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THE LONG VIEW - THE ROCKY HORROR BORO SHOW 17-12-07
Steve Morley
Recent gritty displays have warmed the heart but it's still close to midnight and is there something evil lurking around the door?
As they say, a few weeks is a long time in football and the recent turnaround has been fairly dramatic. In the run up to the Reading game and despairing of truly awful performances, this is what I began writing for this sporadic and spasmodic column.
"Oh dear. The blood is seeping all over the floor, draining through the cracks in the boards, gathering in a softly swelling pool and then drip drip dripping with the regular rhythm of a slowly beating heart on to the Riverside centre circle.
A rust-coloured stain spreads out across the lush green turf and towards the four corners with the inexorable certainty of a cancerous disease, discolouring the vibrant green grass with the hue of inevitable death.
A wax-like figure, arms outstretched and with the vapid pallor of the living dead wanders aimlessly but with hollow-eyed menace, across the turf. The zombie-like creature looks skyward and raises its arms in slow motion as if an act of worship to a sinister horned deity.
But then before its arms are fully extended, in a contradictory gesture replete with feminine gentleness; it carefully brushes several strands of hair behind its ears. A cacophonous boom pierces the funereal silence: 'Woodgate. the f*****g centre forward. watch out.'.
Too late - the weekly horror is revisited."
Alright, I concede for a football column it's a little lyrical and somewhat dramatic (but only a bit).
However, in the prevous months, watching Boro was like being stalked by death. There was a grim dark-hooded inevitability about each game and Woodgate's deathly pallor captured the mood perfectly. It was as if every Boro fan was confronted by his or her own demise every time the team took to the turf.
Now, it's one of those strange and unrecognized laws of nature that nobody gives much thought to their own death, until it's usually too late. After all, it's something that always happens to someone else isn't it? Death? Me? Nah. Never.
But it seemed to be that a collective recognition of an imminent death of sorts was sweeping over the Riverside following the awful realization that, yes, we were that bad. This wasn't just a one off, or a few games in which the team failed to gel. This was a dizzying, headlong plummet into the abyss of relegation.
The only positive was that Boro were at least consistent in their appallingness. Demise seemed to be totally, utterly and irrevocably inescapable. And like the consequences of any death, the reactions followed a natural pattern as shock waves swept over the Riverside - at first denial followed by anger, disbelief and horror - not in any particular order.
Then we all know what happened. They ground out a gritty draw at Reading, rolled over the mighty Gooners in as emphatic a fashion as you're every likely to see, and following a solid if not laboured performance at Derby, scooped up another three points. The timing couldn't have been better.
I thought it might be the stewards' fault. I was wondering whether their amoeba like ways were responsible for an osmotic process that made the players perform witlessly.
After all on what piece of this spinning globe (outside of Afghanistan) will you ever meet such a collection of backward looking Neanderthals whose solution to every situation is intimidation and the threat of violence. Picture the scene: Fan: 'Ere mate, where's the toilet?' Steward: 'You talkin to me? Ah'll fukkan twat ya.'
Somebody described them hilariously as 'lacking inter personal skills'. For f***s sake, give that man a job at the United Nations - the need for diplomats is urgent. Imagine a bunch of murderous psychotic jihadis who've just torched a village, hanged a young kid from a tree and chopped the head off an aid worker. It could all be explained away as a 'bad beard day.'
Anyway, I'm distracting myself with futile rage. There is a point to these seemingly aimless ramblings and how better to illustrate it than calling on the prescient Joseph Conrad.
Who, you might ask? He was a Belgian sailor who went into the Congo over 100 years ago and when he returned was inspired to write Heart of Darkness. Still not making sense? Ever seen the film Apocalypse Now? It was based on the book.
In the story/film there's this major character called Kurtz. He sets himself up as a God among the natives, sanctioning and encouraging all kinds of brutality and savagery (ah. now I know where the Riverside stewards get their inspiration). This ranged from cannibalism to decapitation and dismemberment.
Anyway, right at the end he's dying and in this famous scene he's confronted by the darkness of his deeds. As his vision turns inward he glimpses his destination and the consequences of his actions - writhing pits of hell, sulphurous lakes full of excreta, corpses swinging from trees (yeah, I know, just like Sunderland) and utters the now infamous lines: 'The horror, the horror.'
Now I reckon Conrad knew a thing or two. And I figure he was actually gifted with peculiar and strange powers. In fact, I don't think he sailed into the Congo at all, it was actually the Tees. And as his ship docked at what is today Cargo Fleet, he was suddenly struck down by a terrifying inner vision and fell to the deck of the ship in agony, muttering through grimly clenched teeth: 'The Boro, the Boro."
You see, he'd had a vision of Boro circa 2007. But given the bias that existed even back then he couldn't make a bestseller out of it, so he dressed it up and set it in the Congo, which by the way was getting hot press at the time. And the point to these meanderings?
All tales eventually come to an end - even horror stories.
Post script
In keeping with the painfully contrived and tortorous literary theme for this Long View outpouring, if there's any poetic justice in the world, on Saturday, we'll beat West Ham 3-0.
RETURN TO THE LONG VIEW INDEX HERE
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