Liquidation: 25 Years On
IT IS 25 years since bankrupt Boro called in the liquidators.
An unbalanced and demoralised team had slipped meekly into the third division in front of collapsing crowds and the board had been unable to tackle the debts that had steadily spiralled out of control towards the then crippling £2m mark. The post-Wolves watershed firesale and Charlie Amer's sports hall folly had come home to roost.
With few assets - few of the team were saleable - and a summer without gate income looming (an no TV cash in the pipeline) things looked bleak. Boro were dead men walking. There was a stench of death about Ayresome Park.
On May 21st 1986 the club called in the liquidators and were put into a corporate controlled coma as a small group of determined individuals set about saving the day. It was to be a traumatic summer that would shape our psyches and underpin our thinking for decades as a re-engineered club set about a great escape and spectacular revival.
We talked about the impact of liquidation and the galvanising, bonding power of the subsequent fairytale climb back to the top table last week when looking at the emotional impact of the Gary Parkinson dinner. No doubt we will discuss that dramatic summer of 1986 in depth over the next few months as the 25th anniversary of that crucial game at Hartlepool looms in August.
We all know that 1986 still has traction. We measure our progress from that point rather than the Tripe Supper. How much though?
Some questions: How did you feel? Did you think we had gone for good? What if the kids had not been good enough? What if Rioch had walked away? What if the cash could not have been raised? What is Henry hadn't answered the advert in the Times? Where would we be now? Other clubs have had brushes with the abyss - Wolves, Bristol, Aldershot - but none have come out fighting with such spirit and such success. What made Boro different? How close did we actually come to being erased from history? What would you have done? Support a revived Northern League club or walk away for good? How important has the club's renewed vigour been to Teesside and to you personally? What were the most important ingredients - board, players, the gaffer or the fans? Will we ever expereince such emotional unity ever again?
A few things to ponder over the next few days while I am recharging the batteries.
*****
Watch out for my big in-depth interviews with Mogga this coming week. He tackles his philosophy, his quest to liberate players from the shackles of coaching, his evolution as a coach, how he has always been emotionally wired into Boro - but how he never dared to dream he would ever manage them. I think it is going Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday.
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I guess I would have kept supporting Leeds. I have never regretted my 86 switch, not even when Leeds held the championship aloft or played in the champions league. I used to watch Leeds when I lived in Leeds but they never had the connection with the fans and town that the Boro of 86 did.
UTB.
I had a mate who said he'd have transferred his allegiance to Leeds if Boro had sunk without trace.. Me, I'd have taken up with Queens Park Rangers or Norwich.
I never believed Boro would go under. In the early 80s there were always clubs on the verge of folding that had spent too much on a new stand (Wolves, Chelsea) or on players (Bristol C) but some local sauasage baron or scrappie always come forward right at the death to pay off some of the debt.
It was important hitting rock bottom like that though. It kick started a whole generation into supporting their local club out of fear of what might have happened.
The really important thing was the next two or three years were BRILLIANT. A great team playing fantastic football and having a real bond with the supporters. Excellent. That moment of unity that we all remember. You don't get many of those in a lifetime.
It doesn't bear thinking about Middlesbrough as one of those faceless Northern industrial town without a professional team. We would have no profile, no identity. It is bad enough now that people don't know where Boro is after a decade at the top, imagine if the team had gone in 1986? We would have been wiped out of national consciousness. We may as well not exist. It'd be like living in Goole.
Teesside would have been one of those horrible football dormitory towns with kids growing up following the big four and with coaches going to Old Trafford and Anfield every week.
Worst, impressionable kids would have been sucked into the whole Newcastle Keegan thing and we may be regarded as 'a Newcastle town' like Darlington is. That would be my worst nightmare.
Personally I'dve supported the new AFC Boro in the pyramid. I'dve got involved I think, fundraising and selling golden goals and helping on the turnstile at Clairville or the groundshare at Normanby Road or Synners or wherever. We'd have been back in the league roundabout now.
The Boro of '86 was just before my time. Mexico '86 was my introduction to football and I didn't quite get into the Boro scene until 87'/88'.
It's fair to say though that the buzz around the club in the mid-to-late eighties, not just proximity, was what drove me to support them.
If the club had folded I'm sure I would have ended up supporting one of the big clubs like Man Utd or Liverpool.
So thanks for nothing Steve Gibson and the others of the "small group of determined individuals"!!
Does anyone know what AFC stands for in AFC Wimbledon?
I watched today's playoff game in a Turkish bar, with a large group of Wimbledon supporters. If ever a group of suporters deserved some success it is them. They are now once more a League team and they certainly celebrated in style. The penalty shoot out was high drama for them and I was really pleased for them all when their team prevailed. Here is a team well and truly raised from the ashes.
