May 2010 Archives

WHAT does the Boro mean to you? And what are the club's core values?

Those were the key questions posed by club officials to an opinion forming cross-section of fans invited to what must've been a depressing post-season think tank.

TIME to get shirty. Boro are deep in talks with prospective sponsors ready for the big unveiling of Teesside's prime site for national televised product placement.

The slick suits will be examining the weighty matters of brand identity, unique selling points, over-lapping market demographics, shared core values, contra-synergistic recognition strategies and all manner of mystical things that excite PR men armed with flip charts and Blackberries. That and dosh of course.

Up to now Boro are struggling to find the right shirt sponsor. Call off the search Mr Bausor... I've found you the perfect partner to forge a new deal with.

BORO have stunned the worlds of football and politics with a shock transfer swoop for a new right winger - former Conservative Home Secretary Leon Brittan.

The one time MP for Cleveland and Whitby is seen as the elder statesman needed to bring cabinet level and European experience, fiscal stability and a tight grip of the money supply and a squeeze on public spending plus a disciplined borstal-based short, sharp shock to Boro's midfield. Er, I think. Baron Brittan of Spellthorne will presumably team up in a new look engine room alongside Norman Lamont, Ken Clarke and Douglas Hurd.

Oh, right, that Leon Britton....

DICKY bows ahoy. It's the awards season so prepare for drunken bitching and bitter blasts at the silverware statements of the bleeding obvious. How can Wayne Rooney be young player of the year when he looks 43? How Chris Hughton be Championship manager of the year? He guided the pre-season favourites and a top flight team with twice the wage budget of the rest of the league added together to the title while Nigel Pearson took promoted Leicester to the play-offs on a shoestring? Boo. Swizz.

Anyway, here's the results of the Untypical Boro Awards, the so-called "Bloggies," ceremony held in the swanky Billy Woof Suite in the Bosco Jankovic Stand with the gongs handed out by this season's matchday sensation Mosso Cloudfiles.

REMEMBER this? Boro 0 Sevilla 4 on a glorious ill-fated day in Eindhoven. Four years ago today. It may as well have been a lifetime ago. Sometimes it is like it didn't happen at all... during media previews of Mark Schwarzer's Fulham's coming clash with a Spanish side for instance. A look back at other British overachievers remembers Norwich and Dundee but not whatjacallem.

Here's my impressions in the immediate aftermath (look how little traffic the blog got back then, look at those who commented on it) and here's some pictures as proof that actually, yes, we all were there. Sigh.

JUST A QUICKIE before I go and scrawl "none of the above" on my ballot paper (my cheeky request last time to continue my essay on the fundamental democratic deficit inherent in our antiquated system on a separate sheet was declined)....

Here's the "word cloud" generated by your collective lists of accusing adjectives and damning descriptions summing up the season. Very pretty...

THE NEXT crucial phase of the Strachanovite Revolution got into full swing with a ruthless purge of the old guard: Boro have axed Colin Cooper, Stephen Pears and Martin Scott as the gaffer tightens his steely grip on the mentality of the club.

At the start of what is poised to be a ruthless summer of upheaval and radical change the Southgate loyalist old guard have been swept away and the "continuity" watchword consigned to the dustbin of history. Things are about to step up a gear.

WELL thank God that is all over.