The James Ramsden Column

Friday 08 February, 2002

What is it about us and Boro?

Cast your mind back some fourteen years ago. In a darkened lounge sits a 13 year old boy, his eyes are transfixed on the TV in front of him and the teletext scores that it is displaying. He is crying. That boy was me.

Detached from Yorkshire and living in Wales, I didn't have the luxury of going to the game or listening to it on the radio - I had to make do with the excitement of teletext (which in a way was pretty exiting - waiting for the pages to click over, nervously seeing if there was a new name under the Bradford score...anyway, I digress). The reason I was crying was that I'd just seen Bradford crash out of the playoff's. This was meant to be our season, we'd led it for most of the way and fallen at the last fence. And who was that fence- Boro. Messed up against them in the league and then couldn't beat them again in the playoffs. I remember asking my dad where Middlesborough was, when he asked me why, I replied 'cos I never want to go there in my life' (a pact that to this day has held true), and Bernie Slaven? It worries me that at that age I had such a vivid imagination.

So that was Boro, our players bogey team, and the team that the fans and the club would love to hate... or so I thought.

Promising Australian keeper brought over from Germany for a minimal fee, Mark Schwartzer - where does he go? Boro. Immediate outrage from me - how dare the club sell him to Boro??!! (Although as I am now older and wiser I can see that it was an immediate £1 million plus profit)

Next, we try to sell Benito Carbone to Boro, but it breaks down. Ok, this was only two years ago, but still waters run deep and I'm still thinking of Boro as the Arch enemy 12 years on!

Then possibly out best player at the time, Dean Windass, gets sold to Boro for a ridiculously knock down price. It made me shiver seeing him running around in a Boro shirt, but it doesn't end there. Beni is now going to be joining him. The problem is, that when a city player goes to join another team, be it on loan or permanently, I tend to support that team when they are on TV. What am I going to do now??!!

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate Boro - I just can't forgive them for the playoff defeat and making me cry. Hopefully Boro get relegated this season and next season we can put the ghost to rest and beat them in the playoffs (that's providing we don't go up automatically).

By the way, Robbie Blake was a closet Boro fan - maybe Nicky Law hates them too!!

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