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LILLIBET M'S MONTHLY OUTLOOK JANUARY 06
"There'll come a time when all of this is over
Something else will grow and take it's place ."
"Don't Hurt Yourself" by Marillion from the Marbles album.
Well this has been a difficult season to date. It looks like there's been a bit of an identity crisis brewing and everyone around here is out of sorts.
At the start of the new year nothing seems too different on the surface, everyday life carries on as before. You know how it is when everything's really busy, but you just carry on and consequently our current position looks even more bewildering? You don't always notice nor have time to look back and see what's changed. It's just endless toil. Thankfully after a couple of weeks of stuffing myself like a pig over the festive season and watching every single Good Life episode on DVD a small amount of clarity has been found.
We started this season on a high after our highest ever Premiership place and looking forward to another season of European football after qualifying through the league. I had the commentary of the Big Aussie's heroic save set as my ring tone for four weeks after the end of the season. We felt confident and happy and not really that worried that our new signings had malaria, suspensions and big bandages round their heads. My biggest concern was what to replace Bolo Zenden with for my phone wallpaper. Tori Amos since you ask, with Franck Queudrue as wallpaper.
I woke up on the first game of the season feeling sick. Nothing new there I know, but it was a different type of nausea. Hindsight tells me that it was fear that we were about to be exposed as impostors to the Champions League challenge but then again that could be just too much Christmas pudding. There was a definite feeling of unease though and this was only intensified at my first match of the season, the dreadful drubbing by Charlton. Something just didn't sit right and it wasn't the concourse TVs with their news of Steve McClaren declaring that he has all the right credentials to be the next England manager, 'cos he probably has. It was the going through the motions response of the team, as if a hand had been forced somewhere.
Having said that, the next game I attended, at Villa Park, was much more promising. Even though that last minute conceded goal has started to look ominous in the light of subsequent games, it was important that the Boro faithful got behind the manager and the team to show support as for the first time Steve Mac's reign had been challenged in a major way and there had already been enough apple-carts upset.
What was really noticeable was the complete change of attitude towards the European games, and I was quite mystified. In just a few months interest seemed to have been severely depleted on Teesside and from my standpoint in football exile I couldn't understand. I can't believe that society is so fast-paced that excitement over something like European campaigns for the first time in the club's history could be over in one season.
So I started to think that what we were in fact looking at was a shift in identity - not a crisis, just a re-shaping. The defining qualities and identity of any decade does not really get going until the middle years - think about it and you'll see what I mean. 2005 is a pivotal year and hindsight will soon enough provide explanations but for now it's speculation - are Boro going to continue to punch above their weight in aspirations and actions only to end in disappointment all round or are we trading success today for influence tomorrow?
I predict that there we are at a kind of tipping point - for the club and for the Premiership in general. We are witnessing falling gates across the Prem as a whole, not just us. We are seriously looking at the possibility of not being able to populate an international team of any renown in the next generation - the recent fielding of a first team with not a single English player by Arsenal will not be a phenomenon before too long unless things change.
Our youth team are becoming legendary not just for their potential, but for their ability to hold their own in the first team. The investment that the club put into the youngsters is looking likely to pay off in the future for both club and country. It just might not be our time at the moment.
Steve Mac is getting so much shit piled on him, as are several members of the squad, and whilst I understand perfectly the frustration of the fans - god knows I've actually shed real tears after some recent matches - but witch hunting is simply not the answer. Times change, life shifts and what worked in the past will not necessarily work in the future but I firmly believe that this does not always mean that the manager or whoever is the most obvious target should take sole responsibility.
In addition I believe that it is unrealistic to keep on assuming that certain players do not have loyalty to the club cos they move on after a couple of years. Get with the programme- the concept of a job for life is no longer with us and most of us change our employers several times over the course of our career- that does not mean that we don't put in the effort. This is intensified in football, and the norm - and don't even get me started on the statistical likelihood of getting the sack if you are a football manager! If I was a player I would feel justified in feeling mightily pissed off with this divisive attitude which can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
So I will not be joining in the boos or other vilifications of the team and manager. I know what it is like to feel that everyone is against you, especially the people who should be for you. I know what it is like to try your best only to come under personal attack. I know what it is like for people to have such short memories that they start howling for blood after misdemeanours that are totally disproportionate. I know what it is like to take a chance only to fail because of so many behind the scenes factors that could not be disclosed and having to suffer the subsequent kicking.
This does not mean that I think the current state of affairs is acceptable - far from it. However apportioning blame at the level that I have heard is excessive in my opinion and a gut reaction to the immediate hurt of recent events.
Bottom line - LIFE IS NOT FAIR. Changes in the game and wider society as a whole can either go in your favour or not. This time we are out of favour. Time to regroup, and move on.
Second from bottom line - the secret of happy endings is knowing when to stop telling the story. We will rise again - could be this year, could be a while. But my prediction is that our young players will be a major part not just of our regeneration but of the wider success of English football.
My final thought is that no matter what the truth is about dressing room unrest or poor tactics or unsettled players or mutinies, I predict that the details will eventually be forgotten and this period will be remembered as the seeds of a beginning of a new era. And, whether he is sacked or not, Steve McClaren will reclaim his place in history as the manager who brought us our first major trophy and European football to Teesside.
It might get worse before it gets better - but Boro will prevail. We always do.
Until next month.
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