(AFC, A Fans Club. Really, I didn't know either)
Yes I remember the liquidation and the bitten finger nails and wondering if I would have to go and support another team (not Sunderland!)
Scanning the Gazette every night and listening to the radio - local radio didn't seem to care in those days.
Scorn at the players who left the Boro and are still remembered today -and gratitude that those who remained still stayed together.
Relief at the news we had survived and going to Hartlepool (yes I was one of the few and can prove it as I was interviewed at the game by Tyne Tees.)
Oh the Boro kids were marvellous and looking at the team today the new kids remind me of those days and have brought a unity again between club and fans.
Long may the boro continue -UTB
AV:Totally seperate subject, but why can I not get to read your blog - "wanted - pantomine villan". I have tried through various links and various computers, but without success. Has it been blocked, veto'd or such?
**AV writes: It is up on blocks in the workshop getting a respray, new tyres and a big stereo. Might get a run-out next week.
AFC always used to be Association Football Club.
I'd have jumped ship Beagrie style and strutted on down to the City Ground. I would never have been able to look my self in the mirror again.
Having said that I don't use the mirror much anyway.
Smog. you're not count -related are you ?
It was already well and truly in my veins by '86. I'd have had them 1st choice team eaven in the NPL or where-ever.
Echoing GHW, I'm absolutely delighted the real Wimbledon made it into the league. Next target for them surely, to over-take the mercenary MKD who are not worthy of the suffix "Dons". Congratulations to all their fans.
Av writes: I think it is going Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday
Just call it #mogganaut week.
Henry Mousekevic? Spelling probably way out but didn't he make his fortune in envelopes? Keith Lamb and new fangled facisimlie take note. What ever happenend to Henry? I presume he shuffled off this motal coil long before Emerson samba'd his way to Wembley way again.
It don't think it's right only the players and manegment from 86 onwards get all the glory. There will have been some faceless, probably even chinless souls who did the 'real' business and kept alive the club for Brucie and his Loonar explorers to go on their many missions. Do they get a name check and some credit? Keith Lamb anyone?
So - no Luton Town fans here then? A club stabbbed in the heart by points deductions like Boro was? A club that could have returned against the tide? Didn't their fans support their club as loyally as any?
No fellow feeling for their dedicated supporters then? Just asking....
Clive Road makes a good point. I'm not entirely sure where Goole is. I think I would have switched my allegiance to York City, or more likely become a rugby union fan.
I was there Vick ground Hartlepool with my mate Robbo and others, and do you know something despite what we have achieved since including a European final league cup win and many fa cup flits, never never in the history of Middlesbrough fc did you have or will you ever have again the feeling of togetherness more apparent than in Hartlepools friendly little ground that afternoon ,we had survived and I mean WE, a town a people a tradition a way of life AND A FOOTBALL CLUB ALL TOGETHER we had survived we were the Boro and you dont kill us that easy, my Grandad watched them my dad watched them I watched them My son watched them and now I know that my grandkids will watch magic moments the man I hold personally responsible for restoring us and making us feel like we were worthwhile again THE GOD THE LEGEND THE MAN THEY CALL BRUCIE RIOCH THE SAVIOUR
Interesting point to ponder as the weather gets warmer and the thunk of leather is heard against the willow.
In a bout of wishful thinking I believe football being in the DNA of most Teessiders, they or at least some, may have resurrected the stalwart ghost of Middlesbrough Ironopolis FC.
For those aficionados of M'Bro town history this team, although briefly in operation, won a number of titles on the trot back when Queen Vic was a lass (OK she was in her seventies but no doubt young at heart).
The point being that the vacuum wouldn't have lasted long given the passion of the locals for the game and willingness to part with coin at the turnstile.
I can only conclude that the current state of English football not to say European football is still as then in need of serious financial backing or you simply fail to compete and end up doing a York or a Darlington.
Therefore any revival of serious football would have had to include a Mr.Moneybags or two or three, otherwise it simply wouldn't happen. In fact with the Boro of 1986 that's exactly what did happen. What I'd like to know is 'How much did Henry put up and where is he now?'
Next over please!
AV
Will we get the Mogga article on the website version at some point?
Given the topic of this thread, the current economic climate and the Google sponsored ads alongside are peculiarly apt!
Boro was, is and will remain a special club. Whether it was the Parky dinner and events recently, the Boys of 67, the Jack Charlton era, '86 and all that, The Prem, Wembley, Cardiff, Eindhoven - or what's happening now illustrates that.
Those are the ones I can point to - but my Dad and Grandad have more and I fully expect my son will too.
