Straight back up again
BRYAN Robson was a man on a mission in the summer of 1997.
The Boro boss was absolutely determined to take the club straight back into the Premier League at the first attempt after they had been relegated as a result of the infamous three-points deduction.
Relegation was a stinging rebuke to everything that Robson was trying to achieve on Teesside.
Now, another failure was not an option as far as Robbo was concerned. He believed it was his duty to take the Boro straight back up.
The drop into Division One meant massive ambitious plans for both the club and the team had to be shelved.
It was not the outcome which had been anticipated but everybody had to face reality and focus on a different type of target.
For Robson, it meant putting together a new-look side because he had lost some of the stars who had been important fixtures in the plans to build a top Premier League outfit at the Riverside.
From the point of view of chairman Steve Gibson and his financial team, it was all about lowering their sights for a while and revising the wage bill to a sustainable level in the First Division.
Unfortunately Boro had to cash in on their Brazilian whizz kid Juninho, around whom everything had previously revolved.
Juninho was a special talent and for many fans what the modern Boro was all about. But he had to go, and Juninho probably knew it too, when completing a £12m move to Atletico Madrid.
Out of the door, too, went the freescoring Fabrizio Ravanelli. There were reports that he was the highest paid player in the Premier League, so Boro needed him off the wage bill. The Italian striker had scored 31 goals in all competitions the previous season. Ravanelli was sold for an undisclosed fee to Marseille.
Robson did manage to hang on to the third star name of his previously
illustrious trio when Emerson carried on in his midfield role, though only until January. The Brazilian was eventually sold on to Tenerife for £4.25m.
Despite losing star players, Robson knew he still needed quality in his team if Boro were to get straight back into the Premier League.
And Robbo’s special inspirational moment, and one of the best deals he ever pulled off for the Boro, was in enticing England international Paul Merson to Teesside.
Merson had been a permanent fixture at Arsenal for several years and manager Arsene Wenger had offered him a contract extension to stay on. Yet not only were Boro offering more money, but Merson fancied the idea of a complete shift of direction and working with his former England colleague Robson.
The deal cost Boro £5m but every penny was well spent because nobody made a bigger contribution that season. Merson was an inspiration on the pitch and a talisman.
He also played a major role in Boro reaching their third domestic cup final in a row.
With Merson fitting in perfectly from the start, Boro quickly recovered from the loss of their superstars and went on several long unbeaten runs. The fans stuck with the club too despite relegation and the loss of Juninho and Ravanelli. In the days when the corners at the Riverside had not yet been filled in, 30,000plus capacity crowds were the norm.
Boro were always up with the pacemakers, losing just four games before Christmas with Merson and Mikkel Beck regularly knocking in the goals.
However a 3-0 defeat at Charlton Athletic in early January set some warning bells ringing and convinced Robson that the team needed more strength in depth.
Boro had been suffering from a glut of injuries and were clearly short in early areas, so in came midfielder Neil Maddison from Southampton for a bargain fee of £250,000.
Then Robson signed not one, but two forwards, when snapping up Marco Branca from Inter Milan and Alun Armstrong from Ipswich.
Branca was another of Robson’s inspired signings, making himself a cult hero on Teesside virtually overnight when he scored twice in a derby win against Sunderland.
There was certainly competition for places up front but trouble emerged in the last line of defence when goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer joined the injury list.
Robson wanted experienced cover and completed the signing of Welsh international Andy Dibble, who had performed well during a loan spell with Boro during Colin Todd’s time as manager.
Unfortunately Dibble suffered a personal disaster in his two games for Robson, both of them resulting in heavy defeats. Boro lost 4-0 at Nottingham Forest and 5-0 at QPR a few days later.
This was potentially a huge psychological blow, yet Robson kept everybody focussed and Boro bounced back in amazing style.
They hammered Swindon Town 6-0 at the Riverside with Branca, Armstrong and Maddison each grabbing a brace.
Robson was given the green light to continue bringing in players and in March brought the biggest household name in football to Teesside.
Boro paid Rangers £3.4m for the signature of Paul Gascoigne, who went on to make his debut for the club in the Football League Cup Final against Chelsea.
Certainly Gazza was a character who must have had a positive effect in the dressing room. Yet it’s fair to say that he was not always as dominant on the pitch as we might have hoped.
Robson hadn’t finished off signing players. He swooped again to complete a late deal with Colombian
club Deportivo Cali for their striker Hamilton Ricard.
