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EUROPEAN TIES - BLAST FROM THE PAST II
More games, more memories and this time not a Lazio in sight.
Steve Goldby
Villareal 2-0 Middlesbrough, 25/11/2004
Although there was no great requirement for suntan lotion or shades in Spain during this November week, the cooling drinks still flowed aplenty in an atmosphere of pure carnival proportions.
We arrived in Valencia on the Tuesday afternoon after a short stop over in Majorca and as we waited for our connecting flight, I realised that this was the very place that Cloughie celebrated his first championship as his team sunbathed on the beach. A good omen perhaps? Unfortunately not.
Valencia is one hell of a beautiful place when you reach the city centre. Although the suburbs do not exactly fill you with inspiration, once you escape the rough end of town, you simply cannot help but be captivated by the Olde Worlde Mediterranean charm of this great Spanish city.
And as early as the Tuesday morning, the many bars and cafes had become slowly inhabited with Boro fans, all in good spirits and all enjoying this glamorous away day to the full.
It was really great to see many familiar faces and acquaintances when we were so far away from home and as the day wore on, the numbers of red shirts increased as the embryonic pre-match atmosphere crackled in the air.
Come the Wednesday and there seemed to be a group of Boro fans on every street corner. Keith Lamb had been sighted in O'Finnegan's Irish Bar and some team members had been seen perusing the Valencian stores. And as I crossed a busy main road on the outer centre, a big Merc pulled up at the lights and there was no mistaking the driver. The Tinkerman himself, Claudio Ranieri looked straight at me and I wished that I had had a Boro scarf with me to wave back at him.
Apparently, the team were due to travel to Villareal to train early that evening but this session was not accessible to the public. Consequently, the only thing left to do was to stay in Valencia and attend the Boro party in the city square.
Come match day, Valencia train station started to fill up with Teessiders as early as eleven o'clock, despite Villareal being a mere hour away. There were plenty of trains to take us to the Madrigal Staduim but a few worried faces had noticed that the last train back to Valencia departed half an hour before the game ended. There were no organised bus trips back to Valencia that evening and a taxi fare was rumoured to be in the region of eighty euros. This was looking like it could be tricky.
It is probably evens as to whether it was the taxi companies that made the biggest killing on the night, or whether the bartenders just pipped them but both must have believed that Christmas had come early for them. One discerning observer noted that the place was 'a shithole that looked just like Grangetown' and apart from the lack of tapas bars in that forsaken part of Teesside, he was not far wrong at all.
But did that stop the Red Army from making this an unforgettable occasion? No, sir! To say that we took over the town that day is no exaggeration and once again, a fine example was set by every one of the four thousand strong Teesside contingent who had come to cheer on the lads in their quest for early qualification to the knockout stage.
Some of the locals joined the party in the square close to the ground and whoever poured washing up liquid into the fountain created a scene of great hilarity to rival only that of the bloke in drag who took great delight in accusing all passers by of looking at his arse. I can assure you that nobody was and if he didn't expect stares when attired in that manner, then he should have stayed in the fountain and carried on swimming through the foam.
In the stadium it appeared that the Boro fans almost matched the home supporters in numbers and if that estimate is slightly out, then I can at least say for definite that we outmatched them in volume a few times over.
Not that we really had that much to shout about. I am loath to criticise Steve McClaren in any way but I found myself thinking that the tactics employed in the first half may have cost us the match. We were so much better when we play a free flowing attacking formation instead of trying to match or negate the opposition. This was unfortunately proven in the second half when Mark and Jimmy made a very welcome appearance and we looked like we may be able to turn the tide our way but in reality, Villareal's confidence was well up after the first forty-five and there was no way back for us.