When the time comes - whenever the time comes - Tee-Tee-Teessiders pull together. Have before - are now - will again. That's the nature of the area and the club.
I always remember some journo (what he wrote, not who he was) who referred to a a famous Boro back line - Craggs, Boam, Maddren and Spraggon as sounding and playing like they were hewn from the ironstone hills that formed the Tees valley.
That material can survive being rough hewn and polluted by those who should have known better - but haven't.
At heart - with head often over-ruled - the allegiance to the club is formed from the same stuff.
**AV writes: I imagine there will be an abridged version on-line but I'm out of the office so I'm not sure what is planned.
wasn't there some kind of plan to join the scottish league?
at least bernie would have felt at home.
I couldn't, and wouldn't support another football team if Boro ceased to exist. Would just become a follower of football in general... Without any emotional involvement, that would be a lot less stressful come to think of it... But also a less fun and interesting!
Why not try to get the Boro reserve team into the Scottish league, then we would have a home for all the Scots Strachan signed and leave the real football in the Champouinship to the local Accademy BOYS as Strachan christened them.
Unlike most others, I get a yearly reminder of the 21st of May 1986 and the day that the men in suits came to call, it was my birthday on that day, and funnily enough, it still is, somethingâs never change. I get a yearly reminder of how I felt waking up to the realisation that come my next birthday, it could well see me following another team, not supporting them, but only following them. There canât be any other team than the Boro, thereâs no affinity, no passion, no love and definitely no feeling of being part of it. Just like all the bloggers, the people of the terraces and bless emâ, the hangers on when the bunting goes up, I am the Boro, itâs stamped through me like a stick of Redcarâs best sticky, sweet rock.
Iâve been fortunate enough to have travelled to virtually the four corners of the globe through work, and no matter where Iâve been thereâs always been a Smoggie either in residence or in the plane (car/train) just behind me. And thereâs always been a bond, a kinship and a common love for the Boro from whomever Iâve made acquaintance with. Even here in Perth, I see daily, any number of Boro stickers in car windows or number plates reflecting their loyalty. We donât need to parade around wearing the clubs colours to advertise our loyalty like the skunks up the road, itâs just there, itâs a given. Was it there before 86â? Iâm damned certain it was, but like most things in life, you never appreciate what you have until itâs gone, or, thankfully in the Boroâs case, very nearly.
Iâve brought my three sons up over here to be proud of the Boro and support them through thick and thin, the good times will return but we have to suffer a bit of pain at the moment. Iâve had 56 years of it, so itâs their turn to appreciate exactly what itâs like being a Boro lad, bloody tough, but I wouldnât swap my birthright for a string of cups and titles. Iâd sell the wifeâs though, any offers???
Its nice to remember.but none of the 86 team would have,started for the 74 team,
infact,Im still mad at JC for not signing a Centre forward,and another decent sub(only one used then),
That season back in Div 1 ,is the only time ,Ive ever just stood after the final whistle at the final game of the season,just stood almost in a trance thinking ,how close we where,We where that good,I cant remember one game ,where I didnt think we could have won today when we didnt,maybe the QPR game when Stan Bowles was un playable,
But ,its a new Era,Come on Mogga,give us something to grasp,and Im not interested in,or expecting signings,just whichever players we have,they are competitive for 46 games and are up for the cause(although a little talent helps)
AV mate, enjoy yerself down on Redcar beach wiv yer trollies rolled up, yer hanky on yer head (careful now,that Redcar sun is notoriously fickle)and yer bag of fish and chips mate, and go easy on the beer, you don't need any bovver with the feds.
See you back soon
Well, I'm rapidly becoming a POSH fan. Great game and performance last Thursday bringing back memories of the Steaua game at the Riverside. Most of the chants are exactly the same.
So it's off to Old Trafford next Sunday. I understand Huddersfield will be wearing their home kit, meaning Peterborough will be wearing their red shirts with white band.
C'mon Boro!
Great memories of Old Trafford. Boro v Chesterfield and the 3-2 win v ManUre (I'll never forget being 3-0 up and singing the Bernie song!). Both fantastic experiences, so fingers crossed for a hat trick.
For those who want more detail of the liquidation and the 'who did what' there's an interesting article in Wikipedia. Read it here: http://tinyurl.com/3hf685w.
There was a good quote in the Telegraph today covering the Blackpool match and the consequences of relegation. WQords to the effect of, Blackpool players and probably the manager will move on but the fans dont have that luxury. Simply put, hits the nail on the head. If Boro had gone under in '86 we'd all be supporting 'AFC Boro' now wouldnt we?
Amazing how the pattern of
FA Cup 1/4 final defeat - season and a bit later - relegation repeated
Wolves and Cardiff - I was at all 3 games - so blame me :)
Mixed emotions that Joe Bennett didn't make the cut for the U21s.