At this stage it was still nip and tuck at the top of the division. Boro had just six games remaining.
They started the run-in very well, hammering Bury 4-0 with Branca grabbing a hat trick, and then won the following three games without conceding a goal.
The penultimate game at home to Wolves was a very nervous affair with Boro having to settle for a 1-1 draw courtesy of a goal from Ricard.
So everything now rested on the final game at home to struggling Oxford United, who were fighting a relegation battle.
The Riverside was filled to the rafters, and as Boro proceeded to tear Oxford to shreds, a party atmosphere developed.
A brace of goals each from Craig Hignett and Armstrong gave Boro a convincing victory. It was good enough to secure the second automatic promotion place, Robbo’s men finishing three points behind champions Nottingham Forest.
What’s more, Boro edged out North East rivals Sunderland from a potential automatic promotion place by just one point.
The Wearsiders were forced to compete in the play-offs where they lost in the Wembley final to Charlton by 7-6 penalties following an astonishing 4-4 draw after extra time.
Anyway Robson had achieved what he set out to do with a bit of help from chairman Gibson, who provided the chequebook for the manager to keep his squad up to strength as the season progressed.
Chris Wilder will have the January transfer window to bring in new signings if he so wishes, though he will not be able to take advantage of the almost open book which Robson enjoyed in signing players at almost any time of the season.
Hopefully Wilder can enjoy a perfect summer and put together a squad which is good enough to win promotion from the very start.
TUESDAY was day three in Portugal for Middlesbrough and saw Chris Wilder’s side host League One outfit Sheffield Wednesday at their lovely training complex just outside of Albufeira.
A behind-closed-doors friendly, the agreement between the two clubs was that details of the game are unlikely to be known.
More a glorified training match than an official friendly, the game will likely have been officiated by staff members of both sides and it was played in four quarters of 30-minute intervals with regular breaks throughout.
Wilder planned to use the game to do a bit of experimenting and take a look at one or two things.
There have already been various results bandied around on social media, but the agreement was in place between both clubs that no such details should be reported and we should be respectful of that.
The result isn’t as important as the details to Wilder such as how Boro played, how certain things Wilder got to look at worked out and, most importantly, how the players reacted to stepping up from playing 45 minutes each so far in the two previous friendlies to playing 60 against Sheffield Wednesday.
There were of course temptations to get the binoculars out and make like a Marcelo Bielsa scout in the bushes, but in reality I thought better of that!
At the very least it sounds like it was a positive workout for Wilder’s side as their preparations continue, leading to when results really do matter at the start of the season.
There was no training for me to attend in that case on Tuesday, with the players doing a session in the swimming pool at their hotel on the morning before playing the Owls in the late afternoon.
Matt Crooks’ latest video diary dropped on Tuesday morning, chronicling some behind-the-scenes action from the previous 24 hours.
The big debate this time was the allimportant Ronaldo or Messi question.
Isaiah Jones was as rapid in his response as he is down a wing, as he correctly fired back, “Matt Crooks”, with a wry grin.
There was a bit of golf going on too as Crooks filmed assistant kit man Andrew ‘Thommo’ Thompson impressing with a smart tee-off.
Poor Thommo was probably just relieved to get away from the Boro training pitches where it appears there has been a wasp infestation.
Or maybe that was just the sound of analyst Phil Hudson’s drone that he got himself in such a flap over...
My Tuesday evening involved a lovely meal down at the Vilamoura Marina.
One thing I’ve always loved about Portugal is the cool breeze that comes off the Atlantic Ocean on a night – it’s perfect for me who, in truth, isn’t the biggest fan of the sun and heat!
There was a nice bit of hopeful foreshadowing as I arrived at the marina, where Irish bars and sports pubs are aplenty. There outside the first I came across was a replica Premier League trophy.
I’m taking it as a sign of where the season ahead will be taking us! That’s certainly the hope and the aim.
As I write this on Wednesday morning it’s another day working on the balcony for me, with Boro players having a bit more of a down day today as part of recovery from yesterday’s game.
There’s likely to be some classroom work involved as they go over clips from the Sheffield Wednesday clash, no doubt using footage from that aforementioned pesky drone.
And then, after a staff team beat the players in a game of cricket back at Rockliffe earlier in the summer, the players should have a chance at revenge this afternoon, this time on the golf course.
That’s the real result we need, and hopefully we’ll have an answer on Thursday.