Boro Mania

A little over two weeks ago, the transfer window slammed shut, leaving many Boro fans disillusioned. We had not brought in any big names. We had not brought in the fabled target man we so desired. We had not brought in.... anyone. Hopes of keeping Tuncay and Robert Huth, and seeing them outclass the Championship until January, vanished in an instant. That it was the unfashionable Stoke City that pilfered our crown jewels was insult added to injury. Losing back to back games, in league and cup, didn’t lighten the mood.

But now, we have won two on the bounce. Adam Johnson is on fire. Jeremie Aliadiere – thanks to some clever man-management from Gareth Southgate – is a striker reinvigorated. We have signed Sean St Ledger. We are, apparently, nailed on to sign Caleb Folan. And, OK, these are not big-name signings, but isn’t that the point?

Look at those who have gone out the door this season: Huth, Tuncay, Afonso Alves, Mido and Stewart Downing. Every one of them is an international star, on big money and with limited regard for club loyalty.

Look at the players who have come in: Leroy Lita, Mark Yeates and Sean St Ledger are all still quite young. They all have a point to prove and they are all hungry. Danny Coyne is veteran of the lower leagues, again with a point to prove and the hunger to do it at Boro who, to him, are a proper ‘big club.’ If we get Caleb Folan, we’re getting a guy who has done OK and shown promise at various lower league clubs, had a good spell in the Championship with Hull, and has gone off the boil. He’s 27 next month, so if he’s going to prove himself he’s going to prove himself now.

Gareth Southgate has taken his share of stick, so let’s praise him when he deserves it. One thing he has always done is speak honestly and openly about his footballing philosophies. He believes in signing ‘the right type of players.’ He has laid out the criteria for this: ideally players in the right age-band, players who will be proud to wear the Boro shirt, and who will work for it, players with a team mentality. All of those criteria are met by each of the outfield signings Southgate has made in this window. They are all in their mid-twenties. They are all looking to make their name. Most importantly, they are all looking to do it at Middlesbrough Football Club. Only Lita has any trace of big-time arrogance about him, and even he proved his desire to play by going on unglamorous loan-spells at Charlton and Norwich last season.

The departure of Alves could be symbolic for this club: the last of the Prima Donnas. If we rewind back, past 1994, past Bryan Robson, can you remember a Boro player who would refuse to turn up for training? Can you remember a player sulking, demanding a transfer? Perhaps I was just too young and naive to know any different, but I remember something entirely different. I remember the likes of Tony Mowbray, Gary Pallister and Stuart Ripley moving on to genuinely bigger clubs, for decent transfer fees, with the blessing of the fans and with their reputations untarnished on Teesside.

We were a community club then, fresh from financial disaster, proud of the youngsters that brought us back from the brink, and humble enough to know the value of what we had. We were realistic enough to not turn our noses up at a million quid for our talismanic leader, and we were happy for Mogga that Celtic wanted him. To see Pallister play with such distinction for Manchester United and England was like seeing one of us doing it. The time may come when we experience the same emotions with David Wheater. Wheater as a player has more resonance with the Boro fans than a more cultured-type like Stewart Downing. Every Boro fan would feel like, if Wheater were playing for England, a part of them was playing for England. He’s that sort of player.

No doubt we will see Downing play for England many times, and I hope he does well, but Downing is the local lad turned modern big-time player. He’s the Pallister Park kid who lost his way, fell in with the wrong crowd (football agents) and looked off to the bright lights. He made the wrong noises at the wrong times, manufacturing a future for himself when he should have been focussing 100% on his hometown club. You can’t blame the lad – that was the culture he was brought up in. He grew up - in a football sense - around the likes of Yakubu, Mark Viduka and Jonathan Woodgate. How could some of their superstar mentalities not have rubbed off on him?

But the Vidukas of this world are behind us now. And so are the Juninhos, the Emersons and the Fabrizio Ravanellis. And for all the great images that are attached to those stand-out names in our history, that’s OK. It’s OK because the joy of the Juninho era was spoiled by the relegation of 1997. It’s OK because the UEFA Cup runs – and the great games they brought – were spoilt by the 4-0 defeat in the final. More than anything it’s OK because all of the glitz and the glamour never brought us anything, other than the Mickey Mouse Cup and the memories, and it nearly cost us everything.

We tried to restructure and arrest the financial decline that the Robson-McClaren ‘glory years’ brought us while maintaining our Premier League status, and we failed. But that’s OK too, because now the restructure seems to be nearing completion. The young, vibrant squad that Southgate has promised all along is finally emerging, and it looks good. It feels good. It could get us back up at the first attempt. And, with a few careful additions, it could compete in the Premier League. What’s more, it – we – could compete in the Premier League on our terms, with a team cast in our image.

We are not big-name. We are not glamour. We are not Prima Donnas. We are Teesside. We are proud of it. We are not trying to be something we aren’t and, in spite of our economic difficulties we will take on all comers.

Forget the doom and gloom - we have got our club back. And, fuelled by the country’s best academy, a realistically modest but fiercely loyal following and sound financial backing, Middlesbrough Football Club just might have a bright future after all.

Up the Boro.