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NEVER A BAD SEASON 8-5-08
Toby Higgins
Petrol to Leicester: £40
Taxi to Nottingham: £120
Entrance to club: £9
Being able to reassure yourself that, after a season of being knocked, football in this country has still got it: Priceless.
I’ll keep the foreword to this short. A mate of mine since we were "young’n’s" is going to live and study in America for a full twelve months without returning.
He studies at Leicester University so six of us piled down there to send him off in the drunken fashion that has become more a way of life than a social passtime.
The plan was to spend Friday night in Leicester and Saturday in Nottingham. Anyone who keeps even a slight eye on the Football League tables might have an idea where this is going.
We were in Nottingham the night Forest had been promoted. The mighty Forest, former champions of England and Europe, have recently floundered in the bowels of the country’s football hierarchy.
On Saturday, they confirmed a triumphant return to English football's second tier and to every Forest fan in Nottingham, the good times were back.
By contrast, we spent Sunday afternoon in a pub in the centre of Leicester. Flocks of fans arrived before their big game at soon-to-be Premiership side, Stoke City.
The Foxes simply had to equal the result of Southampton to survive the drop to the third tier of English football for the first time in their history. The 0-0 result was enough to see Stoke promoted but Nigel Pearson’s Southampton beat Sheffield United 3-2 to keep the Saints afloat. In the process, they sunk Leicester.
Oh, how different the mood was. The previous night in Nottingham had seen fans, and indeed tens of players, bouncing around the city in hysterical jubilation.
In Leicester on Sunday, a sombre mood of disappointment and frustration swept through the streets. The fans wondered how a team who beat Boro at Hillsborough to win the League Cup in 1997 had, eleven years later, endured a season which saw them use forty-four players in their first team under the command of four different managers, and sunk to their lowest ever league position.
I feel great compassion for the Leicester fans and congratulated many a Forest fan on Saturday. However, as a neutral to what was happening, I felt great.
Every football club has highs and lows. This is true no matter what level they are at, how much money they’ve got or how glistening a history lies behind them.
It’s the passion and emotion of the game which inspires us all to sacrifice time and money in the hope that one day, the good times will be back.
Then there’s the great anomaly of the Boro. There’s a philosophy which suggests you don’t know you’re at the top until you’re coming down and that you don’t know you’re at the bottom until you start coming back up. I think where Boro are on this journey needs some clarification.
I’m bored of hearing that this has been a bad season because it’s simply not true.
A quiet season? Yes.
After the Cardiff horror, a disappointing season? Certainly.
Having not scored more than two goals in a game, an unexciting season? Pretty much.
But a bad season? Never.
At the start of every season, around sixty percent of the teams in the Premier League have the overriding aim of staying in the division.
For the newly promoted teams, this is their only aim. How often do we here managers declaring before a ball has even been kicked that they’d bite your hand off for seventeenth place?
The others - such as Fulham, Reading, Bolton and ourselves - might just hope for a little more. A good cup run, beating one of the "Big Four", hammering a few teams four and five nil, a good couple of away days and maybe even sneaking a run at the top eight.
But all of that comes second to keeping the team in the Premiership.
Next Sunday night, ask fans of Derby, Fulham, Birmingham, Reading, Sunderland, Wigan and Bolton if they think they’ve had a bad season. Three of them will say they have. The rest will not.
This is why I’m a tad bemused to hear fans reckoning that we’ve had a bad season. We haven’t been in the bottom three since before Christmas and have only ever really flirted with the bottom three sporadically.
It has not been a good season by far but it would be wrong to call it a bad one when looking at the grand scheme of things.
Sometimes a little look at our club, the resources we have and who we are really competing with in this League wouldn’t go amiss.
Southgate is improving – even if sometimes it feels like he takes one step forward and two back. It can’t be easy being a rookie manager in the top flight (this is something that Southgate has professed himself), particularly when your predecessor is the club's most successful manager ever.
But the points Southgate made in the press conference after the win over Portsmouth show his football intelligence.
He has waited until Premiership safety has been confirmed before telling his squad in no uncertain terms that they are not as good as they think they are and are certainly not good enough for him.
His acknowledgements that his ‘open-door’ policy hasn’t worked and that he will change things for next season show that he has ideas of how to improve things.
Already in his managerial career, Southgate has had the knack of impressing me just when I began to doubt him.
His most recent post-match comments mean that while this season will be quickly forgotten, planning for next season is already well underway and has been for months.
The summer shopping will, as always, provide excitement and the European Championships mean we can all do our own little bit of scouting.
It would also be wrong to forget that Southgate started the last major international tournament as a pundit and finished it as our manager. This is testimony to how quickly and how much he has learned in such a short space of time. And in that time, we have still remained a Premier League side.
Let’s make no mistake about it, the aim for next season is the same as this – Premiership survival. Anything else on top of that is a bonus.
Maybe we’ve been spoiled of late with our fantastic European Cup nights and other such glory. We are more than capable of staying up and if we entertain fans next season whilst doing so, it will be another solid season.
And if it isn’t and we end up having a ‘bad season’, just remember that the Boro will still be there and we will support them no matter which league we end up in.
