Hello, everyone.
Let me start by saying, I hope you are all well. It's been a very long time.
I've been thinking, repeatedly... how on earth will I reintroduce myself to the DiasBoro? And I ultimately concluded that perhaps the best way to do so was to reflect on my once heavy involvement with the game and, perhaps, why and how it "burned me out" for some time.
There was a period of time where I was barely able to connect with football, let alone the club. But largely thanks to the work done during Wilder and Carrick's tenures, coupled with an enjoyable Euro 2024, I found myself enjoying the game again.
Anyway.
I recently stopped to ask myself if my especially strong connection with 1994-97 and 2014-17 was really about the results, the promotion and the unsuccessful battles against relegation from the top tier.
Because these are stories that can be, and have been, told many times over, no matter who plays on the pitch, which manager is in charge or which chairman sits in the boardroom.
So... what's it all about, then?
Take 2014-17. It could be written as a simple narrative along the lines of, "The head coach frequently won games in the second tier. He actually attained the club's best results of the century. At one point, he even won more home games than any other team in the country. And when he did not win games, he was often only one tiny little mistake away from winning them. He was also averaging one point a game in the Premiership by December 2016, which is perfectly reasonable for a newly promoted club who haven't been in the top flight for years. So why didn't you just give him a break? He is, after all, only human. And dips in form and emotional outbursts are a matter of natural happenstance."
Superficially, this narrative is a strong case for the head coach being hard done by. But it also glosses over the real issue. It channels the emotion into base facts rather than support of the club as a whole.
Therefore, you're left with a reign defined by repeated short-term attempts to win an argument rather than a bold attempt at human understanding that could put a club in a much better place for the long term.
It's the equivalent of being so engrossed with the light at the end of the tunnel that the needs of many of the people involved do not matter. It's where the melodrama of proving a point takes precedence over the value of gaining a point, or points - which is why the infamous walkout of March 2016 can't simply be written off as only one unfortunate incident, as one once thought it could be. Because the emphasis then was that nothing and nobody else mattered but the hero of the moment being kept happy.
I think this is a reason why people, me included, struggle to look back on the 2016 promotion fondly. The conflict was just too much, and there is undeniable regret about "getting involved".
If the hero worship of a head coach in the 2010s, and even some of our highest profile signings between 1995 and 1997 - and yes, I was very much on board with all of this at the time - should have taught us anything, it is about the perils of being overwhelmed awe of a pedigree coach or great players coming in from abroad to give you even a crucial boost or helping hand. A little thought makes one realise that the lack of relative success increases the risk of impulsiveness and vulnerability, the desire to simply "lose yourself" in the moment when the supposed catalyst *does* arrive.
And when you're "involved"... there is the feeling that it can't possibly be the hero's fault. That he simply isn't being given the right support, the right time or the right resources by those who can't, or won't, just "get on board". The feeling exists because, when one finds something or someone wonderful to latch on to, a fear of losing it or them arises.
How often is a player or manager actually being "the one" overwhelmed by a desire to believe that said player or manager is "the one"? Tie that in with wanting everyone around you to share that belief, so you can "feel" right, and it only makes the fall, or the failings, so much more painful when they actually have to be confronted.
The problem arises when it becomes either about the person or the club. Therefore, handling issues maturely comes into the equation. An instance of the person being mature enough to stand by the club's side at all times, to respect what decisions are made even if they aren't always the right ones, and to put in hard work to bring resolution to every party involved and not just the needs of the one or the few.
This ties in with what I'm beginning to feel is an infinite paradox - does a football club embrace a new culture or protect its roots? Is there a repeated fear of entering a "brave new world" because, when we've surrender to hope and acceptance, we have gotten burned? It doesn't always have to be that way, surely?
I admit my point-of-view was, and is, limited. It can be a lot easier to persuade those close to a club to be accepting and open-minded when you're supporting or observing what's going on at the club from a distance. A classic case of "what you see is all there is".
So we're probably left with a theory about the polarities of fear and desire, skepticism and idealism - which can be at once highly unreasonable yet entirely justified. Yet despite it, despite the setbacks - we move on. We overcome. And many more memories are created.
My hope is that taking time to reflect on and understand all of this, and more, has been as helpful for you as it has been for me.
I now look forward to moving forward and posting frequently on the blog again.
Welcome back, Si.
A thought provoking piece Si, well written and presented.
I remember well your past posts in that other era.
