had been suffered; let’s just leave it at that.

 I could trot out the trite references to perspective, but they don’t need saying here. Suffice to say that the silly game of football and all its trials and tribulations do really pale into meaningless irrelevance at times like this. The highs and lows of real life can often defy rational description, and it must have been ten or a hundred times worse for my wife. The biggest feeling I had that night was one of wretched guilt. I was 8,000 miles away and could do nothing at all. I blamed myself completely and utterly.  

 My friends tried to help me the only way they knew how by plying me with more alcohol. They insisted that I needed company. I tolerated their sympathy and cajoling for a couple of hours, but on hearing Coldplay’s song “The Scientist” being played in a bar – “…coming to meet you, to tell you I’m sorry….” - I just couldn’t take any more and went to find a taxi to take me back to my echoing, empty apartment. The next day I handed my notice in and told the management that I wanted to go home as soon as possible. I could and probably should have gone home right there and then, but agreed to stay in Taipei until they could get a replacement for me. I knew that my wife was by then surrounded by close family, and she was due to come out to visit me within a matter of weeks. Looking back with a wiser, older head, I think I should have gone back anyway, even just for a few days. My wife’s visit a few weeks later was an emotional affair, naturally.

 My company took a frankly obscene amount of time in finding a replacement for me, and in fact it was someone I had recommended to them who eventually came in to Taiwan mid-May. I was obliged to stay another few weeks for the handover. Some kind of misplaced loyalty and a half-arsed promise of a job in the UK kept me from just telling my company to get fucked at that point. Handover of what, I’m still not entirely sure. My working time was spent doing nothing more than translating a few letters from Engrish into English and entertaining the Japanese client with my frequent rants at misbehaving office equipment. These are easy skills to pick up, the imparting of which didn’t really need 4 weeks.

 I think Boro finished 11^th that season. I didn’t really pay much attention beyond February. I went to see one or two televised games in bars, including a 2-0 home defeat to Arsenal, surrounded by Chinese people in Arsenal shirts and accompanied by an annoying Millwall-supporting colleague who was lucky to keep his teeth, and I do remember logging on to the internet at work one morning and finding out the result of the controversially rescheduled fixture against Newcastle, which was won 1-0 thanks to a Geremi header. The sweetest part of it was how it only served to increase Geordie annoyance about the game’s postponement.

I eventually got home to my wife and son in mid-June. In the last month or two of my tenure there had been the Asia-wide SARS outbreak, which threatened to trap me there for months on end, and which meant we all had to have our temperatures taken as we entered the office. All the locals went around wearing surgeon’s masks, and I spotted one man on the street pulling his mask down to take a good long drag on his cigarette. In my last week there were even two minor earthquakes just to add to my already febrile state of mind – one when I was at work in the 12^th floor office and one when I was in bed in my apartment. I remember being woken by the jolt at the start of the quake then walking into the living room and watching the light fittings swinging side to side. I was mightily relieved to get on the plane and head back west, despite my colleagues’ best attempts to get me too drunk to walk the night before the flight.

 Almost 24 hours after setting off I arrived into York railway station. My wife and son were waiting for me there on the platform, and my little boy’s first word on seeing me was a joy-tinged, “Daddy!” accompanied by a big grin and outstretched, chubby little arms. At least he still remembered who I was. As we made our way to the car park, I felt happier than I had for a long time. The last 6 months had been difficult, but there were definitely brighter times ahead.

 Life? Nobody said it was easy.