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DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN 9-2-06
There are words and phrases in the football language that gain an instant reaction, one's that can conjure up painful recollections and appear to hold no positive connotations. Words like relegation, a shudderingly taunting and vicious word that sends fear and apprehension through the ranks of the bravest of fans which causes their team to play like the ball is a rare novelty item.
It especially sends dread through the coffers of any revenue dependant boardroom. So that means all of them. The calculated future drop in revenue when Sky's filthy lucre comes off the black ink and compounding effect of that wage bill of premiership proportions turns the figures negative and the ink blood red. The effect on the bottom line can all but kill a club stone cold broke and virtually dead. Spiralling uncontrollably, rudderless into the doldrums of the Championship among hungry sharks circling for a feed on an ex-Premier League scalp.
As fans, you and I grimace and get dark and despondent at the thought of the nasty R word but if the worst comes to the worst, we handle it. Admittedly, not very gracefully as we curse and swear but eventually we grin and bare it uttering the Arnie phrase in plural; "We'll be back!"
On we forge, adjusting in the close season to the new enemies, then simply get on with supporting the only club we've ever really known and loved. The show must go on and as fans we are the stoic and true who will find some form of positive element like Monty Pythonites we; "Always look on the bright side of life!"
The dreaded drop, well sometimes these things are as inevitable as death and taxes, written in the fates of future. But when your team is plunged into that perilous precipitous position due to inept, heartless, spineless and continually gutless displays you expect the custodians of our realm, to react and act accordingly. At present, what should have happened has not and I question wether at this juncture of the season that it will, namely, the sacking of Steve McClaren and the announcement of a new manager.
Sadly, history is littered with examples of very poor decision making both on and off the field and it generally illustrates that the vanquished always seem to be badly effected by boardroom bungling and lack of direction. We are no better or worse in that regard.
When West Ham United were relegated in the 2002-03 season with that supposedly safe quotient of forty points - they actually gained 42 to be exact - they had a very good squad of future stars made up of Harry Redknapp's progeny. They were managed by a bloke, Glen Roeder, who was in my opinion vastly out of his depth and inept in terms of football management. The board at the Hammers held on to Roeder for far too long only giving the reins to the legendary Trevor Brooking as the fat scrubber passed wind and cleared her throat.
Sadly, there-in lies a comparison with the Boro I'm afraid, but presently the fat tart is still reading her sheet music so there is time to do something in our case.
We are presently making the same mistakes as the Hammers did that relegation season, exactly the same, with McClaren a parallel of Roeder. We are now down slumming among the dead men, with McClaren still at the helm. Sadly, that's where we will stay for the duration if we proceed on this present course as the manager has lost the team, he has lost the fans and very shortly he will lose his job.
I don't actually think so but live in optimistic eternal hope!
It's a massive understatement to say that something has to be done very soon, right now, not in March or God forbid April, when it will be too late. Learn from the lessons of our own Riverside EPL history, namely the Robson/ El Tel saga when the ex England manager saved our bollocks and he was in place at Christmas. The way I feel about McClaren now, is that Robson was actually the better manager of the two, but, it would be neck and neck for most scintillating post match interview (Yawn!) as both have the on camera presence of members of the charisma bypass society.
As you can see my euphoria of the last column has evaporated quicker than a tin full of meths in the midday sun and beating the Mackems has severely clouded my judgement, all because my heart is pierced by an arrow engraved with MFC. True love causes sense to abdicate as we all know.
Stating the raw and bleeding obvious, the truth is we are absolute shite, we are totally demoralised, we are heading for the ignominy of the Championship and the only positive thing would be getting rid of McClaren.
The answer to this conundrum is that we then institute my choice of Redcar's own Tony Mowbray to rebuild our Beloved in style, using the kids, the Yak and you lot to add some raw and raucous terrace passion. Fly me to the Moon version two.
I keep reading that Boro people are depressed, the fans are depressed, the area is depressed, McClaren's after game speech writer is so magnificently and obviously depressed. But, depression is an over-used term, we use it to describe all kinds of ills and ailments but as somebody who has suffered for the last two years from the dark disease I know what I am talking about.
When you are depressed you are in a spiral of extreme negativity and blackness that totally annuls your enjoyment of every aspect of your life, cold calculating thoughts appear in your head and your thought patterns are so disrupted that basically you have an extreme inability to function properly, especially at an emotional level.
