da dobrowin： For Middlesbrough, it was a season that started with hope and expectation under Gordon Strachan. A cash injection from ever faithful chairman Steve Gibson led to summer signings and a feeling of great optimism on Teesside. With a close season investment to rival some top flight clubs, even the bookies had Boro down as favourites for promotion back to the Premier League. But the dream turned sour almost immediately with defeat to Ipswich on the first day of the season. Strachan’s disjointed team struggled to find any kind of form and hopes of promotion faded fast as Middlesbrough stared at the wrong end of the table and faced the unthinkable, relegation to League One.
da bet7k： So where did it all go wrong? This had been a serious fall from grace for a team that had been a fixture in the Premier League for 11 years and a club that had tasted glory, winning the Carling Cup in 2004 and then in 2005/6 going on an unforgettable UEFA Cup run all the way to the final.
The fingers naturally pointed at manager Gordon Strachan. Steve Gibson had backed him with investment and his usual dose of faith in a manager and Strachan had gambled big on getting Boro back to the Premier League in his first full season. With Boro on their crucial final parachute payment, it made sense to make an assault on the Championship before finances naturally dwindled. Both manager and chairman no doubt saw this season as key to getting back to the Premier League before the Championship, often described as one of the toughest divisions to get out of, took permanent hold.
Strachan had inherited from Gareth Southgate a team stripped of its better players to balance the wage bill and one that while still good on paper, lacked the grit and backbone required to stand up to the rigours of the Championship.
Strachan looked to Scotland and the SPL for his new steel and this is undoubtedly where he came unstuck. Putting all his eggs in one big tartan basket was another big gamble, one that had to pay off and one that didn’t. The Scottish experiment went too far, too fast, signing eight SPL players on what were big wages for the Championship. He also swept aside a successful youth system that had flourished recently, producing the likes of Downing, Johnson and Cattermole, in favour of the experience of the Tartan Army.
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It’s wrong to say all these players failed – Scott MacDonald, signed from Celtic, has flourished as Boro’s top scorer, Barry Robson has added an ounce or two of the much vaunted Scottish steel and there have been injuries to key signings, Kevin Thompson and Willo Flood being the most notable. Throw into the mix the usual dose of bad luck and you begin to compile some semblance of a defence for the ‘Strachanovite‘ Revolution. However the league table come October told us all we needed to know and with Boro fifth bottom, Gordon Strachan stepped down.
And so it was that Middlesbrough welcomed back one of its favourite sons, Tony Mowbray, to rescue us once again from the jaws of disaster. He was the captain who led us back from the brink of extinction in 1986, and he was back once again to save us from the drop. As a local fella, he immediately engaged with the Boro fans, our shared history and struggles of the past instantly bonding us together and wiping away the rift that Strachan had created. At the time, with relegation a realistic possibility, that goodwill was absolutely priceless.
From the start, Mowbray’s approach has been different – in many ways it had to be. He’s turned back to the youth of the club and the home grown steel of Middlesbrough. Again, this strikes a chord with fans and harks back to Mowbray’s past, as in 86, when the chips were down, it was a local ‘band of brothers’ who pulled together and turned disaster into triumph.
It remains to be seen whether the names of Bennett, Bates or Williams will be up there with Pallister, Parkinson and Mowbray but the green shoots of recovery are certainly evident. From a perilous position, Mowbray has led Middlesbrough to safety in the Championship and an upturn in form from a more coherent team is encouraging.
It’s been a traumatic season for the Boro, a season which has forced us to revisit the past in order to look to the future, a season of lessons learned. But with an old friend at the helm, there is optimism once again on Teesside and a feeling that the Boro rollercoaster may be charging itself for another ride. I, for one, will be standing in line to buy a ticket…
Alistair Griffin’s new album Albion Sky is to be released in August 2011. Visit http://www.alistairgriffin.com/ for further information.
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Listen to the third episode of our brand new podcast – The Football FanCast. – Featuring Razor Ruddock, Gary O’Reilly and singer/songwriter Alistair Griffin, who performs a live version of his cult tribute to Mark Viduka, with Razor on backing vocals!