On the same day as Boro make their first major signing of the summer (let's give a great big Boro welcome to one Grant Leadbitter), Si's Insights undergoes a slight change in image...
That's right, the European Championships are upon us. And as our players (well, most of them) settle into the summer break, Si's Insights will be taking a break from Boro related matters to focus on events in Poland and Ukraine.
Being from the Emerald Isle, I am right behind the boys in green, despite our slim chances of getting out of the group, but I have no reason to wish England badly either. To be honest, the lack of expectations on both nations may well work to their advantage.
My first Euro 2012 column should be up soon.
In the meantime, you can wax nostalgic with a new addition to the site; Mike Baker's excellent article on 1996-97, The Year That Had It All. I hope you enjoy reading it!
And I can think of no one more "unsung" than the underrated, underestimated and underappreciated Craig Hignett, who was a key cog in the Boro attack during the end of the Lennie Lawrence years and a large part of the Bryan Robson era.
That he was not a Teessider, but a Merseysider, mattered not one iota to neither the fans nor him. Indeed, he once admitted that he "loved it" in the North-East and would "never move again". That his wife and in-laws are from Middlesbrough no doubt helps, as does the fact that the town reminds him of where he grew up.
But, moving on to the football...
"Higgy" was one of many who didn't make it at Liverpool. Fortunately, he got the chance to develop at Crewe Alexandra before Lennie Lawrence brought him to Boro in November 1992, three months into the first ever Premier League campaign. Despite our failure to avoid the drop that season, he remained a key figure as we gradually forced our way back into the top division and later into two domestic cup finals... before we dropped back into English football's second tier. Again. Still, we would be back at the top before long, and there was even another cup final to look forward to along the way.
What made him so significant to the team, for me, is that he was simply a high-scoring midfielder. Whenever our forward line misfired, or whenever we were having a bad day, you could count on him to wake us up and guarantee a result a lot of the time. He was very much like a Scouse Scholes, in that if he wasn't in the same class as the Manchester United legend, he seemed to have most of his gifts. He could head, he could cross, he was a brilliant passer, and he could score from long range. Better still, he was a dead ball specialist; not once can I remember him missing a penalty in a Boro shirt!
Whether he was playing alongside Nick Barmby, Juninho or Paul Merson, he remained significant in so many key moments during the early years of the Riverside Revolution. The first competitive goal ever to be scored at the Riverside, against Chelsea; numerous vital cup goals, including the opener against Liverpool in January 1997, the tying penalty in that epic against Chesterfield, and the last-minute clincher against Reading in 1998; his defence splitting passes, the most memorable being those that set up Merson for his goals in the League Cup semi-final in 1998; and possibly the best Boro team goal I have ever seen, which finished with him diving in to put us 3-1 ahead at Old Trafford!
One can't forget his thunderbolt against Reading during our last successful promotion campaign, either. The Royals had come to the Riverside to defend, and looked like frustrating us to a 0-0 draw until Higgy unleashed a stunning long-range drive that had Ali Brownlee screaming. An especially significant goal, as it broke Reading's confidence and Boro went on to score three more. And, of course, there was his crucial double strike in the game we absolutely had to win that season. It was a great send-off if there ever was one.
Craig Hignett's goals for the Boro
But why did it have to be a send-off? The truth is, even though the fans loved him, and he was a great servant to the club, he never seemed to be a manager's favourite. Either Robson never really wanted, or could never quite figure out how, to fit him into the same team as Barmby and Juninho.
It's quite probable that Robson also took Higgy's faults into account, too; like Scholes, he wasn't fearsome enough in the tackle, and he had a tendency to not track back enough, or even drift out of games when things weren't going for him. One still wonders where he was during Juninho's one-man-show at Elland Road in May 1997, although you could argue such an energy-sapping season had finally caught up with him.