Good for Boro but on the other hand, I thought the lad deserved his place ahead of either Bertrand or Gibbs and he'll be disappointed.
Its windy up here in deepest Northumberland and they speak with funny accents.
Saw a young lad walking around Seahouses wearing a Mackemshirt, seen the odd barcode. If Boro had gone I could never support either of those.
I would have continued looking out for Darlo and Pools, Berwick of course because I spent so much time there when I was young, probaly would have adopted York City.
The problem is the memories of beating Portsmouth 5-2 and Wolves 3-0 in the days of Ian Gibson are still their along with getting to Wembley, the Ayresome Angels, the team that Jack built, Fly me to the Moon.
The truth is the club is still there but as I keep repeating, Boro and the football club are different entities. I will always be a Boro fan but the club can change
I am probably in the minority that welcomed liquidation, I never doubted once that something better would rise from the ashes, I got sick of reading about the basically comedic way the club was being run, the deluded board throwing in their aspirations in with the dieing Tory ethics of the day. It was rotten to the core, assett stripped in the way only selfish right wing facing cretins can. I saw no future in the club and they had killed of most of my interest, the on pitch action cruelly undermined by people who gave every indication that they were continually inebriated, it was embarrasing and if we had been better known, a national embarrasment that would set back peoples scant appreciation of the area into sub "when the boat comes in" obscurity.
No the only way forward was a revolution, Steve Gibson and his cohorts saw that as well, liquidation was nothing more than a revolution, Vive la Revolution.
Somewhere along the line we all lost sight of that fight, I think the club is healthier now than it has ever been, but its now time to push on with that spirit, this could be a genuine turning point that will carry on into Folklore as much as 86.
Bring back the 86 badge through this season, most of us identify that as the time when the club became the towns club, before then it was a distant mystery, a world away from the hardships of living in Teesside, in 86 they became a bunch that people from Netherfields, Hardwick, Blue Hall, Willey Flats, Hartburn, Acklam, Yarm and beyond could identify with, it signalled the same fight back the area was famous for from the Cannon Street riots to the poll tax to come.
Wherever we end up and the end of this next season let it reflect that time, not some half bottomed attempt at sopping up to the national media, no one makes excuses for being cockneys or scousers, so why should we be anything other than Teessiders and be bloody well proud of it.
I would have turned my back on professional football completely if the Boro had disappeared. I lived in Whitby at the time and they had a pretty good team. Now I live in a French village which is near the ground of a similarly over-achieving amateur team. I would have stuck to that level. As it is I make a lot of effort to see the Boro whenever I can get to England. I started supporting the Boro in 1966 when I was 12 and it has never really occurred to me to change my allegiance. How do you do that?
The 'Emnes is going' - 'Oh no he isn't' stuff in the Gazette over the last couple of days is typical silly (closed)season 'fill the column inches' stuff.
It's remiscent of those days when Rock bands were on long tours in the States and felt to be 'out of sight, out of mind' to fans in the UK.
This provoked their publicists to feed the likes of NME & MM with 'rumours' that the band were to split due to 'artistic differences' brought to a head by the rigours of being 'on the road' and too many chemicals/too much booze.
This then allowed them to deny the rumours of a split put to them by the music journos and ensure two front page headline stories in two successive weeks.
As I type, it's 1750 and I am still in my pyjamas.
Solidarity Sisters !
Ian Gill
Ian, I was in Seahouses over the weekend...have you been out to the Farnes to see the nesting birds?
Any chance of getting a Springwatch esque type blog on here over the close season?
Migrant Players seen over Salthome anyone?
A bad time that came good starting with the game at pools.
An earlier coment hit it on the head the club can change many times but the fans cant and dont.
Only the Wimbledon thing brought a change of fans due to the move.I wonder what will happen when they meet.
We will always be a team that will need to go well above their means to compete in the premier league which will pull us back to reality from time to time the achievement should be measured on how far we fall from those heady places,that we didnt go as far as Leeds and many others before coming good again.
This is all part of the deal of being a Boro fan and always will.
In 1986 we had no internet or mobiles. I was following Boro in Finland by reading Evening Gazette and newspaper cuttings posted to me by my late friend in Great Ayton. So I knew about the problems Boro had but it was not in real time like nowadays.
So I still planned a holiday in Scotland and took a mark I Ford Fiesta to England and Scotland. I will always remember listening to radio with my girl friend (now wife) and my friend in Great Ayton. We wanted to know if Boro would be live or dead the following day when the season started.
