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MANCHESTER UNITED v MIDDLESBROUGH BLAST FROM THE PAST
It's hard to think of a match against Manchester United causing so much indifference than the one we face on Monday evening at Old Trafford. United are no longer in line for the League title and we have bigger fish to fry in Europe.
However if the last ten seasons are anything to go by, even this game with nothing riding on it could still be a classic. We've been a bogey team for the Salford Reds in recent years and with our present unpredictability just about anything could happen. Just read your memories for evidence of that.
Toby Higgins
Manchester United 1-1 Middlesbrough, 03/10/2004
Undoubtedly, we have become Manchester United's bogey team over recent years. We've won at Old Trafford several times, and at the Riverside too. Plus we've even knocked them out of the odd cup along the way. This memory however is one that I'll never ever forget. Not many away fans can come away from Old Trafford gutted with a point, but on Sunday 3rd October 2004, that's exactly what happened.
Just three days after playing our first EVER European tie on foreign soil, away at Banik Ostrava, (a reminder of just how far we've come, I feel) our heavily, and I mean heavily, weakened side took on the great Manchester United at Old Trafford in front of what was at the time a Premiership record attendance.
Me, my brother, a couple of mates and a mate's Dad set off to Old Trafford on what was a bleak Sunday morning. The journey itself passed with little incident, and while we spoke aloud of a famous victory, inside we knew that out squad was weak and our chances slim. It wasn't until the team was read out that we fully knew the mountain we had to climb.
We stood anxiously before the game, still talking up our chances and reading the programme when I glanced up at the scoreboard to see the names Downing, Morrison, Parnaby, and McMahon, I honestly thought that the board was simply showing our squad members. It was only when the word 'substitutes' appeared, followed by the names Nash, Cooper, Taylor, Doriva and Graham, that what I had been reading was in fact the starting line up. Shit.
From the moment the clock started counting at Old Trafford that afternoon, I couldn't wait for it to stop. I even felt a three or four nil defeat would be OK, considering the circumstances. The first five minutes passed, then the next five, and the five after that, and suddenly, half an hour had gone with the scores level.
It was just after half an hour, that I celebrated the most I have ever celebrated any goal ever (until Massimo against Basle, of course) Morrison jinked past Heinze, whipped in a ball that Beckham would have been proud of, and there was Downing, labelled the next Ryan Giggs, to smash it into the roof of the net.
From where we were, about as far away from the goal as you could get, the ball took an age to finally hit the net. As Morrison's ball fizzed across, the ground fell silent, almost in disbelief, and when it finally went in, I struggled to breathe I was screaming so loud. I had to grab hold of my brother as well, to stop him falling forwards into the hundreds of other Boro fans jumping around like lunatics.
We hung on until the eighty-first minute when Alan Smith levelled, but it was our day, and McClaren's 'sink or swim' policy was rewarded in emphatic fashion. That was the day Downing, Morrison, Parnaby and McMahon came of age, and not one of them has looked back since. What a day, what a result, what a team.
Lemontop
Manchester United 2-1 Middlesbrough, 11/11/2000
The current Mrs Top is a strong sort: no messing about, doesn't like football and this bird's not for turning. This is fine - indeed I've given up trying - plus I'm happy to let her watch Charmed on a Thursday night if it requires me to watch our UEFA games in the pub. However, a previous lady friend wanted to give the whole football thing a go and, given that a certain Mr Beckham played for United, she agreed to come with me to see her first ever Boro game, at Old Trafford, in November 2000.
Suffice to say, she hated it. She wasn't too impressed with the trend of the day- someone randomly shouting "Who let the dogs out?" to be followed by various drunken 'barks'. I think you had to be there.
She was shit scared when I went loopy shits as Karembeu scored in the first half, and she insisted on leaving early 'to beat the traffic', or, as I suspected, 'to get me away from this hell hole now'. Sadly by then United had scored twice in five minutes and I was too fucked off to care. A day to forget, and come to think of it, a bird with which to do likewise.
The next year I celebrated my birthday with an all day party thing with mates in London, plus England to beat Wales in the rugby seemed infinitely more likely than Middlesboksic winning at Old Trafford. Sure enough we won the rugby, but I was pig sick when we'd/he'd won 1-0 and the best I could manage was mobile phone updates.
Happy days.
A Cam Goes Wandering
Manchester United 2-3 Middlesbrough, 19/12/1998
I've never actually been to Old Trafford but on the day of that famous 3-2 victory in '98 I was driving up to Scotland to see family in my Dad's car - it being far more powerful and more likely to make it to Scotland than my own.
Anyway listening to the ever nice Alan Green on Radio Five Live on the way up it was all about how Man Ure were totally dominating the game and what great football they were playing, despite the fact that we were 2-0 up at the time.
When Brian Deane scored to make it 3-0, I was just passing Dunbar on the A1 where there's a nasty corner. Through the euphoria, I nearly went straight on the corner. I corrected the car but then nearly hit a lorry, went up a grass verge and still didn't give a fuck...
Incidentally I didn't damage the car somehow, but that would have made a great insurance claim...
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