More importantly, Higgy was the sort who would eventually atone for his mistakes - and he would tend to do so in style, scoring or setting up vital goals. Did he really deserve to be marginalised in favour of a past-his-best Paul Gascoigne, especially after he'd taken a pay cut to stay at Boro following 1996/97? I'm sure Gazza was wondering that, too - which is probably why he made the unforgettable gesture of giving Higgy his loser's medal on Cup Final day.
Once Higgy's time at Boro was up, he decided to try his luck north of the border with Aberdeen, but failed to settle and hence moved back down south to Barnsley, where he had an infinitely more successful spell. Then he moved to Blackburn, where he was to get the League Cup winners' medal that had eluded him twice. After three years at Ewood, with a loan spell at Coventry in between, he moved to Leicester, Darlington and various other lower league clubs, before calling it a day. He was never really as good after leaving Boro though.
It's a tribute to Higgy's understated, but unquestionable impact on the club that the McClaren's and Southgate's of this world were able to realise that a player like him is key to providing a vital attacking spark; think Carbone, Geremi, Zenden and Tuncay. If Mogga finds a similar player, we may yet be able to reach for the skies again.
Following Manchester City's last ditch title triumph, Si's Insights reminisces about a final day of the season where Boro actually got it right...
“Very often in competitions it goes to the last game. And at one point, it looked as if you were going to qualify with a little ease, not easily, but with one or two points to spare, and now here you are, in a battle. In a war.”
- The late Sir Bobby Robson
Seven years ago today, we denied Manchester City the opportunity to pip us in the race for a European place. As you all remember, Schwarzer's injury-time penalty save broke their hearts and paved the way for The Road To Eindhoven the following year.
It was notable for being one of the few "dramatic final days" where Boro actually got it right - and City would "get it right" themselves seven years later, in the most remarkable fashion. Where there were what if's, if only's and tears of sadness in 2005, there were tears of joy in 2012.
Likewise, the despondency in Middlesbrough in 1997 was replaced by delight in 1998.
But, like City fans, we must have been wondering why we could never do things the easy way.
Lest we forget that we were in the hunt for a Champions League place during 2004/05, until injuries to key players kicked in... and that we were three points clear at the top of the then Nationwide Division One at the end of February 1998, with a League Cup Final to look forward to.
Then, disaster struck.
The cup final was lost and we picked up just one point from our next five away games. When we lost 1-0 at Sheffield United, we were four points adrift of the automatic promotion places, and I was personally ready to concede that we had lost second spot to in-form Sunderland.
However, the pendulum slowly swung, and when the Black Cats unexpectedly crashed to a 2-0 defeat at Ipswich, automatic promotion was in our hands again. A point at home to Wolves meant that a win on the last day of the season against Oxford United would take us up, no matter how our rivals performed.
Trust Boro not to make things easy though. We were both laboured and nervy against a well-organised Oxford defence in the first half, and the half-time whistle couldn't have been more welcome. Things got worse when we heard that Sunderland had raced into a 2-0 lead at Swindon, in their last ditch bid to usurp us. But our luck held.
Two pieces of Paul Merson magic unlocked the Oxford backline for the Newcastle-born - ah, the glorious irony! - Alun Armstrong to take us from a shaky position to a relatively comfortable one right at the start of the second half. Armstrong's sixth and seventh Boro goals were made even more remarkable by the fact that he'd delayed a back operation to play, needing an injection prior to the match!
Once the pressure was off, we really began to play, and it was left for Craig Hignett to gild the lily with two excellent strikes to seal our promotion to the Premier League at last. A Nicky Banger consolation (that Mark Schwarzer really should have saved) failed to dampen the spirit of the then capacity Riverside crowd. By this point, I was already enjoying a drink and singing Chumbawamba's Tubthumping at full volume.
“We got knocked down, but we got up again, you’re never gonna keep us down...”
In retrospect, Boro's promotion success had its casualties, both short-term and long term. Club captain and inspiration Nigel Pearson called an end to his playing career due to a troublesome knee. We inexplicably decided not to offer Hignett a new deal. But at least they had gone out on a high. The same could not be said for the likes of Merson, Armstrong, Mikkel Beck and Marco Branca. In 1998/99, we saw injuries end the possibility of a very profitable striking partnership at the top level, Beck dropping out of the first team picture to make way for Brian Deane (yes), and Merson flip-flopping from praising Boro to the skies to condemning their lack of ambition and drinking culture.
