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Untypical Boro is a lively topical blog by the Evening Gazette's award winning football columnist Anthony Vickers that aims to get behind the headlines to flesh out the stories that Boro fans are talking about.

Incisive, provocative and well informed it seeks to engage with articulate supporters and give them a platform to help set the agenda on the issues that matter.

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January 2007 Archives


Get Into Them: Boro Respond To Fans' Demand

Posted by on January 1, 2007 11:12 PM

SOMETIMES the urgent, primitive demands of a crowd can short-circuit the professional finesse of a tactical team talk and transmit a spasm of passion that can turn a game. Sometimes there are rare transcendental moments of unity between fans and players that channel every emotion towards a common goal.

That special synergy, those powerful moments of tangible harmony and collective will, surface - if we are lucky - in must win games when petty divisions are dissolved in a powerful desire for a result and the emotions of the entire crowd are channeled into uncompromised support.

It happened in the ZDS semi-final against Villa in 1990 and again at home that season to Newcastle in that tense final day survival shoot-out when news from Bournemouth electrified Ayresome and jump-started the team. It happened in the second half against Chesterfield, again at Old Trafford in the FA Cup semi-final against Arsenal and it happened last season against Basel, Bucharest and Charlton as the crowd's will was reflected on the pitch. And for a few moments there, I think it happened against Sheffield United.


Continue reading "Get Into Them: Boro Respond To Fans' Demand" »

Sales Frenzy Rarely Nets Bargains

Posted by on January 4, 2007 9:45 PM

I HATE the January sales. The shops are crowded with wild-eyed customers whose quality control gets slashed along with those crazy prices and who are charged by a media driven frenzy to buy, buy, buy as much as by any real neccessity. The poor saps lose any sense of reality and become fixated on the all-consuming need to get a bargain, if only to help rationalise their excessive spending on now unused or unloved junk bought in the last big splurge.

And of course all the best stuff has already gone, snapped up by richer or shrewder shoppers months ago. You never get just what you want or just what you need. You won't get anything flavour of the month, unless the month is April 1999. All that's left is to rummage desperately around the bargain bin through goods left tatty by the excessive pawing of the mob in the hope of spotting an overlooked gem before the twitchy cockney stood next to you pounces. And you've got to be quick: there is nothing more undignified than seeing two usually respectable chief executives coming to fisticuffs in Binns window over a one time bench warmer from the victorious 1996 Nigerian Olympic gold winning side.

Continue reading "Sales Frenzy Rarely Nets Bargains" »

Sell, Sell, Sell

Posted by on January 7, 2007 11:45 PM

MASSIMO Maccarone is being touted round Italy's answer to Watford, Sheffield United and Boro and can go on a free this month - if he is willing to take a wage cut. If not, then the £8.15m record signing, will be released in the summer after four year of earning £20,000 a week.

Ugo Ehiogu, an £8m man when he arrived, is looking for a club now too - again his 20k plus income is the stumbling block - or he too will be released come June. And £2.5m midfield misfit Fabio Rochemback is hoping for a financial equation that bridges the wage gap to take him back to Sporting, probably on a free. Meanwhile the club are playing footsie with £4.5m hitman Mark Viduka over a new deal with the clock ticking down on his exit of nothing is agreed.

That is £23m worth of investment - plus the wages that have been thrown at them - walking away with no financial return and with a punative knock-on cost for replacements. And people are worried about Boro's record when it comes to buying players?

Continue reading "Sell, Sell, Sell" »

Boro Soccer Moms' Guide To The MLS

Posted by on January 11, 2007 10:27 PM

IN A PRE-EMPTIVE strike against the Sizzling Sky Sports Stars and Stripes Small Screen Soccer Kick Bowl Spectacular sure to come after Golden Balls acceptance of a lucrative early retirement package and/or exciting branding opportunity in a fresh market for shirt sales to teenage girls, here is everything you the Boro fan need to know about the stateside game...

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Just Another Routine Relegation Six Pointer.

