Feeling at home in the black stuff!
After months of agony watching the Boro slip out of the Premier League following an 11-year stint in the top-flight I am now actually starting to feel slightly more at home.
I know it is stupidly early to start making bold predictions about where we will finish this season – before a ball was kicked I had us down for a Coca-Cola Championship mid-table spot come next May – but successive away wins at Swansea and Scunthorpe which have left us joint-top of the table with no goals conceded from three games have been a welcome relief.
I know it is stupidly early to start making bold predictions about where we will finish this season – before a ball was kicked I had us down for a mid-table spot come next May – but successive away wins at Swansea and Scunthorpe which have left us joint-top of the table with no goals conceded from three games have been a welcome relief.
It’s all a far cry away from scrabbling around for points in the lower echelons of the Premier League with defeat after defeat after defeat grinding down the fans’ and players’ morale.
At Scunthorpe on Tuesday there was a real sense of unity between players and fans not seen for a long time, with over 2,000 travelling down to Glanford Park and turning it into a ‘home’ atmosphere with the Boro coming out on top 2-0 to cap off a great night.
Finances apart it made me feel that the Championship is the place to be for us!
We have only been in it five minutes and we have recorded back-to-back away wins, scoring five, without conceding a goal – when did we last do that in the top flight?
The players on the pitch ALL want to play for us and are committed to trying to upset the Championship odds and help Boro get back up at the first attempt. The sulkers and mercenaries are either long gone or virtually on their way out.
It seems the only thing that can stop the Boro juggernaut is key players being sold on before the transfer window closes with inadequate replacements coming in and a spate of injuries to influential players left behind.
However at the end of it all if Boro do actually get back to the ‘promised land’ of Premiership football at the first attempt, what will be waiting for us?
Regular beatings, big-name players trying to make a fast buck out of us, disharmony in the squad and stands, sulking players and basically nine months of misery!
But you know as well as I do we will all be chewing our nails to the bone in the hope that Boro do actually make it back there this season.
Strange breed us football fans!
Written by Craig Smithson, a Middlesbrough season-ticket holder and a sports writer who blogs about football betting.