Finally, let me thank everyone who has read the Rockcliffe Files this season and for your continued support and comment. I look forward to writing for you again in August.
Same time next season…
Up the Boro
RETURN TO THE ROCKLIFFE FILES INDEX HERE
A GUARANTEED PROFIT OF AT LEAST £41.00 ON THE UEFA CUP FINAL
Did you know that it is possible to win money on Wednesday evening's Uefa Cup Final between Rangers and Zenit St Petersburg, whatever the result?
The game kicks off at 7.45pm and we can guarantee you a profit of at least £41.00, whatever the result of the match. All you have to do is follow the simple instructions below and then sit back and enjoy the game. At full-time (ninety minutes), you will be at least £41.00 better off, whatever the result of the match.
We must point out that if you want to take this bet, you should do it now because if the odds change, then the figures here will be invalidated. If they have changed, let us know and we will rework the bet for you.
You can still do this if you have a Betfair account but your overall profit will be reduced by £25.00 as you won't receive the £25.00 cashback as an existing account holder.
If you are unsure about this bet, you are most welcome to call us on 01642 223229 and we will help you as much as we can.
We're going to lay out a total of £80.00 on the Rangers v Zenit St Petersburg match and we will collect £122.63 if Rangers win, £123.90 if Zenit St Petersburg win and £121.00 if it's a draw. That's a minimum profit of 51%, a much higher interest rate than you will get in any high street bank.
Here's how it's done. Just follow these simple instructions.
1. Open an account with Coral. It is really important that you enter the bonus code of CORALTD when prompted. This is to ensure that you receive your bonus.
Open an account with Betfair. It is really important that you enter the promotional code of BFB425 when prompted. This is to ensure that you receive your bonus.
Open an account with Extrabet
 .
This shouldn't take you any longer than a few minutes.
2. Make the following deposits into your new accounts.
Deposit £20.00 into your new Coral account.
Deposit £26.00 into your new Betfair account.
Deposit £34.00 into your Extrabet account.
3. Now make the following bets.
Place £20.00 on the draw at 3.20 (11/5) with Coral.
Coral will now add a £10.00 bonus to your account. Place this on the draw as well. You will now have £30.00 riding on the draw.
Back Rangers with £26.00 at 3.9 (14/5) (or higher if available) with Betfair.
Place £34.00 on Zenit St Petersburg at 2.13 (11/10) with Extrabet .
Extrabet match your first bet up to £25 so you will now have £59.00 riding on Zenit St Petersburg.
The £25.00 matched bet will not show in your account but you can read all about how it works on the Extrabet site. It's the purple box that says '£25 FREE BET FOR NEW CUSTOMERS' on the top right hand side. Click here to visit the Extrabet site.
If you are unsure about placing these bets, please feel free to mail us or call us on 01642 223229 and we will talk you through it, no problem at all. There is no such thing as a stupid question.
You have temporarily laid out a total of £80.00 on the Rangers v Zenit St Petersburg match. I stress, temporarily... Now sit back, crack a beer open and enjoy the match.
4. Here's what happens at the end of the game.
If it's a draw, you collect £121.00. That's £96.00 from Coral plus a £25.00 cashback from Betfair.
If Rangers win, you collect £122.63. That's £97.63 from Betfair plus a £25.00 cashback from Betfair.
If Zenit St Petersburg win you collect £123.90. That's £98.90 from Extrabet plus a £25.00 cashback from Betfair.
5. This means that the worst case scenario on the Rangers v Zenit St Petersburg match is a draw and you make £41.00 profit. However, if Rangers win you make £42.63 and if Zenit St Petersburg win you make £43.90. That's a minimum profit of 51%, a much better rate of interest that you would get at any high street bank or building society.
6. It is absolutely vital that you click on the links on this page to open the accounts with the two bookies and enter the correct bonus codes or you may not qualify for the bonuses.
Also, before you place your bets, you should check that the odds haven't changed. If they have, let us know by mail or phone us on 01642 223229 and we will rework the bet for you.
Please feel free to contact us or phone us on 01642 223229 if you have any questions at all about this bet and we will help you as much as we can.
Please note that the bonuses are valid for new customers only so if you already have an account with one or more of the bookies we are using, you won't be able to do this. If that is the case, mail us or phone us on 01642 223229 and we'll create an alternative bet for you using different bookies.
This method of betting was used very successfully during the 2006 World Cup and you can read all about how it was done right here.
We guarantee this bet
It's understandable that some people will not believe that it is possible to do this. "What's the catch?" I hear you asking. My answer to that question is that we have been publishing arbitrage bets for four seasons now and literally hundreds of people have profited from following the advice on these pages.
Only twice has our refund guarantee been triggered and that was when we did all the figures wrong and sent refunds out to those who had followed our advice and made a small loss.
Our refund guarantee works like this. If this bet doesn't work like we say it will and you end up out of pocket, we will refund your losses. Simple as that.
That means that you simply cannot lose on this, whatever happens and even if we messed up the numbers.
The only stipulation here is that you must click on the links on this page to be eligible for the refund guarantee, not that you'll be needing to claim anyway. Just enjoy the profit and stay posted for many more of these throughout the season.
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