Proud Crowd Staying the Cup Course

West Ham's had an impressive turn-out at Man City, Liverpool's permed scally legions swarmed into St Andrews and over 3,000 of the Toon army were at Chelsea, some of them clothed. Blah, blah, blah.

At some point some deranged fool will say Newcastle deserve to get to the final because of their super-loyal 50,000 strong fan base and have a dig at the Riverside crowd. And we will laugh and look at where we can fit the replay in around UEFA Cup dates.

The allegation that a low crowd indicates a lack of passion is a nonsense. There were the best part of 2,000 Teessiders at the Valley. On a midweek night for a game that finished after the trains did.

Many will have been among the 3,500 who forked out a small fortune to follow their team to Rome in the UEFA Cup last week. Many will be now be looking for items of jewellery and furniture - or body parts - to sell on E-bay to raise money for the trip to Basel next week.

And the wild eyed optimists will be saving the cash for a lager fuelled mother of all EIO's in Eindhoevn. Or Cardiff. Or both.

On top of the regular season Boro have already played 19 cup games in domestic and European competition. Even picking and choosing out of those games is a massive additional drain on the pocket for supporters in one of the poorest areas in the country.

Far from being embarrassed at the size of the following Boro fans should be proud at the quantity and quality of the crowd that have stayed the course through an at times traumatic season.

And if you are still worried about the stigma of the lowest away day following, don't worry. Wait till you see the sparse crew Charlton bring to a midweek replay in the frozen North.