Ah well. At least Hamilton Ricard proved the doubters wrong, and at least Bryan Robson established us as a Premiership club, right? At least until his mismanagement of the Okon-Karembeu-Boksic brigade led to the call for Terry Venables...
In a week of nostalgia, Si's Insights looks back at a game that pulled the wool over everyone's eyes...
With our season over, the last week or so has been one of "looking back" on Planet Boro. We've already reminisced about our promotion-clinching 4-1 win over Oxford United on May 3, 1998 (which will feature in next week's "Back In Time" column) and, of course, Eindhoven, which had a build up to remember but an aftermath to forget. Instead of being the new beginning we hoped it would be, it was the beginning of the end, with a crippling debt and gradual mismanagement of a solid spine eventually leading to a relegation we've still to recover from.
Today (May 11) sees the anniversary of both the worst and best of Boro - Juninho's tears at Elland Road (1997) and one of the most incredible but ultimately irrelevant results in the history of the club (2008). Yes, it's four years to the day since we battered Sven's men.
What a day it was. Regardless of how divided Manchester City were, how little both sides had to play for, and how different the scoreline might have been had Richard Dunne stayed on the pitch, you couldn't help but react to the scoreline with amazement. Boro hadn't scored more than two goals in a match all season prior to this game. They'd won just twice in thirteen league and cup games prior to the previous match, a 2-0 home win against a Portsmouth team who had one eye on the FA Cup final. And no Boro player had scored more than once in a game until Afonso Alves suddenly and inexplicably netted a double in April... against the future double winners.
On the surface, this really was perversity of the highest order. Stewart Downing netted twice in a match for the only time in a Boro shirt (and his second was a beaut). Fabio Rochemback literally saved the best for last with a hard working, clever performance featuring a free kick that still has to be seen to be believed. Afonso Alves scored his one and only Boro hat-trick.
And, even more importantly...
Our biggest Premier League win, the then biggest win for anyone in the Premier League this century (until Spurs bettered it with a 9-1 trouncing of Wigan), and the first Boro player to score a hat-trick in four years.
How could any self-respecting Boro fan not be filled with self-belief after a game like that?
Alas, the trouncing of Manchester City was a mirage, not an oasis.
The summer of 2008 saw Rochemback, George Boateng, Lee Cattermole, Mark Schwarzer and Luke Young all depart, without really being replaced. New signings Justin Hoyte and Didier Digard were exposed as lightweight the following season, as was Alves, despite free kicks like this one. Tuncay picked and chose his games, Downing had an off season. Just about everything that could go wrong for us in 2008/09 did.
And you may not have seen it at the time, but the 8-1 win over City and its aftermath actually foreshadowed 2008/09 pretty well. Just how well would Boro have coped that day against eleven well-organised men who actually had something to play for? If you look at the goals again, you'll notice that Alves had a ridiculous amount of space for all three of his goals. The same is true for Downing's second goal, well executed though it was, and Aliadiere's goal. And, lest we forget, Adam Johnson's goal needed a deflection to find its way into the net.
The truth is, despite the sporadic promise we had shown in Southgate's first two seasons, we had really only just escaped the dreaded drop... on both occasions.
Should we really have been that surprised that trying to enforce Southgate's Arsenal-lite style of play with an even weaker squad would lead to relegation?
And, while both Manchester City and Boro have faced their fair share of trials and tribulations since that day, nowadays, we're really little more than an average Championship side, while City are set to be crowned champions of England.
Afonso Alves, who we thought was the answer to our goalscoring problems, eventually left for Qatar, while Adam Johnson, who at one point couldn't even get into our first team, is on the verge of picking up a Premier League winners' medal.
Who would have seen that happening four years ago?
