The Premier League pretty much stands for everything in life I abhor and find repulsive. It is over-hyped and awash with money paid for by Rupert Murdoch's Sky. Many of the players are egotistical and at a time when many football supporters are struggling financially the overwhelming majority of players are vastly overpaid. Cheating is an accepted part of the game but the managers of the teams castigate the referee for not spotting when opposing players cheat week after week. I could go on.
When I first started blogging (10 years ago) Boro were an established Premier League team. No worries about relegation. We were winning cups (1 anyway) and we competed in the Europa League and even got to the final. For non football supporters who have no perspective of what that means, it's really good. For example Liverpool are thrilled they've got to the final this year.
Boro were relegated from the Premier League in 2009 after 11 years in the Premier League and I tried to convince myself pretty much for the reasons listed above I didn't care. But you can't lie to yourself. Although I stopped going to the matches I never stopped following the results. I started getting more interested again and eventually started going again (this has been the pattern for 45 years by the way). And once you start going again ......
This has been the longest period Boro have been outside the top division in England since 1975 and if Wikipedia is to be believed 2016-17 will be our 61st in the top Division out of our 107 year history.
Old men (my age) were crying at the match today. Promotion means so much to them, it means so much to me, it means a lot to the town. Times are hard in our area for so many. I don't suppose the people of Middlesbrough will see much of the hundreds of millions that Middlesbrough FC are reportedly going to make in the next few years but it's still great news for the our town.
As we know it wasn't always this way. Middlesbrough used to be be an important town in this country. I read an article in the Guardian leading up to today's match which mentioned the famous Stanford’s General Map of the World of 1920. Apparently Middlesbrough was one of only a handful of towns/cities in Britain worthy of note. We certainly were the Boro in those days.
Today was a great day for Boro. The players and manager are lapping it up and well done but it's their job. They are well paid (admittedly not yet by Premier league standards) and in time many of them will simply move on to other clubs, I hope they enjoy their celebrations. But today belongs to the supporters and to the town. We are still the Boro and we still will be even if we get relegated again next year.
I know that by the time the next football season starts in August I will be fretting wondering we are going to get to 40 points (see previous blog entries circa August 2006, 2007 and 2008) but for now I'm just going to enjoy the thrill of today.
WATB and here's Culture.