Welcome back, and I am sure I can say, we all await your views on the present day Boro.
Si,=
It's really good to see you back and I look forward to seeing and reading your posts.
UTB,
John
I've missed your posts @si...and the above is why.
Welcome home.
Hi Si,
Welcome back. And sorry if I reminded you about us missing you every now and then. It is nice to see you writing in here again. It makes this blog a bit richer in language, too. If you see, what I mean.
So welcome back. Up the Boro!
Good to hear from a familiar voice again Si with as usual a thought-provoking post - though thankfully not as steamy as the title originally suggested 😏
It’s interesting how football was often about the power of the manager and how they attempted to mould the club in their image with Karanka very much a disciple of Mourhino.
However, those days seem to have passed for most clubs with the installation of head coaches who are tasked with getting the best out of the players they are provided with by DoF’s. Their power is somewhat limited now as is their tenure with some clubs now barely giving their man 3 months to show what they can do.
Perhaps also the concept of a star player has been lessened in the age of the squad game where players must primarily work hard for the team before they shine individually - though life in the Championship rarely allows a player to shine too brightly for long as they are soon snapped up and off to bigger pastures.
At least the Championship offers the chance to enjoy winning more games than losing and maybe another shot at the PL where supporters must then alter their mindset and expectations!
Thanks Si for your typically thoughtful post, and a warm welcome back.
It's a very subtle contribution which I had to read more than once to begin to understand.
But it raises questions of the balance between ambition, loyalty, principle, and differing definitions of what might count as success or failure.
And I think it is pertinent to the situation of any club and its supporters at any time, though it comes to a head or peaks in particular historical periods.
In fact I think, after the events of the past week, the club is currently at just such a turning point, and one which will define what kind of club we are and precisely where we are heading for the foreseeable future.
@werdermouth Meanwhile, Boro's Carabao Cup second round tie at home to Stoke City will take place next Tuesday, August 27 at 7.15pm.
Up the Boro!
Not a great kick-off time for me as don't get back from picking my son up from Handball training on Tuesdays until around 8:10pm so would've preferred the usual start - looks like another second half only for me 🙄
It's good to see you on here again, Si. And i look forward to your future contributions.
I have also been away for a while (not as long as Si, but on holiday to the Northumberland Coast and Edinburgh) and therefore I didn't join the comments on the Blog for the first 3 games. So - a delayed "Thank You" to Len for his Starter pieces on the league games against Swansea and Derby, and to OFB for his piece on the Leeds Carabao Cup game. I got to them a little late but they were still very much worth reading.
And, Si, I also have times when I find it hard to connect with football. For me it comes at the end of every season when I am more than happy to put the football to one side. This year it was complicated by the arrival of the Euro Finals. I want a summer for going away in my caravan, to paying attention to cricket, athletics, a bit of tennis (Wimbledon) and maybe even the Open Championship. After all, "What do they know about football, who only football know?" - credit to CLR James in "Beyond the Boundary" being inspired by Kipling's "The English Flag". At the beginning and at the end of the football season there are usually some Boro games when I wish the football season started later in the year and ended earlier the following year, because me and my wife are camped somewhere very pleasant and too far away from Teesside to make a journey back to watch the game palatable. I like football - well, I like Boro, but wouldn't rush to the pub to watch Palace v Everton - but even though a poor performance or a bad defeat can put a damper on the rest of the weekend, football is only a part of life, not Life itself.
As to the desire of the supporter to believe a particular player or manager to be "The One", you have a point. But, it hardly goes without saying, there cannot be many "The Ones" in a lifetime of supporting a football club. Most players, most managers, must by logic instead be that girl who bewitched you for a couple of months at the time you were leaving school before you realised she was NOT the One, when she drunkenly turned up at a cricket match you were playing in, and punched your neighbour's daughter in the face for some perceived offence/was spotted by a friend smoking drugs behind a pub/had most of her hair cut off and a vulgar tattoo applied to her lower arm on a week with friends in Ibiza.**
Manchester United had Sir Matt Busby & Sir Alex Ferguson, but many other less distinguished and lower-achieving managers either side of them. Arsenal in their turn may have hit the heights under Herbert Chapman & Arsene Wenger but also had managers who couldn't be placed in the same bracket, including managers who'd been successful elsewhere but couldn't repeat the magic at ManU or at the London club. And those examples are just 2 of the very biggest clubs with two "The Ones" each in well over a century. So maybe it is once-in-a-supporting-lifetime. You'd have to be VERY old to be a Newcastle United supporter who can remember winning a domestic trophy and Spurs have spent some decades now threatening to win something then falling away when it counted, to end up empty handed yet again. So this applies to rich, even mega-rich, Big Clubs as well. No doubt with each change of ownership, with evey new manager and every new "brightest star on the Block" player who is brought in, it seems to the supporters that they now have The One. But they usually turn out to be a quick fling. Like that Chinese bought on the walk back from the pub, or maybe a kebab or a burger: never the filling and tasty banquet which had been the heart's desire, but something gone and quickly forgotten.