So you can understand my feelings the following day when we drove to Hartlepool to see the match at Victoria ground (an appropriate name in this case!). For some reasons my friend did not join us so I took my Fiesta and drive there with my wife. As the navigator was not founded yet we just followed other cars with red scarfs and found the ground. Oh it was nice sunny afternoon (it was late kick-off though as United had a match at 3 PM first).
I had a local team here in Finland which I used to support as well. They went bankrupt around five years ago after they were bought by a Chinese business man. Later he was found out to be working for the Far East betting mafia and the club was relegated from the local Premier to Third Division. The club existed.
So after five years now I have not found a team to support in Finland (hence I am more keen on Boro than ever). I will always be grateful to Mr. Gibson for saving Boro in the last minute (or hour as I should say).
So I guess I might have an other English team to support by now as 25 years have passed. Because I know it takes over five years to get over the disappearance of your favourite team. So I might now support Darlo (I saw them once in 1980) but most probably Sheffield Wednesday. I had visited Hillsborough a couple of times with my friend from Great Ayton in 1980's. Yes, I would support the Owls now as they had the Jack Charlton connection, too. And Jack lived in Great Ayton, too, while manager at Boro.
Up the Boro!
Tim from SA said: "This is all part of the deal of being a Boro fan and always will." He meant ups and downs of Boro.
How true this has been if I look back around 35 years of supporting Boro! But you get used to it - in fact it add spice to it.
Up the Boro!
The Emnes story is interesting in as much as I'd assumed that he'd be on premiership wages (£15k/week?) and therefore potentially up for sale. Am I wrong, does he earn less and therefore does not need to be sold, or is it the case that the players up for sale have to fulfill two criterea, 1) - overpaid for the Championship & 2) Mogga doesnt want them? Having both criterea in place is very different from only no.1 being applied.
Being 15 and consequently naive at the time, I never thought we'd disappear completely. Other clubs seemed to be going through similar crisis' and surviving. Had we been lost to the league I would have most likely wandered away from watching footie altogether. Supporting any other team wouldn't make any sense. Had an AFC Wimbledon type scenario occured, I'd be merrily supporting that team. As merrily as the team would allow that is...
Ouh, I feel old! Boro's first year apprentices this year include goalkeeper Luke Coddington, whose father Matthew was a goalkeeper for the club's reserves and whose grandfather John was the club's first team coach under John Neal, Bobby Murdoch and Willie Maddren after a playing career with Huddersfield, Blackburn and Stockport.
As I remember Luke's father from the John Neal era, I feel very old now. But at least I have stuck with Boro for reasonably long time if I can remember three generations of Boro personalities!
By the way, how is John Neal doing nowadays? Where is he living, for example?
Up the Boro!
AV, careful with your phrasing..."Charlie Amer's sports hall folly..."
Representatives of Mr. Amer tried to shut down my website and threatened to sue me for mentioning something similar in my story "Pheonix From The Flames" which I posted on my site around 12 years ago!
**AV writes: I did toy with and reject other phrases
Times goes by so quickly, can't believe I'm 33 coming up. I remember that Summer so well. Hot weather, going to cubs on a night, getting a subbuteo set, counting down the days until the big kick off. Don't leave me this way by the Communards rings bells around that time as well.
Archie's 125 yarder! (well I was 8)
Above all, when I look back I can't quite believe how well Sir Bruce Rioch pulled everything together. Some of the personal sacrifices/stunts he pulled was unreal and to think he had absolutely no ties/speacial bond to the area but he somehow tapped into the culture of us straight away (remember Mark Burke saying Boro had a uniquness that he couldn't explain). A truly wonderful man who is my hero and to think he got cast aside only 4 years later. Thank you Sir Bruce, you shaped this club and you'll never ever know how much we love you for that ...
Wonderful, happy days, I only hope we can rediscover that feeling of togetherness again, bearing in mind that this would fly in the face of modern societies culture of me, me, me/now, now, now.
The puzzling and sad thing, from my point of view, is that despite Boro being my lifelong club since I used to stand in the Boys End and watch BC score at will, I can't remember the drama that unfolded in '86 despite at the time again living on Teesside. I guess I had I switched-off Boro-wise until coming to Aus in '89, when I realised that despite being miles away I would always answer people "I support Middlesbrough. Do you know where that is?"
John
I graduated from uni in the summer of '86 and came back to Teesside to start work at Lackenby for British Steel, I'd become a little distant from the Boro over the previous three years, a combination of Boro's decline, combined with so many good distractions in Leeds.
I didn't go to the Hartlepool game, but working at the steelworks certainly rekindled my passion for Boro, the lads at Lackenby were die hard fans. That season in the third division was one of the most enjoyable I can remember, I went all over the country but the thing that stands out in my memeory was the high productivity on a saturday morning shift if Boro were at home. Due to finish at 1pm we had always produced our quota by 11pm and in the pub by 12. Great days.
