One of the surest signs of the team’s demise in recent years is how certain sides that we used to have good records against now beat us as a matter of course. Sides like Leeds, Sheffield United, Hull and Blackburn now beat us as a matter of course and don’t have to play that well to so so.
I wouldn’t quite include Middlesbrough in among that group yet, because while they’ve become one of the best teams in the Championship under Michael Carrick and are capable of putting any team in the division to the sword if it’s their day, there’s also a strange brittleness to them which produces outcomes like Middlesbrough 0 Bristol City 2, Middlesbrough 0 Coventry 3 and Plymouth 3 Middlesbrough 3 (they also drew their next game, at home to Sheffield Wednesday, 3-3 after being 3-0 up, but did have the excuse of having a player sent off in that one).
Going just on the respective home records, a trip to Watford represented a stiffer challenge than the one to Boro does, but I will be very surprised if Carrick’s team is below Tom Cleverly’s come the end of the season. Although I wouldn’t completely rule out the prospect of us coming home with our seventh draw in thirteen away matches, the far more likely outcome to me is that we’ll stay last but one after a defeat. My fear is that Boro have the capability to make it pretty grisly for us if they have their shooting boots on – I dread to think what the score will be if we go up there and play like we did at Oxford.
Here’s seven questions about Middlesbrough with most of them dating back to tomes when we were able to beat them a lot more often than we do now. I’ll post the answers on here on Sunday morning.
60s. What is the Cardiff City related connection between the following Middlesbrough players from this decade, Ian Gibson, Jim Irvine and Gordon Jones?
70s. Born in South Shields. he switched between left back and midfield during a Football League career which lasted a dozen years. He was in midfield for a Boro win. over City during this decade, but was never a regular starter for them and moved to his second, and final, professional club after four years at Ayresome Park. Not surprisingly, his transfer saw him head south and he ended up wearing stripes for a team that alternated between the old Third and Fourth Divisions during his time with them. For example, he was part of a promotion team in his first season with them, only for them to be relegated a year later, while he was voted as Player of the Year two years later following another promotion. After making more than two hundred league appearances for his second club, he left them to return to the north east, turning out for non league Seasiders at the Turnbull Ground. Who am I describing?
80s. Look! Boro midfielder turns Kosher!
90s. Morale on a dive during relegaton suffered by this winger? (4,5)
00s. Blemish along with chime never heard at this time of year?
10s. Which Middlesbrough player from this decade, currently playing in London, was compared to both Messi and Ronaldo by his manager at another club and has a brother, also a footballer, who is a practising Muslim who fasts during Ramadan?
20s. Which current Middlesbrough player watched their last game, at Hull, from behind the goal with the club’s supporters?
Answers
60s.Gibson, Irvine and Jones were the only Middlesbrough players to be selected in all three games from the mid sixties in which City scored fifteen times in consecutive matches between the clubs. We won 6-1 at Ninian Park on 15/1/65, 4-3 at Ayresome Park on 20/11/65 and 5-3 at home in the “Greg Farrell match” on 3/5/66.
70s. Michael Allen was in the Middlesbrough team which beat City 1-0 at Ayresome Park in September 1971. Two years later, he signed for Brentford for £10,000 and was a regular starter during his six years with them, before dropping into non league football to play for Whitby Town.
80s. Mark Bar ham.
90s.Alan Moore.
00s. Mark Summerbell.
10s. Adama Traore’s manager at Aston Villa, Tim Sherwood once said he “had a bit of both” when comparing him to Messi and Ronaldo. Traore’s brother, Moha, is a forward who has had a journeyman career in Spain is a practising Muslin.
20s. Jonny Howson.
