|
 |
ONE WONDERS WHY 30-4-08
Udayan Mukherjee
One wonders why we keep doing it. It is a ritualistic torture that we put ourselves through that defies all logic.
If any of us had had any modicum of sense and logic, we would have joined the legions of schoolyard scabs who supported the big sides.
In my day it was Manchester United. Perhaps in yours it was Liverpool, Leeds or Nottingham Forest. In any case, they took the easy way out.
Guaranteed success when supporting a football team is something us Boro fans have never had to contend with and we probably won't contend with it for many a year to come.
As Boro fans, we revel in being, well, a little bit shit. I think our history smacks of a club that has never done as well as they should have done.
Some of the players we have had have been amongst the best that English, and indeed World, football has ever produced.
One is reminded of the hazy black and white reels of the likes of Hardwick and Mannion, of Clough and Camsell, of Souness and Hickton. The Holgate bouncing around as one pissed living, throbbing mass. Juninho sinking to his knees after 128 years of hurt.
Ladies and gentlemen, we live for the diamond among the rough. We live for the silly and improbable hope that the Boro will achieve that fairytale ending that seems to happen to everyone else.
Perhaps this is part of the romance of Middlesbrough Football Club. The far away fairytale allied to the darkly funny and peculiarly Teesside sense of humour that revels in the slightly inadequate.
I may be ill-qualified to talk about the chore that is supporting our club as I only started supporting the Boro in the halcyon days of the 1994-95 season. But I have been imbued with the deep sense of failure and broken promises by the older generations of followers. “The Boro will always let you down, son.”
Perhaps in my lifetime, I have been spoilt by bold statements of aiming for Europe and signings of superstars. Either way, every season now seems to have that universal hope that we might do alright.
Maybe we could do better than alright if we played our cards right and these overpaid cackchops stopped looking surly for more than a minute and put the round thing in the net thing.
I am genuinely not sure whether that sinking feeling I get when I watch the Boro now is something you get as you become older and more accustomed to the very soul of Planet Boro or whether, at the tender age of twenty-one, I am becoming a grumpy old gadgie who shouts guttural but incomprehensible things at the younger generation and drinks sherry out of a paper bag.
This might sound far too philosophical but are we doomed to be the star crossed nearly men for ever? Is it in our very DNA to be slightly too shit when it boils down to it? Is it, and does it, permeate from the stands in a sense of Teesside ‘Nothing will go quite right’ type transference?
To the sane man and to the outsider, what I have written is of course utter rubbish. How can the ethos of an area and the burden of history affect a bunch of surly looking cackchops with no historical or indeed emotional tie to this extension of Teesside pride?
And of course, they’d be right. The failures of past Boro teams and generation upon generation of disappointed Teessiders shouldn’t alter the playing ability of our current side.
For some reason though, it does.
The good news, however, is that Boro normally always deliver some kind of bright light at the end of the tunnel. They will, sooner or later, deliver the miniature victory that makes you proud to wear your Boro shirt away on holiday, for you to be able to wear it as a badge of pride again.
This is the reason why most of us will again renew our season tickets and carry on doing so until the day we die. We feel some kind of deep rooted attachment with something as abstract as a bunch of guys kicking a football around.
It is important to remember that in today’s disposable society. The ethos of our club and its heart should remain in the locality instead of us searching for doubloons in the pockets of a dodgy millionaire with a human rights record that would make Robert Mugabe look like Mary Poppins.
No, instead we are trying to do things the right way and will grow as a power in this League as time goes on.
I am not so dense not to recognise that today’s position is unacceptable. With the players that we have, we should not be nervously looking over our shoulders.
However, I do believe that with the right signings we can begin to make a name for ourselves in this League and start to deliver.
Ultimately, there are very few things that have the possibility of making us happy and sad like this team. It is the anticipation of the adrenaline rush of the highs that keep us coming back.
Maybe you’re like me and you’ll be coming back for years to come. Congratulations. You’re hooked. You’re a Boro junky.
That’s all Folks
Udayan Mukherjee
RETURN TO UDAYAN'S CORNER INDEX HERE
|
|
|
|