Many of us supporters build managers and players up in our unrealistic dreams. Somebody born, say, in Salford in 1969 (and therefore now 55 years old) could hardly have expected the torrent of success Manchester United would have in the Premier League years - even though that success may have diminished in ManU terms in recent seasons, the FA Cup victory last May excepted. But who is to say that it will EVER be repeated, even for a club as "Big" and rich as ManU? There will be ManC (still), Liverpool (maybe), Arsenal and others like Villa whose supporters believe their clubs' managers are The One.
There can only be a certain numer of winners in football and there will always be more losers. There will be many dreamers but few whose dreams will be realised. The majority will be disappointed. I accept there are "levels" of success. For ManU, being in the Top Four and therefore qualifying for the Champions League, winning a few domestic cups here and there, is pretty much the baseline of acceptability, though that baseline may have to be redrawn as each year passes by without the targets being achieved. Yet I'm sure ManU supporters at least hoped if not being absolutely convinced that The Next One would be Moyes, Ryan Giggs, Louis van Gall (whose 2016 FA Cup win was the club's first for 12 years), Jose Mourinho (who HAD been The One, previously elsewhere and who did win the League Cuo and the Europa League in his first season but was sacked in December 2018), Ole Gunnar Solskjaer (who lasted until December 2021 before being replaced, the first ManU manager to have won no silverwear since Frank O'Farrell and Wilf McGuinness), Ralf Rangnick and then Erik van Taag (who restored the lustre with a League Cup win in February 2023 and the FA Cup in May 2024). For ManU supporters, domestic cups are fine and dandy - expected even - but the currency they understand is Championships, and European trophy competitiveness. The problem is that there are many other rich clubs to compete against, even domestically: City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Villa, Chelsea and there is no guarrantee of a Top Four place, so that a few years outside the Champions League makes even Big Clubs like ManU less attractive to the quality of players they need to qualify for Europe. I mean, can you imagine Sir Alex Ferguson even contemplating finishing out of the Top Four?
For Villa, even Spurs, Top Four and maybe the odd domestic trophy is the dream. For Boro, a decent cup run and promotion to the Premier League, to strive to avoid ending up relegated the following season, is the dream. For Wrexham, promotion to the Championship is the dream. For supporters of Hartlepool getting back into the Football League is the dream. Supporters' dreams are tailored to the reality of their recent experience. There would be even more fighting in the steets of Manchester than took place at the beginning of this month, if ManU were to experience the level of success currently being enjoyed by Nottingham Forest in last season avoiding relegation (NOT the back-to-back European Cup wins enjoyed under Brian Clough which even Sir Alex couldn't match). The reality is that the Big Clubs have bigger dreams, better expectations, than supporters of the Smaller Clubs just as George Best may have had his flings with film actresses and Miss World rather than the the girl who worked behind the "Beauty Counter" at Boots in Stockport. To be fair to him, it might have been "all of the above" for George.
The One may be different to different people. Managers and players who are The One in one club may be very different to supporters of different clubs. But if they are truly The One, by definition, there won't be many of them hanging around waiting to be snapped up, at any one time in any one locality or football club. So maybe we are being more than unrealistic (certainly at Boro's level) to expect THIS player, THIS manager, to be The One. Maybe One who can get your hopes up for a while...
And to make this more relateable, I like the views we hear from Michael Carrick. No soft soap from him. Boro beats Leeds in an Elland Road slaughter that many might have thought dreamland, yet Carrick is not carried away. We are not the greatest thing since sliced bread. Then Boro goes to Derby County where many expect a good win, yet lose 1-0 despite a massive lead in terms of possession and attempts on goal. Boro isn't suddenly the worst team in the world though there are things to be put right for the next game. A stable approach. Realistic. Expectations dampened a little but still some hope. "Let's not get our hopes up for Miss World just yet".
