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MIDDLESBROUGH v COVENTRY - BLAST FROM THE PAST II
Andrew Morgan
Coventry City 3-0 Middlesbrough, 28/12/1996
So the 1996-1997 season, the season that promised so much yet delivered so heart-breakingly little. By Christmas of that year we were already emotionally exhausted - we had done okay in the League up to now but the wheels were started to come off pretty badly at this point. November was characterised by a long line of defeats and the 5-1 mauling we had received at Anfield a fortnight prior to this game had drained us all of our energy. We had beaten Everton on Boxing Day 4-2 but that only really papered over the cracks rather than smoothed anything down. And of course the week previously we had failed to turn up at Ewood Park. Our squad, like our confidence, was depleted. We expected little from Highfield Road because we never get anything there and we were playing like guff - conceding goals for fun. Sound familiar? At least in this season we tried.
I was at home that day, forgoing the away day for some reason or another. In fact it had been snowing that day and the roads were a nightmare, with ice everywhere. Plus I had some Physics project to do with my good friend Muller, who was coming around to help me make a parachute (I was fourteen incidentally, if you want to place my age). Now, what must be understood is that Muller was not his real name - no he was a freak of nature in football circles as he went to my school but supported Villa - despite no attachment to Birmingham whatsoever. He always claimed he liked their keeper, and as a keeper himself, it seemed to stand up. In some form of logic anyway. I think he was a Villa glory supporter, if such a thing can exist.
Either way, Muller were the sponsors of Villa at that time (if you care to remember), hence the nickname. Shame it doesn't happen now really, I'd like to see names like Pipex, EWS and 888.com grace the playgrounds of the country to denote a kid's football allegiance. Thankfully ntl no longer sponsor Newcastle - after all, no one likes being called cunts, no matter how accurate a description it might be. Plus we can't let kids hear those words can we? Sit down, I said, sit down. NO standing in the stadium. And stop smoking, eating and singing as well. We've got enough to do in standing and watching this angry fan run over to the manager's dugout and throw something in his general direction to be concerned with the likes of you. Just sit down and be quiet. No, over there in the corner. No there. Good boy...
Anyway, I digress. So my mate came round and we were busy cutting bits of string and plastic bags to make a parachute to investigate some physical law or something. We had the match on the radio, the dulcet tones of Brownlee echoing through the house when my mate noticed the pyjamas on the floor that I had forgotten to hide (I have since matured into boxers for all those who care about my nightwear situation) and started taking the piss out of my 'funky PJ's'. They did look like mechanic's overalls admittedly but picking them up and waving them in my face was going a bit too far I felt. I groaned, hoping that as it was a week before we went back to school it wouldn't be remembered by the time we returned. After all, it'd hardly make the girls salivate with desire to find out I looked like a scrubbed down grease-monkey when I slept. Unfortunately, it wasn't forgotten. Bugger.
We lost 3-0. I remember Brownlee's disconsolate voice, Bernie's realism and my mate relentlessly taking the piss out of me. This continued when we went back to school, with us all revelling in the fact we were bottom of the League by singing 'we are bottom of the league' over and over at break time. Anyway, I ushered my mate out around the sixtieth minute, parachutes made and with him getting on me tits. Either that or he had to go home for his tea - this was nine years ago people, how do you expect me to remember detail like that?! It was then my mother said we could give him a lift so I had to go pelting after him as he walked home - only to slip on the ice and gash my leg up pretty badly. Thankfully my neighbour, who was on his way out in his car said he would tell my mate, which he did. Thus my mate came back and started laughing at me more when he saw the blood spewing out of my leg and through the hole in my jeans. Anyway we dropped him off and I listened to the last ten minutes of the game sat in the bath picking dirt out of the remnants of my knee and feeling very sorry for myself. Things looked very bleak indeed.
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