"SMOGGIES at home, watching The Bill". You just know it will be thrown right back in your face on Sunday. I thought I heard a muted practice run echo around a half empty St James's against Fenebahce but at the Riverside it will ring out with real venom from the away end. These taunts always come back and bite you in the bum.
It happened on the opening day at Reading too as sprint starters Boro raced into a early two goal lead and the travelling Teesside contingent laughed through a prematurely arrogant chorus of "we are Premier League" only to skulk off home with badly bruised egos as the new boys hit back to win and the same song was given back in spades, along with a caustic but accurate analysis of our heroes display stated concisely as "two nil and you, er, messed it up."
It is a kind of football karma. As soon as you start sneering and lording it over other fans you are inviting retaliation in kind when the balance of fate tips against you - and as Boro fans know that happens only to often.
Of course, the Geordies At Home chant was a classic of its kind. Stolen from the Celtic anti-Rangers repertoire and sharpened by Teesside wits, it was gleefully used to wave Boro's European adventure in Tyneside faces. It was a deliciously parochial way of reinforcing the prevailing North-east pecking order and underlining the failure of 'the eighth biggest club in the world'. It became a light-hearted part of the sound-track to our fantastic continental campaigns and briefly a cultural touchstone on Teesside. The phrase made it on to banners. You heard drunks singing it joyfully on the way home after shotting out time.
But it was always asking for trouble. Not only was it easy for self-righteous non-rivals to label Boro fans as short-sighted and obsessive - you are in Rome, why sing about another team? - but it also stored up a lot of bitterness that was inevitably going to be discharged in the event of Newcastle returning to Europe via the Intertoto back door.
Of course, the sting is quite easily drawn. Boro fans sung it in Eindhoven. At the final. Given mighty Newcastle's long wait for European glory - in direct proportion to their expectations - that has got to hurt. Which makes it all the more likely to be thrown back at Boro on Sunday.
And derby games are noted for their chants loaded with topical cultural symbolism. Boro's only Premiership victory over Newcastle came in the year when a snap wintery storm had conveniently closed the underpasses long enough to sway the safety committee and then in the restaged match Geremi got the winner to a chorus of 'Let It Snow'.
But there was one that we may consider airbrushing out of history in that game too as Jonathan Woodgate played for Newcastle and was loudly informed by the Boro faithful that night that "you're supposed to be in jail." Maybe Newcastle fans will hijack that one as well.
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