THhe Little Fella is one of a host of big names from sport, fashion, the arts and business who are backing Middlesbrough's bid for city status.
Could someone please explain me what is the difference between City and Town status? Why is it so important to make a claim and a campaign to get the City status? Weren't we supposed to be "a small town in Europe"?
And finally shall Boro be called Middlesbrough City FC soon???
Up the Boro!
Jarkko said...
"I had a local team here in Finland which I used to support as well. They went bankrupt around five years ago after they were bought by a Chinese business man. Later he was found out to be working for the Far East betting mafia and the club was relegated from the local Premier to Third Division".
This comment should be mandatory reading for those who want a foreign sugar daddy to come and buy the club off Steve Gibson.
Not so long ago (although it feels like ages) when Boro were heading for a European cup final. I found myself loitering in the unfamiliar territory of Northern Italy. Bergamo to be precise. I had to make my way to the local bank to cash a cheque and therefore stood in front of an Italian cashier protected by glass thicker than that worn by Les Dawson's Quasimodo character. I passed my passport across to him as means of ID. He took it jotted down a few details and then raised his face up with a hugh smile on it. 'Middlesbrough!' he beamed. Bemused I nodded. My passport had of course my place of birth written on the back page alongside other less important info like name, date of birth etc,. 'Middlesbrough, Roma' he continued. Ah yes said I 'Roma'. 'Middlesbrough fantastic!' he finished. How could I disagree with him. It seemed that the Boro had made one Northern Italian fan very happy and perhaps more of his type. One small team in Europe made a big impression that year. I reckon with the Ravanelli connection when Italian football fans think English football many think of the Boro in positive terms (well perhaps not the Roma fans). Not bad for a team that was close to liquidation. UTB
Jarkko - the general/traditional perception is in increasing order of size of population: Hamlet, village, town, city. However, in order to qualify as a city proper; the Monarch must create a Royal Seal and thus it's status is legally defined. (It probably involves swearing fealty undying to the Monarch and the promise to raise an army to invade France at a moments notice.)
A general rule of thumb is that if a place has it's own Anglican (Church of England) Cathedral then it is identified as a city. This was certainly true before the Industrial Revolution but less so afterwards as small towns grew rapidly and became the equal in both terms of importance and population. And wealth. This creates the anomaly where a Roman created city such as Bath has half the population of a Mechanical Age town such as Boro.
Middlesbrough is uncommon (untypical?) in that we grew incredibly quickly from hamlet (single farm?) to a large town at the very tail end of the Industrial Revolution. We have had a very fine Catholic cathedral and now a new one but never an Anglican one. Due in no small way to the influx of Catholic Irish folk who wandered over to do all our heavy lifting for us; building railways at Stockton and so on. (See A. Vickers and ex Boro players passim)
There is no real need now to be a city, it is perceived to endow a greater status and prestige but is really just a hangover from Medieval times. There is no evidence to suggest Boro will benefit in any material way from being proclaimed a city.
(Mind you, I like the Power game, the (not so average) White band, Wagon Wheels and being a small town in Europe, so what do I know?)
Please be aware Jarkko that this is an extremely potted history and I would hope to be corrected on many points by my fellow bloggers. The general thrust of it I fear, is not wholly inaccurate.
Finally, to everyone else, there may be people who think I'm having a pop at the Irish and/or Catholics. I'm most certainly not and if you want to fight about it, my family is almost certainly more populace than yours.
Watching Look North and I spluttered when they first mentioned Middlesbrough applying to become a city. And that was it as they then talked about Gateshead doing the same the day before then had interviews, footage etc talking about Gateshead.
Reminded me of the days of Tyne Wear TV (and a very brief mention of those down south in Yorkshire).
They put it right later. Just about to set off back to Derby after a windy but great week. Very little signal for mobiles or internet.
Didnt go to the Farnes, dont hate birds but I dont get all twitchy when they are about. Did Lindisfarne, Berwick etc.
Bob -
That's why I am a fan of Gibbo!
CroydonBoro -
Thanks for the info. I learned a lot again. In our language there is only one word for both city and town. I have found it sometimes difficult to know where is the exact line between a city and town status. I referred Boro as a city to Halifaxp recently but he kindly corrected me that it's a town.
My home town has population of a bit over 200 000. Is it called city or town as it is outside the UK?
Up the Boro!
Jarkko asked about city status and Croydonboro in Hythe gave a reply. Croydon is correct, and many people will be surprised, about the break in the link between a town having a Church of England cathedral (and therefore a bishop) and being made or styled “city”.
