Boro 3-1 Barnsley, Saturday 26th April 2014 (relegation special)

‘Barnsley didn’t look like they wanted to stay up.’

Plenty of flags and seats.  Especially seats.

If ever there was a damning indictment of this game and our entire season, this was it – delivered by a Boro fan on local radio after the match.  We were awful, with intermittent average bits in the second half.  Who’d have thought we were in last chance saloon, needing to win, or die trying?  It was desperately poor – as it has been all season.  (When was the last time any of us could name every SINGLE victory of a season?  Cos I can with this one.)

1^st half, when we had the ball (possession-wise it wasn’t far off even), we ambled forward, knocked it sideways sideways backwards while nobody got up the park to support the forward line.  Of course, we were REALLY going for it, cos Wilson actually put 2 ‘forwards’ on the pitch if you include Pedersen. (And if you’ve been wondering what the Norweigan Pest has been doing these last few months, it appears to be…eating pies.  Vitesse Arnhem will be chuffed to bits when they see him next.)  We were getting nowhere, nowhere fast.

When they had the ball, they sliced through us time and again.  Some bloke called Butterfield appeared to be calling the shots.  It was bizarre watching an ex-player, someone who you know can shoot, be given the freedom of the park to trot forward and have a go.  A bit like teams used to let Redfearn do, to my amazement.  Thankfully, Steele was there to save the day.  And then there were the throughballs.  Boro obviously have something we DON’T have – scouts.  Cos they seemed to know that if you drop a ball BEHIND M’Voto, he’ll never be able to turn around and run after it.  Cue a series of one-on-ones Steele saved.  It coulda..shoulda…been 5 or 6 at the break.  We crawled in goalless.  Maybe it was gonna be our day!!??  (Don’t worry folks, I never for once thought we were going to win this game.  Avoiding embarrassment appeared as good as we could hope.)

The sides are introduced...

2^nd half, more of the same, till we got a corner.  Would ‘TK’ dink another pointless ball into the keeper’s arms, like the 2 in the first half?  (The lady who I sat next to thought I was a clairvoyant when I correctly predicted TK would do this with his first one.)  Well…TK did indeed dink a gentle outswinging corner in and while Boro ran around like chickens in the 6 yard box, M’Voto was allowed to gently sidefoot a bobbler into the far corner.  (Wadd: pls note, ANOTHER goal wot would have been avoided had they a man on the line).  The worst defended corner in history.  Anyway, who cares…’HE’S MAGIC YOU KNOW, YOU’LL NEVER GET PAST M’VOTO’.  (Strangely, no ‘he scores when he wants’ this week).

But damn right – you’ll never get past M’Voto.  You don’t have to.  Within a minute he’s handed Tomlin the ball on a plate for the latter to rifle home off the far post.  Oh the irony - the ex-Posh striker must have been p***ing himself after that goal.

Then Boro take pity on us.  They take off Butterfield, the best outfield player on the park.  From the away end, there’s a smattering of boos and applause. For what it’s worth, I applauded him off, and he turned round and applauded me for applauding him.  Class act.  Compare to Perkins, Dawson, O’Brien, Mellis, Cywka…anyone in our midfield, really.  ‘One greedy ba5tard’?  Yeah, he coulda signed a new contract with us, but we can blame Hill for that one…he shoulda tied him down long before THAT injury.  A caller to Radio Tees described the substitution thus: ‘We took Butterfield off and we went to pot.’

I know, it’s hard to believe, given the final score, but it gave us an ‘in’.  Boro lost their fluency and we started creating some half chances.  Lardar5e was taken off and German Nick came on, and JoB returned for Lawrence.  Soon after, Herman prodded a volley just wide (unlucky: it was a snapshot) while O’G shot over.  Mind, Nick ruined another attack by going one way, then the other then back again before running the ball out of play.  With at least two chances to cross the ball, or cut it back to Dawson, this was the finest impression of Paddy McCourt since…Paddy McCourt.  Then, a defender slipped and we were 2 on one….but the defender took one for the team, diving on the ball, handling it and getting a booking.  We never came close again, though Danny Rose came on and did at least actually run 10 yards and fling himself at a cross (too high) while everyone else stood and watched.