Posted by on January 12, 2007 10:59 PM

IT'S A must-win relegation six pointer! What, again? Boro may have had a much needed upturn of late but make no mistake, Charlton IS a must-win basement battle that can have far reaching implications for the rest of the season.

Don't be lulled into a false sense of security by Boro's best spell of the campaign so far. The situation remains critical and will be escalated into full-on Century switchboard meltdown mode should Boro lose and get dragged back into the cut-throat melee at the bottom.

Continue reading "Just Another Routine Relegation Six Pointer." »

Testing Times Ahead In Boro Survival Battle

Posted by on January 15, 2007 10:59 AM

A CRUCIAL win has clawed Boro away from the basement battle - but we are not out of it yet.
Seasoned Boro watchers will know that eight points above the trapdoor with 15 games to go is a precarious position and both Bruce Rioch and Lennie Lawrence's teams were dragged down from what looked like the security of the 'comfort zone' to be relegated at the death.

The away win at Charlton - the first triumphant league trip since April - has taken Boro's recent return to ten points from five games and made both the league and form table suddenly look a lot more reassuring. But there is a long way to go.

Continue reading "Testing Times Ahead In Boro Survival Battle" »

Easy Targets In The Theatre of Hate

Posted by on January 15, 2007 9:21 PM

OVER the past few days I have been musing on the nature of collective public hate in football and the strange process by which Boro's legitimate terrace targets are selected for systematic monstering. The Big Picture column in the Gazette this week looks at the demonisation of Nick Barmby - a possible visitor with Hull tonight - and the sustained creative bile he faces from some less cerebral sections of the Riverside crowd. It also riffs on the theme to bring in the gallery of ghoulden greats like Zenden, Merson, Ziege and Beagrie.

All those have become instantly recognised anti-heroes among the Boro crowd with public pledges of unending animosity towards them a rite of passage on the journey to uber-fandom. They are pantomime villains to be booed and vilified on their every appearance. They are the personification of various degrees of foul treachery, unforgiveable disrespect and deep and lasting unanticipated damage to the club. Worse still, they are heretics from the one true club.
No wonder the tunnel visioned defenders of the faith have a religious zeal in hounding them.

Continue reading "Easy Targets In The Theatre of Hate" »

Hull Of A Mess At The Back

Posted by on January 16, 2007 11:52 PM

THAT WAS CRAZY! A failure to kill the game and a string of ridiculous defensive errors almost cost Boro dear. Three nil up and cruising then suddenly the team came all over Norwich away and they were left hanging on nervously in stoppage time.

Sloppy at the back. No sense of urgency. A failure to clear the danger in the box. Dawdling over the ball in the area. No-one picking up runs down the flank. Stupid free-kicks conceded in dangerous positions. Men over in the box. Balls played across the face of goal... it was a masterclass in how not to defend - and if Boro do that against Bolton they will get hammered.

Continue reading "Hull Of A Mess At The Back" »

Tunnel Vision Over Young Gun

Posted by on January 19, 2007 11:10 PM

"OW VICKERS, why was there no interview in the Gazette with young Seb Hines?" It's a fair question but not neccessarily one I wanted to answer when I was packing the bags in Asda and the lass at the till, noticeably twitchy that I was stopping to talk, was shotting the fruit and veg down with the no-frills speed and determination of a last ditch Hull attack.

In short it was because the club were "protecting" him from the media scrum lest some unscrupulous hack put undue pressure on to reveal state secrets by asking him any trick questions about whether he was chuffed to bits to have scored on his debut.

Continue reading "Tunnel Vision Over Young Gun" »

Massimo Exit Long Overdue

Posted by on January 23, 2007 10:37 PM

MACCARONE wants first team football. He wants to end his Riverside hell. So why didn't he go to Siena when they were desperate to have him last summer? When he was the hero fresh from his goal-scoring burst that kept them up then? Oh yes, he would have to take a pay cut.