In ancient times there was no “official” way a town became a city in England and Wales. By general usage, those towns which had cathedrals were regarded as cities.
A thousand years ago, the population of the UK was much lower than it is now, and there were few towns or cities of any great size. The best estimate of England’s population at the time of the Domesday Book (1086) is between 1.4m and 1.9m (Andrew Hinde: “England’s Population – A History Since the Domesday Survey” – Arnold Publishers/Oxford University Press).
There were few towns of any size – apart from London at maybe 10,000, and Winchester at 6,000 (not long before it had been King Alfred’s Wessex capital), and there would have been York, Lincoln and Norwich with maybe 5,000 (a little smaller than current-day Saltburn by the Sea and Stokesley) but no other towns with sizeable populations in England.
If a cathedral were to be constructed, the chances are it would be built in or near the larger settlements/towns, where the bishop would have his Seat and where there would be enough wealth and commerce to help endow the church and pay for its growth and for the clergy. Those places with cathedrals thought of themselves and called themselves cities. They were treated as cities if they had been regarded as cities since “Time Immemorial” which for this purpose in English Law meant before 1189 (if some exercise of a right could be traced back to then, it was regarded as “legal”). Examples of such “time immemorial” cities are York, Lincoln and Winchester.
Of course, as the centuries passed, some of those cathedral cities grew in wealth, population and importance, whilst others were by-passed by reason of geography, because for example, some other town nearby might have some valuable natural resources available to it, or might lie more directly on a profitable trade route. Westminster, Gloucester, Oxford, Bristol, Chester and Peterborough were all designated cities by King Henry VIII, but since they all had cathedrals anyway, it can be understood people would continue to link cathedrals as a requirement for city status.
It was in the 200 years or so after 1750, the Industrial Revolution in England, that there was an enormous growth of towns in parts of the country that might have been previously sparsely populated. The south west and East Anglia may have been the economic powerhouse of a largely agrarian society, but when there was explosive population growth in the Midlands (eg Birmingham, Leicester, Derby....), in Lancashire (Manchester, Liverpool, Preston...), Yorkshire (Leeds, Sheffield, Bradford, Hull...) the wealth created by these growing towns powered the economy and their town “worthies” wanted a status that reflected their place in the world.
Cities such as Lichfield (since time immemorial) were comparatively small so that even now it’s city population is only about 27,000 (rather smaller than Redcar or Billingham), yet it is only 16 miles north of Birmingham which was in the 19th Century the UK’s 2nd largest community but was not a city.
There was pressure from these growing towns to become cities, and the problem was that many of them didn’t then have Anglican cathedrals (some of them don’t even now – so massive Leeds is part of the diocese that has its Cathedral in tiny nearby Ripon).
The Crown has therefore designated towns to become “cities” in Letters Patent issued by the Monarch on advice by the Lord Chancellor. This is the process by which those “exploding” towns became cities. So there is a list of them becoming cities that includes Manchester (1853), Liverpool (1880), Birmingham (1889), Sheffield (1893), Newcastle (1882), Hull & Nottingham (both 1897) etc.
More recently there have been a number of “competitions” for towns to seek city status, for example inviting applications for towns to be made a city for the Millennium (Wolverhampton and Brighton), or for anniversaries of the Queen’s accession to the throne (eg. Sunderland for the Queen’s 40th in 1992, Preston in 2002), and candidates are lining up for 2012.
So, in short, there USED TO BE a link between city status and having an Anglican Cathedral, and many cities do have cathedrals. But others (eg Leeds) do not and there is the anomaly of Rochester which HAS a cathedral and once was a city but is no longer a city. This is because under local government reorganisation the city was abolished and is now part of the unitary government area of the Medway and the city council, before its abolition, failed to appoint Charter Trustees.
Because the city no longer exists and no trustees were appointed before abolition, there is no-one able to apply for restoration of its city status. Medway has applied for city status but has been rejected. St Asaph and Southwell have cathedrals but are not cities (they are also very small communities).
Cities TEND to be larger than towns but that is not always the case. Ely, Ripon and Wells are all cathedral cities but are fairly small in population terms though they all have long histories behind them.
The position is different in Scotland which obviously has retained its own legal system (as well as its own religious and educations systems) despite the unification of the Crowns. Traditionally there were a number of “Royal Burghs” which sort of equated with English cities. Edinburgh and Glasgow are old Royal Burgh cities whose status has never been in doubt (rather like “time immemorial” cities in England) but more recently city status has been confirmed by the Monarch on Dundee in 1889, Aberdeen 1891, Inverness for the Millennium in 2000 and Stirling for the Queen’s anniversary in 2002.