So we lost our unbeaten European record fairly and squarely but after Lazio's draw with Partisan, there was no real reason to be disconsolate about the situation. We had done ourselves proud and were still hanging on in there. It was a shame however that this day was to be marred by over-zealous policing generated through genuine confusion about leaving the stadium after the final whistle. I still do not know whether anything has been done about the events after the game suffice to say that the Boro fans were treated abysmally by the Spanish authorities. It left a sour taste in the mouth after what had been a day played out in the friendliest of spirits. I just hope that justice was eventually served.
Middlesbrough Red & White Sox
Middlesbrough 2-1 GAK (agg. 4-3) UEFA Cup last 32 second leg, 24/02/2005
After watching the group matches on TV in various pubs across Hampshire I made the trip up to God's country to watch Boro in Europe...Boro in Europe.It still hasn't sunk in.
If you remember this time last year there was a little bit of snow kicking around, so we (me & my mam) set off on a Wednesday morning, she insisted on bringing a flask of soup "In case we get stuck in a snow drift"
"Aye mam," I responded, "We often get them on the M25"
So off we go expecting snow all the way. First place we saw it was on the A66 nineteen miles from Boro!
Onto the match itself...my step brother is in a wheel chair and he got me a ticket as his 'helper', which meant I could sit right at the front of the stand spitting distance away from the pitch (thank god we weren't playing Bolton). Now maybe I've lived down south for too long but fucking hell was it freezing that night! I was sat there in a pair of jeans, two T-shirts, a jumper, my Boro shirt over my jumper, a coat, scarf, hat, gloves & thick socks. I looked like some kind of overdressed scarecrow, and I'm sat there in all these clothes shaking with cold :o(
Game was shite, we won 2-1 no idea who scored for us, I was so cold I just wanted to go home...I think it was during the second hailstone shower, which we couldn't move out of the way of because of my step brother's wheelchair when he turned to me and said "Next time you come to watch a game, make sure it's a fucking warm one".
After that I took to watching in the pub again!
Smogmonster
Sporting Lisbon 1-0 Middlesbrough (agg. 4-2), UEFA Cup last sixteen, second leg, 17/03/2005
The trip to Lisbon was a memorable one for many reasons.
We arrived the day before the match to do a bit of sightseeing and headed to the coastal town of Cascais. Weather was glorious and the people were welcoming. At one point, on hearing we were from Middlesbrough, the owner of the bar we were sat outside dashed off on his motorbike to return minutes later in a Boro top, quite a nice touch considering he was a Porto fan.
The following day was spent in the bars surrounding the main square with much jovial goings on. After a few Sagres it was time to head to the stadium (in hindsight maybe we should have headed down there a little earlier) where Boro fans were queuing en masse to get through one gate with only a few minutes to go before kick off. As time went on and the closer it got to kick off the queue to get in showed no sign of decreasing. There was a slight surge of fans as they became increasingly impatient and with that out came the batons of the local plod. As far as I am aware no one was injured but it could have been a lot messier no thanks to the baton wielding militia. Inside the ground things were a lot more civilised with fans swapping scarves, etc. I too swapped a scarf but drew the line at swapping my Boro shirt for a black t-shirt which some cheeky Lisbonite was hoping to achieve.
It was a tall order the team had ahead of them with Lisbon being three away goals to the good but the fans remained optimistic of overturning the result. To be fair I think Boro played a lot better than they did in the home leg but unfortunately failed to score.
After the game there was only one thing for it and that was to meet up with the rest of the Boro fans, so we headed off to an Irish bar called Henesseys where we drank the night away and chatted about what might have been. It may have been wiser to retire to the hotel but then after all this was my first jaunt into Europe and I was savouring every moment.
Next morning I awoke to a stinking hangover and the realisation that we only had an hour before our flight was about to take off. We arrived with about thirty minutes to spare but with the airport in total disarray due to a problem with the luggage conveyors. There were what seemed to be thousands of people going nowhere fast and we were soon to join them as our flight took off without us. Not to worry though there was another flight leaving for Heathrow a few hours later. A different airport from which we took off from but at least it was in England!
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