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BORO'S FACTS FIGURE 20-9-06
Peter Holmes
Wonders never cease, my Beloved Boro live again on Foxsports TV for the third game running and, the second Saturday night on the bounce in the prime 10pm slot, which in my experience is a veritable Antipodean TV record.
Yes, I know all the usual suspects were lined up for heretical battles on the Sabbath but, I expected the live game to be the red rose head to head between Everton and Wigan. A surprise then plus a bonus all the same, that's if you'd call any game with Bolton at their home ground a bonus.
After last week's fighting display, I watched with unusually flat expectation as Woody proudly led the boys out at the sparsely populated Reebok. I got one of those weird premonitions as the team lists were flashed up, I thought this game has got draw written all over it and a nil all draw at that.
Now normally a point at the Trotters would be very welcome but on conclusion I can't help thinking we let that game slip away and should've boarded the bus back to Teesside with a Yakubu strike in the bag and all three points on the table.
Overall, the game was generally forgettable, but in context of our stoic revival we've got to be happy with the team display as we actually played throughout the ninety odd minutes as a unit and everybody pulled their weight.
Ex-Arsenal and ex-every bugger on the planet, the great sulk Anelka made his much vaunted return to the Premiership for Bolton and was put into the superbly composed Jon Woodgate's arse pocket and stayed there for most of the game. Not a bad start back in the top level of the English game for the ex-Galactico and in recognition Woody has made the BBC sport website 'team of the week' for two consecutive weeks running. Composed and very classy international form from a player who would look totally at ease plying his cultured trade by the side of John Terry methinks.
In the end reflecting on what I saw during the Bolton game, I've got to agree with Gareth Southgate, that with a bit more belief we'd have come away with three.
The fact that there were six English lads in the starting eleven for Boro was a very heartening sign for the future of our club, but the lack of English lads in the opposing team, with twelve different nationalities plying their trade at Bolton, was ominous for the English game. Big Sam being pushed by some as England manager, what a laugh, he'd be well buggered because he couldn't pick dodgy named has-been foreigners.
Seriously though, I found it particularly galling that for the second week running our EPL opponent chose to field a team lacking any English majority in it's playing ranks. At least Bolton had one Englishman in scouser Kevin Nolan and a taffy in Gary Speed with a couple more English lads on the bench. Much, much, better than last week's opponents Arsenal who had no Brits whatsoever in the starting eleven, never mind English lads, and only boy wonder Theo Walcott gets an English look in, but very rarely and usually belatedly as an impact player off the bench.
Here's a fact that ain't good news for the English game as a whole. In our five fixtures so far this term in the EPL, we have only lined up against sixteen Englishmen in total at the kick-off, while Boro average five English lads on the pitch at the kick off for each game.
A very unhealthy and damning statistic that has to change for the good of the game in this and many other countries. FIFA act now instead of producing only rhetoric!
Talking of statistical facts and figures, I often raid a few useful websites to cross-check information for this article. No you pervy buggers, not those websites! I have unearthed one I reckon is better than most.
Here's some interesting guff that you fellow Smogs may like to peruse that came from an excellent statistical website called 'The English Football Archive'. There must be a legion of anorak wearing geeks with jotters and biros sitting collating every figurative aspect of the English game because this site has the lot.
For instance;
Did you know that our Beloved Boro sit in 13th on a table collated of the all time EPL averages, sit at 20th place in the all time historical top division table and in the all time trophies table sit 34th?
It's a totally fascinating site to visit and there is even a table which shows our overall compiled record against every other club we've ever played against at every level of English football. So, get that smelly yellow anorak out of the cupboard, borrow yer grannies horn-rimmed geggs, tuck yer jeans into yer socks and get logged on to Middlesbrough.
There's even a page on Middlesbrough Ironopolis which shows you how in depth they have researched the history books of Association football. In last weeks article I made mention of wanting to play Stockport County on a regular basis, If you are wondering what all that was about and why?
Well in the overall chart of home and away fixtures our combined record against them is:
P-10 W-7 D-3 L-0 F-24 A-6!
Come on Stockport get into the EPL and when Sunlan come back that's twelve points guaranteed every season!
As you surf deeper into the site you unearth stuff like the most successful manager in English football, the avuncular Bob Paisley, who had a phenomenal record with nineteen top flight trophies in the time he was in charge at Anfield. That amazing figure included six English league first-division championships and three European cups.
He was also 'manager of the year' six times including four years on the bounce. Suck on that Fergie!
There are pages on the England national team, Darlington, Hartlepool United, Accrington Stanley, in fact on all 131 teams that have kicked bags of leather air in the English Football Association.
There's an excellent abbreviated history of English football which contains the original ten rules formulated under the title of; "Rules for the Simplest game", which were issued by one J.C. Thring in 1862. It shows that they had unerring foresight into the future birth of one Norman Hunter and Roy Keane, with rule three being; "Kicks must be aimed only at the ball".
It's all fascinating and clever stuff and there are plenty of historical data pages and some stuff on English clubs in Europe. There's a list of UEFA cup winners and even one of the past winners of the now defunct and ancient Inter-City Fairs Cup.
Well lo and behold there, under the banner of 1969 were the Jardies, winners over Ujpest Doza.
Amazing, so I clicked on the link and my screen filled up with grey cobwebs and my computer coughed violently and spewed out mountains of dust...
Enough said,
ErimusRed.
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