Interestingly Perth, a former capital of Scotland was a city until local government re-organisation in 1975 removed that status but is no longer regarded as one, which at least is consistent with its sobriquet as “St John’s Toon” from which we get the name of its football team, St Johnstone – the parish church is dedicated to St John The Baptist.
Jarkko has probably raised the subject, having read that Middlesbrough is again hoping to be made a city in the “2012 Queen’s 60 anniversary” competition. Whether Middlesbrough will succeed is a matter of conjecture.
Over 100 years ago, when a large number of significant towns were seeking Letters Patent to achieve city status, certain criteria were set out. These included a record of good government of the town or community, that it should have a population of 300,000 or more, and that it should have a metropolitan quality as a being the centre of its local region.
Although those criteria have subsequently been relaxed, that would clearly explain why Leicester, Portsmouth and Plymouth and Stoke were elevated to city status in the first 30 years of the last century.
On the other hand Middlesbrough has no Anglican cathedral or great history, as it was little more than a handful of farms until about 1830, though it’s population and industry grew phenomenally in the next 80 years. It might be regarded as a “sub-regional centre” but certainly not more than that. If you doubt this, see where your wives go on Christmas shopping expeditions – probably to Leeds or York, or to Newcastle or the Metro Centre. There will be precious few coaches chartered on Tyneside to bring shoppers to Teesside for shopping this coming December.
Additionally the population as well as the main industrial base of the town has been in decline for 30 years. Middlesbrough isn’t even in the top 10 of towns aspiring to be cities in terms of population. Reading is much larger, and there will be Milton Keynes, Dudley, Northampton and Huddersfield and others shouting very loudly for their status.
The thing is – there really is little benefit to city status in this country. We don’t need it to hold town fairs or to have exemption from some royal tax on markets. It doesn’t confer the ability to have a Lord Mayor (only a few major cities have these). It’s just a title, a name, rather than being known as a “town” or “borough”.
It would, I suppose, mean the borough would be able to commission the creation of a suitably ornate, and no doubt expensive, gold city mayoral chain to be worn on civic occasions....and all borough seals, notepapers and liveries would be altered to demonstrate the change in status. A good job for the graphic designers in our midst (unless outsourced elsewhere).
Incidentally, Brechin City football club in Scotland is not in a city (Brechin is a former Royal Burgh although it is an episcopal Seat of the Episcopal Church of Scotland). And on 16 March 2011, no doubt adding salt to wounds of those in Rochester unhappy with the loss of its city status, the Advertising Standards Authority ruled against the Medway Council for suggesting in its leaflets that Medway was a city. So it obviously, and very recently, this shows city status means something to SOME people.
(You can tell it’s the football close season, can’t you? And get ready for incoming missiles).
On a more football-related subject: in terms of the gaps between these clubs, is there more of a gap between Barcelona and Manchester United than there is between Man Utd and, say, Wolverhampton Wanderers?
**AV writes: No, but when two sides play at such a high level even a fraction can be decisive. I suggested to a (far from impressed) Man U fan during the game that Stoke would have a better chance of beating Barca than they did because they were used to spoling and pressing and stopping other teams play and would have no pretentions that they could match them.
"The greatest swordman fears the worst swordman more than the second best."
Well I'm back from a short post-season Strachanovite La Manga beasting - only with less military training and more lager - and ready to get straight back into the groove ready for a long summer of red hot soccer chat.
So what have I missed? I was lappyless and barely saw a paper (and those I did see were the Cockneycentric editions with teams like Boro airbrushed out) so I am out of the loop. I'll read the last 10 days super soaraway Evening Gazettes when I get back in the office but I'm sure you lot can give me a quick digest. Any moves in or out? Any good links? Any operations? How was the Mogga stuff? Away kit on the horizon yet? Boardroom dust settled? How did you like the collect and keep Juninho extravaganza?
Come on, I've got a lot of catching up to do.
Nikeboro said -
"Boro should play a memorial friendly at the Victoria Ground to commemorate the 'locked out' match they had to play in Hartlepool.
May 22, 2011 1:35 PM "
A good shout! Before the next season starts.
Up the Boro!
As we have drifted away from football to the subject of City status. Until 1968 the Boro was the largest and most important town on Teesside with a good sized population.
Although through the years of Teesside and during the formation of Cleveland County Middlesbrough was very much letdown as Stockton grabbed all the land that was available in Stockton and Stokesley Rural districts along with Billingham and Thornaby. I ask what were the Boro's representatives doing at that time as Nunthorpe is still split and Ormesby appears to be in R&C along with Overfields which was built by Middlesbrough?
The final nail in the Boro's coffin was the decision taken by the council .not to cooperate with the TDC. The council has been in many ways a disgrace which reflects very badly on the town. We might have ambition now but we had none in the last decades of the last Century.