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Untypical Boro is a lively topical blog by the Evening Gazette's award winning football columnist Anthony Vickers that aims to get behind the headlines to flesh out the stories that Boro fans are talking about.

Incisive, provocative and well informed it seeks to engage with articulate supporters and give them a platform to help set the agenda on the issues that matter.

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The blog that is "a disgrace to the profession"

Boro Batter Sven's Men

Posted by on May 11, 2008 11:04 PM

AS FAR as 'papering over the cracks' goes, you can't do better than that. An 8-1 hammering at home will certainly send the supporters home smiling, even it is only in bemused disbelief at the on-going perversity of a side that has averaged less than a goal a game at home signing off with an avalanche of net-busting action to send the anoraks rifling through the record books.

Yes, it was against ten men. Yes, it was against a crisis club with a manager and board at loggerheads and the fans in open revolt. And yes, it was the last day when there was nothing to play for and with no pressure on. Who cares! It was a glorious goal glut the memory of which will be handed down in Teesside folklore for generations, with each and every strike getting better with every telling. It offered sublime skills, magical movement, a string of sizzling goals - and it offered hope that next year can be far more rewarding than this.

Continue reading "Boro Batter Sven's Men" »

Fond Farewell To A Stuttering Season?

Posted by on May 9, 2008 10:15 PM

SO, TO THE last home game of the season at the relieved Riverside and the now traditional lap of cynical indifference. The fans get to express their begrudged appreciation for their heroes or berate the boss (as when beleaguered Robbo was roundly booed) while the players get to salute the supporters they have variously entertained, let down or slated over the season. As a demonstration of the contradictions inherent in the relationship between the players and the fans it is hard to top.

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Keegan Blast At Big Club Stitch Up

Posted by on May 6, 2008 10:00 AM

"CHEER UP Kevin Keegan
What can it mean
To a sad Geordie realist
And a trapped football team".

Eternal optimist Kevin Keegan has spoken a great truth: that the Big Four have the Premier League stitched up like a kipper and that even with sustained spending "the eighth biggest club in the world" are still light years away from catching them. How does he think we feel?

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Phew! Safety At Last.

Posted by on May 3, 2008 6:22 PM

PHEW. Job done. Pompey seen off in a fixture that could so easily have been staged at Wembley if the season hadn't taken a frustrating and disappointing detour. Still, two good goals - ironically from set pieces and against a poorly executed man marking system - after a jittery start and the full three points that make the table a less painful read. Sighs of relief all round.

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Boro's Dead Ball Danger Zone

Posted by on April 30, 2008 1:23 PM

EFFECTIVE marking at dead-balls isn't as simple as telling Pogatetz to pick up the big lad and stick with him no matter what when the ball comes in and Tayls, stick on the near post. What if the big fella doesn't make the run and your best and most physical header is left redundent? What if the run to the far post is a decoy and someone else steams through the gap?

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Mackem Weep: Boro Left In Derby Daze

Posted by on April 26, 2008 10:39 PM

SUNDERLAND are a glorified Championship side. They have added a big fat lad who has the turning circle of a monster truck but who can cross a mean ball with his left, and a battering ram up front, a Primark Drogba, who is a real physical handful.

At their core they remain a limited team of spirited battlers - but they have taken four points off Boro and are higher in the Premier League table. That as much as anything is a searing indictment of Gareth Southgate's soft centred side.

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Not A Lawro Laughs For Boro

Posted by on April 24, 2008 10:18 PM

THERE was a massive audible sigh of relief from Saltburn to Sedgefield as Boro were handed a fantastic massive boost going into the derby trip back to the seventies at the Stadium of Light after ace pundit and would-be Mystic Meg Mark Lawrenson tipped Sunderland to win.

Thank God for that! You don't need to be infected by the bubbling under-current of traditional Teesside paranoia and conspiracism that surrounds all matters media to have noticed a certain jaundiced theme to the weekly pre-match predictions made by the Beeb's stand-up summariser. Almost every week he forecasts defeat for our heroes. And when he doesn't it is the kiss of death. After persistently predicting real hammerings against the likes of Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United he switched tack last week to back Boro against Bolton.... d'oh!

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Boro's Groundhog Day Disaster

Posted by on April 19, 2008 7:30 PM

GROUNDHOG Day. Bubbling Boro play some sparkling football in a one sided spell of total domination, carve out half-a-dozen clear cut chances, fail to take a single one and then slowly, inevitably, fatally hand over the the initiative then the game in a frustrating cycle of self-inflicted defeats. How many times have we seen that one played out now?

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