With injury time looming and us camped on the edge of their box, O’Brien lost it cheaply and they ran to the other end to score, albeit from the rebound after Steele saved ANOTHER one-on-one.  Still, we had 5 mins to bag two, but while the foul on Jennings on the edge of their box was ignored, they ran up the field again to notch, Steele outnumbered.

So there it is, goodbye Championship, hello Ale House League.  Down with a whimper.  (What a great chant!  ‘Down with a whimper, we’re going down with a whimper..’)  A fair few Reds left at 2-1 while the rest stayed to applaud the team off and give it ‘Barnsley till I die’.  If only the players would give it some – we have been down since the opening day (0-4 at home!?)  The recent away wins have only delayed the inevitable.  Unbelievably, we’d problies have stayed up this year on 46 pts – 10 less than last year when we scraped up.  And we couldn’t even get that.

ONE of their home ends...

*** Ste-ele (Ste-ele).  So far the MOTM it’s untrue.  After the other players were trooping off, he came over to applaud us.  This finally looks like the end for us and Steele – far and away the best player we have.  I’ll be sorry to see him go.

** No-one.  We have a match to win and nobody else turned up.  F***ing appalling.

* Dawson.  Prompted and drove from midfield and looked alright, actually (once Butterfield had gone off).

Despatches:
M’Voto is lost when teams don’t punt balls to his head.  Anything behind him and we are in serious, serious trouble.  (See also, the goals 3^rd division Cov scored to beat us in the FA Cup).  Why Crainie wasn’t the last man, I’m not sure.  I think he was marking Graham, which allowed Tomlin et al to run in behind.  Jennings was garbage.  Never had a kick till late on, when he kept trying to cut inside for a shot despite having better placed players to kick it to. O’Brien came on and confused our entire forward line with a gorgeous reverse pass.  It was like Sheron in his pomp – different wavelength to the rest of the team!  But our forwards could make Zico look like a numpty, having NO IDEA where to run to for a goalscoring opportunity.

Oh, and after the match I met a disconsolate Sir Bobby of Hassell in the car park (with his mate Lawrence – they must have got out quick!)  I wished him the best for his testimonial, but he really did look like he was fuming.  A sorry end to the Great Man’s BFC career.  I thanked him and wished him luck, presuming he wasn’t going to be with us next year.

Away: c 1000.  Not the 1700 who went all the way to Plymouth t’other year with BELIEF.  And not the 3000 (free tickets) Blackpool took to Wigan to cheer their team to victory and give them a chance of staying up.  Still, plenty of ironic chants of ‘Your ground’s too big for you’ and ‘We’ve got more fans than you’.  The rest of the ground really did look empty.

Over and out.
A

The road to division 3.

Middlesbrough 2-3 Barnsley, Saturday 9th February 2013

‘At what point would you NOT have accepted a draw?’

‘When the ref blew for full time.’

And so it was that we took the Boro.  Our 1^st win at the Riverside, against a side (somehow) still 4 points clear in a play-off spot, in a see-saw game we won against the odds.

1^st 25 mins was all Boro.  Kieron Dyer looked a worry, whilst their left winger skinned Delap a few times.  (Delap was somehow in the Football League Paper’s team of the day).  He later got to grips with the job, though not before he was the man on the back post who failed to stop their bloke knocking in the rebound for #2.

Boro manager Mowbray described us as lucky (or at least, them as unlucky).  In truth, all 5 goals were lucky/appalling defending.  Of course, he made no reference to their jammy goals.  The 1^st, as Foster was being outpaced, and was nudged so as to fall over, ended with Fozzie desperately sliding the ball towards Steele.  However, it went wide of Steele who dived low to his right to pull off a super save, only for Carayol to tap in the rebound.  Now, obviously I’m biased, but what p***ed me off most about this goal was that earlier, when Perkins went shoulder to shoulder with an opponent on the HALFWAY line, and the opponent went down, the ref gave a free kick. Identical ‘foul’ and it’s play on and a goal.  In a place where it didn’t even matter.  Cheers.