** I'd add that I have put these in for purposes of illustration as there were no such young ladies in MY youth. I'd like to think I do have "The One" after 43+ years marriage and hopefully quite a few more years to come!
Si
A huge welcome back it’s so good to read your views on the Diasboro blog again.
We (you and I) have never stopped our discussions over the past few years together with others on twitter and I’m so pleased that you are going to be with us all once more.
PS
I'm still working on Redcar Red !
OFB
Si
Mind you if I were going for subtlety, I'd hopefully take more trouble to spell it properly.
@peter-surtees Peter, it was a pleasure. Derry Girls is very much loved in our part of the world. I think I'll go back to what I wrote about it two years ago, around the time of the finale. I'll paraphrase a bit.
The Derry Girls story is one of laughs, temporary jubilation, shock, more laughs, astonishment, even more laughs, chaos, temporary jubilation once again, and… being absolutely stunned into silence, with a tear in the eye. It is a story of troubling, tragicomic triumph, and for that reason it wins hearts and minds - the show’s elements of unifying poignancy are earned and distinctive.
The end of the Derry Girls story brought sadness. I really found it hard to believe it was over. But the momentousness of the programme as a unifying instrument of hope and joy is still alive and kicking - and its impact will surely never be forgotten.
And later... later I read Erin's speech from the finale.
"There's a part of me that wishes everything could just stay the same. That we could all just stay like this forever. There's a part of me that doesn't really want to grow up. I'm not sure I'm ready for it. I'm not sure I'm ready for the world. But things can't stay the same, and they shouldn't. No matter how scary it is, we have to move on, and we have to grow up, because things... well, they might just change for the better. So we have to be brave. And if our dreams get broken along the way... we have to make new ones from the pieces."
Thanking every single one of you for your responses.
May I also highlight where part of my inspiration for writing this piece came from - my favourite film of the last ten years, Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner's astounding reinvention of West Side Story.
A visually expansive and transcendent reflection, exploration and dissection of evolution, foundation and everything that lies in between. Evolution and foundation... the message of "(embracing) a new culture" or "(protecting)... roots" along with all the genuinely dazzling highs and all the truly devastating lows.
When Marni Nixon (dubbing Natalie Wood) sang Somewhere back in the sixties, she sang "Time to look, time to care"...
When Rita Moreno sang it six decades later, she sang, "Time to learn, time to care"...
In each case, it's the heart of the film - but the update only makes a familiar story more complex and extraordinary. In the past, it signifies an attempt to take a pause and "look" around... in the present, it is a hope to "learn" from mistakes, perhaps so that bonds that are either broken or damaged can be healed.
Yes, both films are tragedies - but they also reflect, in their own way, the hows and whys of aspirationalism and idealism. Why the people within dare to dream.
@simonfallaha. Welcome back Si, it’s good to hear from you again and to enjoy your thought provoking articles.
On behalf of myself and Mrs P, thank you for the pointer to Derry Girls it was a thoroughly enjoyable watch and one we miss; good to see some of the characters having success in other roles. 😎
Nicola Coughlan, for example, is doing brilliantly in Bridgerton.
Welcome back, Si. And what a comeback post!
Following your discussion on "the one", I'd be be interested to read your thoughts on Michael Carrick and the setup at the club today.
In brief, on Carrick?
I feel that he has refined and cemented an upwardly mobile “voice” for Boro that everyone can buy into. A voice which arguably “sparked off” with Wilder following several years of voicelessness*.
*Arguably, Traore and Bamford’s “golden spell” in early 2018 was the exception.
Welcome back, Si. It’s great to have you back on board.
I enjoyed your post, Dormo! I must take issue with you on just one point, however:
You said, ‘Football is only a part of life, not life itself.’ And there was I thinking that life is what fills the gap between football matches!!
Your mention of George Best and the girl from Boots reminds me of his famous line: ‘I spent loads of money on birds, booze and fast cars. The rest I just squandered!’ One of football’s great characters - we don’t seem to have many of his ilk around today, sadly. I suppose they’re all micro-managed by the great PR machine these days. ‘OMG, lad, don’t say anything that will bring the club into disrepute!’
Has anyone got any more anecdotes of great football characters of yesteryear? I’m thinking people like Frank Worthington, Rodney Marsh, Trevor Hockey (who famously wiped his nose on our corner flag!) and of course, the greatest of them all - our Cloughie.