EXCITED. NERVOUS. "Tell Yer Mam, Yer Mam, Put The Champagne On Ice, We're Going To Wembley Twice, Tell Yer Mam". I'm so excited I feel a little bit queasy. Sick with anticipation and FEAR. We can't mess this up now. We will NEVER have a better chance`than this to win the FA Cup. NEVER. The big boys have all been culled. We're at home to a lower league club with a trip to Wembley at stake. No-one to be scared of..... right now I would strike a Faustian pact with the devils and gods of football and trade Premiership status for a guaranteed FA Cup final win. That's the one we all dreamed of as kids. That is Sporting Glory.
All the pre-match logic is in our favour: Boro are an established Premiership team; we have lost just two in 12; we know exactly what it takes to get past a lower league side who come here to battle and spoil because we have made a habit of it over recent seasons; we haven't lost an FA Cup tie under Gareth Southgate at the Riverside - in fact we haven't lost and FA Cup clash at the Riverside since God knows when... January 1998 2-1 to Arsenal... I had to Google it. On their side they have underdogs status, the fairytale inspiration of Barnsley yesterday and the scientifically proven powers of Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink's low centre of gravity.
Pre-match there is a crackling atmosphere as both sets of fans clear their throats but despite the intoxicating power of the primal call and response taunting, Me Mark Page feels the need to intervene to choreograph an unneccessary and embarrassing Mexican Wave that breaks down as it reaches the Cardiff fans. The big cards are unveiled to spell out SPORTING GLORY across the North Stand and it looks pretty impressive. Then we are off and the Boro start brightly roared on by a full house high on possibility and powered by dreams.
As Boro set the early pace the visiting fans opt to taunt Boro fans with a chant of 'One Steve McClaren' that is intended to wound but as he led the team to Carling Cup glory - ironically, deliciously in Cardiff - and also to the UEFA Cup final it doesn't really sting much.
Then out of the blue, Cardiff score after nine minutes and I feel sick and in a breach of press box protocol there is some frustrated swearing. Peter Whittingham gets onto a loose ball on the edge of the box as a long throw is only half cleared and is allowed to do a fancy drag-back and then trick his way in torturous, teasing slow motion through a static terracota army of five Boro defenders to create space then curl a neat shot into the far top corner. The away end explodes with far fetched noisy celebrations that are almost drowned out by the sounds of bubbles bursting in the rest of the ground. That wasn't in the script.
That sparked a spell in which Cardiff streamed forward and the Boro threatened to implode. It was chaos at the back: Boro were failing in basic things - the midfield weren't tracking runners from the middle, the defence weren't closing down, or getting goal-side or marking properly or blocking crosses. Tackles were missed completely, needless fouls were being conceded in dangerous places, attempted clearances didn't have any height or distance.
So it was no surprise when Cardiff got a deserved second goal on 22 minutes, Roger Johnson nipping around behind Pogatetz at the far post to connect with a diving header that flew under Schwarzer's ungainly leap leaving Boro in disarray and the dream fading fast.
And as Boro wobbled in a ten minute disintegration, Cardiff could have scored another two as Johnson again lost his man to put a header wide and then Jimmy failed to make a good chance count. Boro had a brief flurry as Alves turned onto a ball in the box but was hauled down, then Stewy Downing ran at the defence and turned them inside out but then failed to deliver the cross and then Pogatetz had a powerful low shot in the box blocked but the Premiership side looked toothless and they were rightly booed off by a betrayed crowd - at least by those who were not stood open-mouthed in shell-shocked silence.
Mark Page urged the fans to remember the Spirit of Steaua before the teams returned but there was none of the tingle of that night in the ground. Gareth Southgate made a change at the break bringing on Mido for Alves so it signalled an intention to get the ball into the box high and early and to put Cardiff's defence under the kind of test to destruction pressure that Boro's had suffered in the first half. And let's hope the boss gave them the rollicking of their life in the interval too and impressed upon them the importance and urgency of the situation : lose today and the season is over bar a frantic grind at the bottom in front of a dwindling number of unforgiving, sullen supporters. It is now or never. Let's get an early goal and turn it around. Let's see you earn your money, justify the hype and show that Sporting Glory means something.
There is some hope. The opening stages of the second half see Boro step up the tempo, get bodies forward and hit the box, but it is scrappy, desperate stuff that, alarmingly, seems to lack a single shred of self belief. Cardiff in contrast have a conviction and far from sitting back along their own 18 yard line to hold on or be picked off depending on fate they are keen to shape their own destiny. When they steam forward they look sharp: they are dribbling through Boro almost at will, out-pacing them, out-passing them, out-muscling them... frankly it is frightening. One more goal and the match is dead and buried.
With an hour gone and frustrations rising - and time running out - Southgate puts on Adam Johnson for Gary O'Neil, presumably to give width and supply Mido with ablls to attack but it just doesn't happen. Boro are knocking it long through the middle towards a defence who are just gobbling the routine aerial balls up. When Mido does win them there is no-one near enough to win the knockdowns. Boro's ragged play is prompting loud groans and sporadic boos and shrieks of tortured indignation from the increasingly despondent crowd. I have no nails left. Southgate claps powerlessly in the technical area. Cardiff just sing. Que Sera Sera.
The visitors are sitting back a bit more now, so much that Jimmy handles just outside his own box giving Boro a free-kick in a dangerous area but Stewy dips it just over the bar. A few balls are drilled in from wide on the left by Pogatetz, and Downing - now operating wide on the right - but they are scrambled away comfortably. There is no sign of panic in the Cardiff defence. I bet the MotD pundits are loving this but no matter how much they twist the knife it will be nothing to the kind of recrminations being lined up by Teessiders after being let down so painfully again.
There's 15 minutes left and people are already streaming out, making tangible the reality of Boro's season draining away. There is plenty of frantic effort on the pitch now but no incisive quality, no guile and not much hope that the game or even some pride can be salvaged. And all you can hear is Cardiff singing, hammering home the scale of the public humiliation. Que Sera Sera. "Premiership? You're Having A Laugh." It is hard to disagree.
"A minimum of three minutes additional time will be added on". Ha! You could add three hours and we still wouldn't score. Best blow the bloody whistle now and put us out of our misery. There it is, but you can barely hear it for the booing at one end and the glee up to eleven at the other. That was as a big a teeth shattering blow as losing to West Ham two years ago was. Worst even. The opposition was weaker and the potential to actually win the bloody thing far greater. And there is no consolation of a UEFA Cup semi-final a few days later. Watch them get Barnsley in the semis now. Gutted. Absolutely gutted.
Five minutes after the whistle and the ground is almost empty bar the orange badged school kids in the South East corner - my boy among them - and the entire beaming away end, singing in praise of the David Jones they were booing roundly a month ago and Peter Ridsdale, the football finance genius who has taken them to the verge of liquidation. I'd say it is a funny old game but it isn't . It isn't bloody funny at all.
*****
And here's what I wrote about missed opportunity and recriminations in the Gazette after picking over the debris of shattered dreams and broken hearts in the aftermath.
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