Team Hits Bum Note For Singing Section

IT WAS an early round crowd but was it to be an early round atmosphere?

The Notts County clash in "our" Cup was a testbed for the experimental 'singing section', the latest venture from the creative matchday enthusiasts of The Twe12th Man, the new Boro fans group aiming to tap into the rich heritage of the legendary Ayresome Angels and the echo of a hostile and intimidating Holgate. Did it work?

The group had won club chiefs over to the idea of concentrating into one area - the North Stand's Block 19 - all those more vocal supporters who are normally dissapated around all four stands on nights like these. The advantages are obvious: it lumps together the like-minded legion of leather-lunged loyalists into what could be a fearsome wall of noise. We all know what even a few hundred noisy types can do at away games when they are packed together in a passionate unit ready to act out the terrace mantra and 'sing your hearts out for the lads.' Together they could blast away the swimming pool atmosphere these nights usually impose.

The disadvantages? Well, it could look a bit daft if just one hardcore area were singing and the rest of the ground is sat in brooding silence. We know that. We've seen it plenty of times and that is why this is worth a shot. It will be a good test of whether the more vocal fans can consciously shape the atmosphere in their own image.

There was a promising start even before kick-off as Me Mark Page announced the teams and where it is usually accompanied by the matchday symphony of ring tones and caustic comment tonight every name was greeted by a loud cheer with an especially generous roar of approval for Massimo Maccarone in his first Riverside appearance since his last gasp Euro heroics against Steaua.

And the match started with a whole-hearted rendition of All The Geordies. It was loud. Not as loud as it would be at a moment of heightened excitement in a Premiership match but louder than it had been for similar low key encounters in the past: Macclesfield, Northampton, Litex. It was followed by a few more bursts of old favourites and then loud endorsements of Super Lee Cattermole, Mark Viduka and Gareth Southgate's Red and White Army before gradually dwindling away to the normal matchday mutter.

The pressbox buzz is all Panorama. It's a warm, humid night and a wag says he is 'sweating like Peter Harrison'. Boro have revealed they are set to make a formal complaint to the FA over the actions of Nathan Porritt's soon to be ex-agent and the lads from the nationals are excitedly swapping Keith Lamb quotes like Panini stickers.

Then County score out of the blue on 27 minutes. Up to then Boro had created what few chances there had been but then suddenly Tony McMahon rises to a ball back from Cattermole but puts a weak backward header short and well known anagram Tcham N'Toya-Zoa, part fake Japanese bubbly, part a basic building block of DNA, latches on to it to score.

His name reminds of the The Quality of Mercy, the album by DIY punk band The Mekons that was created in celebration of the idea that if you give an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of typewriters that eventually through an infinite combination of random keystrokes they will write the complete works of Shakespeare, a decent recipe book and the kind of footballer names that Championship Manager can only dream of.

The goal wakes both sets of fans up. The 300 County fans stop texting back home requesting food parcels and explode into song. After the usual stranger-hugging jubilation the wild-eyed lunatic fringe declare implausibly that "we're gonna win the cup" and some may even believe it. Boro fans also become instantly animated and there is a combination of enthusiatic urging, abuse hurled at the visitors and invective aimed at their own useless players, now somehow trailing to a team from the bottom division.

But the Boro crowd bounce back and are kept bubbling as Viduka has a stinging shot saved then fires into the side-netting before half-time. An dit is quickly back in full voice two minutes after the break as Mendieta gets a lucky break on the edge of the box to find space but fires over. Then there is an overhead effort by the Aussie hitman which is too weak to trouble the keeper but is on target and prompts another burst of You Are My Boro.

By now there is a decent atmosphere, not a full scale ear-bleeding one that causes palpitations but a half, a kind of 'ladies parmo' sized adequate portion of noise; loud and constant and out of all proportion to the size of the crowd but not enough to satisfy the hungrier appitite.

There are a few scrappy moments in the County box and Boro are building a head of steam now and much of the singing section is on its feet screaming, clapping and punching the air and the vocal virus is spreading beyond the confines of Block 19 to the adjacent areas. It is spreading contagiously from the designated noisy seats and there are epidemics of foot-stamping and chanting in the sections nominally reserved for those who really wished to whinge, shake their heads and tut or glower in silent disapproval.

The scrap of paper with the attendence is passed along the press box: 11,148. That's more than we expected, far more than usual at this stage at the Riverside and, given some of the other gates in this round last night, is respectable and defendable if not cause for celebration.

Fifteen minutes left and reinvigorated Notts County are looking dangerous down the flanks, threaten a few times and for a spell have Boro pinned down in their own box. Now there are anxious whistles and strangle canine yelps among the urging as time starts to run out.

There's a scramble after a Boro corner and groans and some distraught body language behind the goal as £6m debutant and makeshift striker Robert Huth has a shot charged down in a scrum in the six yard area then his header from the rebound is nodded off the line .

A Notts County player goes down - my mate N'Toya - with an injury that apparently requires complex surgery. Angry Boro players gather to give their own more robust diagnoses while the crowd whistles a vitriolic denunciation of the transparent gamemanship. N'Toya limps at glacial speed to the side line where he is given a roasting by the fans in the East Stand then as he waits to come back on he is subbed by a manager with a delicious sense of humour and must f run a gauntlet of hate as he plods around the pitch and past the North Stand.

Anxiety levels and the volume go up in the closing spell and go bouncing into the red as Stuart Parnaby finds space in front of goal two minutes from time but grazes the bar with his shot.

Then in stoppage time a deflection off a defender sends Viduka free into the box from the right and his effort is parried by the keeper right at the feet of Huth but the shot-stopper Saul Deeney makes an incredible recovery to somehow turn the German's six yard effort over and a North Stand roar of relief is strangled at birth, replaced with a primal scream of anguish at the recognition that the game was up. The whistle follows swiftly and among the resigned applause there is the familiar frustrated booing..

Boro fans had on the whole stayed until the end but streamed away on the whistle as County celebrated a deserved win with their fans - albeit the boss with the last perm in Western European football had to steer them over. Those that had left missed a classic bit of spin from the PA as Pagey stressed that it wasn't just us and that all the other Premiership teams in action had also lost. Oh well, that's alright then.

The Boro faithful had done their bit, turned out beyond expectations and made their presence felt. so on balance the singing section experiment worked. They responded to events on the pitch, and to the away fans but also took the initiative at times. For spells the atmosphere was as good as that at most routine league matches.

The Twe12th Man can claim a moral victory and a partial success. Partial because unless there is kind draw for the FA Cup in January the singing section will not happen again this season because while the fans took their chances and produced a result the team did not.

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