One of the historical world's greatest ever leaders, Sir Winston Churchill, suffered from the disease. He succinctly described it as "the Black Dog" as he munched bulldog like on a cigar. It sums up the illness to perfection, coined in a phrase, a metaphor, as only a true genius can do.
Cut through the bullshit and explain it like it is.
With medication my own depression is on the wane and this insidious and life changing illness occasionally raises it's probing head somewhere inside my subconscious, niggling, nagging, slowly eating away at my positivity and focus.
So take it from me when I say that Middlesbrough Football Club 1986 and the legion of supporters across the globe are not in a state of depression because I know too well that when depressed you cannot single-handedly remove yourself from the condition you need help and a marvellous family helps in that regard.
We are the family. We, all of us who are the Boro, have control of the destiny of this great football club, great in the terms that it is ours. Not McClarens, not Keith Lamb's, and not even Steve Gibson's, even though he is a true diehard who had the financial ability, drive and good business sense to steer out great club into a new beginning.
The first step on our rebuilding after sacking McClaren and his boffin squad and after installing the Mogga squadron would be to eradicate the blight on the British game and our club in particular. Those monetary mercenaries are a disgrace, they come and go in the game like flies around a fresh dog turd. On most occasions they are no better than a local player and far less committed.
At least one of our international players has looked like a slovenly lazy couldn't care less soldier of fortune with no bullets in the barrel in recent matches. He is quite possibly the worst of a very long line of ordinary, over-rated, overpaid, overseas plonkers who have plundered our money. At least Ravanelli had the good grace to hit the sack on a regular basis. I would let his overpaid backside languish in the reserves and we'd see the effect on his demeanour then, as he will need first team football to stay in the World Cup squad. Hit the laid back boy where it will actually have some effect, either that, or take his camp bed off him because those forty five minute snoozes are beginning to wear thin.
Little Yin told me a story recently of Mark Viduka's Celtic days and how at half-time in a game against the lowly Inverness Caledonian Thistle, with ICT leading, the big man threw his boots across the dressing room interrupting John Barnes' gee up and refused to go out for the second half and buggered off home. This was on the back of his on/off transfer saga with Croatia Zagreb and his consequent mini holiday in Melbourne, instead of playing for the Hoops who'd just shelled out hard earned Scottish poonds for him. No wonder some of the Celtic and Leeds United faithful detest Viduka.
It particularly galls me that down here he's larded, oops sorry, lorded as one of the greatest players on the planet, as is Ponytail Kewell. But, it just shows you how the hackneyed and lazy ill-informed just troll out the same diatribe, a veritable spin session, to fool the punters who actually think the "V- Bomber" is brilliant.
Dukes has one kick in the game against Villa, McClaren substitutes him at the sixty minute mark so the defeat wasn't his fault. Have you ever wondered why McClaren regularly pulls Viduka off, rephrase required, substitutes him around the sixty minute mark without any form of complaint or grumble from the large one?
So faithful, get it out of your heads that we are depressed because we would be unable to have any effect on the future if depressed. We are betrayed and simply angry, annoyed and angst riddled at the malaise surrounding our Beloved. We have been there before but the spirit we have shown in the past and the lessons we learned then in far, far darker times can now be used to make sure that our great institution is not denigrated even further.
Now, we as a collective, have the power to overcome all odds and we need to do whatever it takes to get our group message across to the people who are the custodians of our faith. That message should be loud and unequivocally clear with no wandering off into the politics that tends to mire any issue these days in bureaucratic shite.
McClaren- your time is up. You have taken our club as far as your ability allows, so do the honourable thing and fall on your sword as you effectively are taking money, our money, under false pretences. We love this club. We work hard to support Boro and they are as much a part of our daily life as breathing. You have lost the players, they no longer play to your tune and your ideas are stale and falling on deaf ears. We are at crisis point and it is time for fresh blood, a new leader and a new future. This is required to energise Middlesbrough, not only as a football club but for the town and for the whole of Teesside's sake.
Mr Steven Gibson with all due respect Brother! We are in the here and now, so waiting until the end of the season isn't quite good enough.
You owe it to your people, to your Boro, to yourself because we have total faith in you as one of us, a true fan of the only club we've ever loved and ever wanted to love. We are suffering and hurting and do not want a repeat of history. You have the power and have our mandate and we urge you to use it, to wait any longer will send us into oblivion down among the dead men.
Enough said!
ErimusRed.
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