Now, calculator in hand and slapping his forehead in belated recognition of the obvious, he has finally worked out that his Boro career is over. Now the maths of staying don't add up he is suddenly relishing the appeal of that fresh challenge back home. But for Massimo the time to take up that particular challenge was two years ago. Now there is a danger that he is too late, that he has missed a golden opportunity to be one of the calcio greats.

Continue reading "Massimo Exit Long Overdue" »

Spend Small Screen Bonanza On Rewarding Fans

Posted by on January 25, 2007 3:52 PM

BORO should repay the fans loyalty and use next season's TV cashcade to slash ticket prices.

Bloated Premiership clubs will get an average of a £40m bonanza next season from new global broadcasting deals - double what they get under the current scheme. Given the crisis of faith in the game among the supporters it would be an act of suicidal arrogance to pour that money straight into the Armani trouser pockets of already super-rich players and parasitical agents. It would lead to widespread revulsion and speed up the defection away from the game.

The only moral, decent and sensible thing to do would be to use the jackpot to bring down exhorbitant prices and reward fans for their endless sacrifices over the years and make the game accessible to new generations of fans. If clubs waste the money by adding a nought to the wages of average players then the trickle of fans away from the game will become a flood.

Continue reading "Spend Small Screen Bonanza On Rewarding Fans" »

Numbercruncher Needed as Boro Defy The Odds

Posted by on January 28, 2007 10:45 PM

CALLING all number-crunchers. What are the odds on Boro getting an away trip in today's FA Cup fifth round draw? Yeah, yeah, I know, its 50/50, the simple probability of a random event with only two possible outcomes. I can do that one.

But Boro's ball coming out second in the FA blazers' bingo pairings would be the TENTH successive away draw in the competition. What do those acquainted with the mathematics of sequential coin-tossing reckon are the odds on that?

Continue reading "Numbercruncher Needed as Boro Defy The Odds" »

Gate's Tough Tie Against The People's Choice

Posted by on January 29, 2007 10:53 PM

"HE'S COMING home, he's coming home; Mogga's coming home". Everyone's favourite iconic future-Boro-manager-to-be and the embodiment of the Spirit of '86 looks set for an emotional homecoming when - if! - West Brom come to the Riverside in the fifth round of the FA Cup.

It will be a strange night heavy with symbolism. Tony Mowbray's dugout debut against Boro will generate the loudest, warmest and most sincere reception any opposing boss is ever likely to recieve, unless Juninho ever returns in charge of anyone bar Newcastle or Sunderland. Mogga is unique. He is universally respected by fans as not just a playing legend and one of our own, a passionate Teessider who unequivocally loves the club, but also as the inspirational figure on the pitch as the team, the town, Bruce Rioch and the Steve Gibson consortium pulled together to haul Boro from the brink of oblivion. He is a man who crystalises a moment that many loyalists still regard as their touchstone as Boro fans.

And that stockpile of unconditional affection combined with the widespread unspoken understanding that one day he will be in the Boro dug-out could make the game a political minefield for Gareth Southgate.

Continue reading "Gate's Tough Tie Against The People's Choice" »

Mr January: Southgate In Rare Boss Accolade Shock

Posted by on January 31, 2007 3:31 PM

GARETH Southgate probably won't get the Manager of the Month award. Liverpool and Arsenal have both won all their league games - and Arsene can claim two convincing cup wins over Rafa to boot - plus if the LMA have any imput at all they certainly won't be voting for a badgeless boss that has dented their self-proclaimed standard of excellence. And besides, given the curse that traditionally comes with the bottle of Bells maybe he won't want it anyway.

But Southgate can lay claim to a more elusive accolade this month. He has laid to rest the ghosts of Christmas past and shattered one of the pillars of the "typical Boro" menatlity by steering Boro unbeaten through the entire month of January - incredibly only the third manager since World War II to pull off the feat in the top flight.

Continue reading "Mr January: Southgate In Rare Boss Accolade Shock" »

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