Their 2^nd, a cross comes in, it deflects off a forward (again, Foster gets the blame on some reports) and Steele again pulls off a decent save.  Sadly, it’s nodded home by the bloke not being marked by Delap.  2-1 and we are heading for 3 or 4 at least.

Flitcroft then pulls off his genius.  Firstly, he listens to the Marshall and drags off a lacklustre Harewood, but then surprises by removing O’Brien, scorer of the 1^st (a half volley deflected over the keeper) and our star midfielder.  Injured?  Tactical?  Dunno, but he sticks on O’Grady (who looks slow, lumbering and strong, on this performance) and Scotland (who looks amazing).

We equalise out of the blue, a long throw by Delap (hurrah!) causing panic and the ball somehow squirming through to Golbourne, free on the back post.  He looks like he’s positively bricking it as he realises he might have to kick a ball with his right foot and he nearly lifts it over an empty net. GET IN THERE YOU B******S!  I love scoring against this bunch.  They’re like a lower league Wednesday.  Oh, hang on – Wednesday aren’t in the top division either, are they?  Anyway, what I mean is, they think they’re some sort of big team, yet their crowd is as fickle as they come.  The rest of the north-east simply mocks them.  I digress.

We’re not finished yet tho.  O’Grady chases a back pass down.  Well, trundles after it.  He only perks up when the keeper fails to control it, but, with the turning circle of the Ark Royal (joke c. 1982) he takes an age to turn around, by which time the keeper has dived on it.  BACKPASS!!!! Yes, it’s a free kick and after we dummy the taking of it twice, Golbourne lays the ball off for Scotland to rifle it home off a defender.  The Reds' hordes go wild!!!!  (I feel like I’m writing that every match these days.  Long may it continue.)

After 4 goals in half an hour, you’d think there’d be at least one more, but the scoring ends there and, to be honest, if anyone looked more likely to score, it was us.  They were getting desperate, leaving holes everywhere, while we counter attacked.  Certainly Golbourne wasted a chance to seal it, trying to lay the ball off to someone else cos, yes, he couldn’t kick it with his right foot when free on the edge of the box.

*** Dagnall.  Our ‘Luis Suarez’ (David Flitcroft) once again ran the game, taking it to Boro with several mazy runs.  O’Brien benefited in the 1^st half and Scotland and O’Grady found themselves in promising positions in the 2^nd, due to his non-stop antics.

** Scotland.  Changed the game when he came on.  Big and strong, yet not particularly tall, he reminds me of a more muscular, better goalscoring  version of Shipperley.  But I’ll tell you what perplexes me (and Professors Stephen Hawking and Brian Cox)…how the hell has ex-Barnsley legend Mick McCarthy given away Scotland on a free while signing Francke Nouble (the very same) for £350k.  The world has gone mad.  Thanks Mick, we owe you.

* O’Brien.  I still maintain he was our best player outside of Dagnall.

Despatches:
Aside from a turn and thump in the 1^st half, Harewood was awful.  I don’t know how he lasted as long as he did.  Hassell came on at 2-3 and the crowd gave him a fantastic ovation.  We’re winning away without him and he’s still head and shoulders our most popular player.  Though Scotland had a few chants.  It was great to see Wiseman and Mellis stuck on the bench too.

Drink du jour:  A four pack of Leffe from the Co-op to go with my fish, chips and mushy peas from ‘The Frying Pan’.  Well, you’ve gotta celebrate, haven’t you!!??

YOOOOOUUUUU REDDDDDSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ps, this week’s quote comes from my dad.  He reckons he’d have settled for a draw all the way up to the ref blowing the final whistle – which he did, after 5 mins of ‘injury’ time (no injuries, but plenty of goals and substitutions, so fair enough).