Last Friday night there was a charity function at Middlesbrough Town Hall in aid of Gary Parkinson. It was called the Spirit of 86.
From Bernie Slaven..
Last night was an incredible evening at M/bro Town Hall . The room was full of Emotion, Passion + Love for Gary Parkinson, the atmosphere reminded me of the Holgate End at Ayresome park. Hammy flying in form America, Kerny from Ireland and Bruce from down south said it all
@ken - I just HAD to laugh, Ken at your second paragraph (your post at 4.06pm on 25th March). Ways in which supporting your football team has improved over the decades: No 1 out of a series of 100.
Powmill, exmil and others - late (and numerous) changes to the date and kick-off times for games: Ways in which supporting your football team has deteriorated over the decades: Also No 1 out of a series of 100.
@mw-in-darwin - Even if he is a fit-as-a-dog international player who is REALLY important to Boro? Maybe come on as a sub if needed...?
From Bernie Slaven..
Last night was an incredible evening at M/bro Town Hall . The room was full of Emotion, Passion + Love for Gary Parkinson, the atmosphere reminded me of the Holgate End at Ayresome park. Hammy flying in form America, Kerny from Ireland and Bruce from down south said it all
I think Bernie Slaven mentioned £ 75 000 was the expected sum, they were able to raise for Gary Parkinson during the event. For example artist Mackenzie Thorpe had donated an original painting, that went for £ 22 000. Our dear AV was prepared to pay £ 2 000 for the painting!
I do not know how many times Bernie have arranged meetings to support Gary - this was not certainly the first. His heart is gold. I think Bernie and Ali Brownlee would deserve a statue in Middlesbrough!
I have played against Bernie once and talked to him after the match. Again he was voluntaring - now for the match. The only thing I have problems with is his accent - and especially so that he speaks too quickly for me. But a wondeful and caring chap, anyway!
Up the Boro!
@mw-in-darwin Yes, that was something I was thinking, too. He might not be ready for Saaturday, but Iam sure he will be in the squad at Huddersfield. I hope to see him involved. Up the Boro!
McGree played the full 90 minutes tonight.Hope he pulls up OK and makes it back OK for Saturday.
@jarkko - We also sometimes have a problem understanding when Bernie Slaven speaks. Gordon McQueen is similar but has an even thicker Glaswegian accent. You find yourself nodding and saying "yes" sometimes when you didn't really catch what he said. There is a limit to the number of times you can say that you didn't hear him properly.
Interesting piece about Conte in the Guardian. Wilder often compared himself to the likes of Conte and I found this quote important:
Conte wants finished articles, experienced players to make an immediate impact. That also explains his indifference towards the academy, where morale was on the floor.
This is pretty much Wilder at Boro. We bought him to develop the club as a whole while building towards promotion. Wilder was only interested in promotion.
Also
He offered the impression he understood two kinds of love. Tough and tougher. From the outset, he preached a gospel of sacrifice and suffering; the need for 24/7 immersion in the mission. He did more than preach it. He tried to scorch it into every set of temples; the intensity as remorseless as his attention to detail on the training pitch.
Wilder, like Conte, believed in treating the team like a pressure cooker. Carrick is the complete opposite. Like Southgate, he believes in taking the pressure off and creating an environment where players can express themselves. He also shows every sign of seeing the club as a whole rather than just being a vehicle to achieve promotion as a notch on his CV to enable him to run a 'bigger' club.
Have to say, I much prefer the approach that Carrick is taking.
@jarkko - We also sometimes have a problem understanding when Bernie Slaven speaks. Gordon McQueen is similar but has an even thicker Glaswegian accent. You find yourself nodding and saying "yes" sometimes when you didn't really catch what he said. There is a limit to the number of times you can say that you didn't hear him properly.
I hit the limit of the number of times I didn't hear her properly with my Glasgow wife a long, long, long, long time ago. The trouble is, she rumbled my just nodding and saying "yes" sometimes when I haven't really caught what she said, also a long, long, long, long time ago ! 🙄
exmil
Here are the guesses from the relaxed and slightly sun-tanned Tenerife jury:
BURNLEY WLWW (92)
SHEFF U LWLW (76)
BORO WWLW (76)
LUTON WLWW(73)
B'BURN WDDW (69)
MILLWALL LWDW (67)
NORWICH WDWL (64)
C'TRY LWWD (64)
WBA WWWL (64)
WATFORD LWLW (61)
Lovely town Bridge of Allan. We considered moving there a way back, but ended up just outside Kinross at that time.
@forever-dormo I always thought she was from Ulapul. So I qm confused now 😉.
Up the Boro!
@jarkko - To explain: my wife was born in Bridge of Allan (very near to Stirling, recently made a city, with its wonderful Italianate castle), then lived with her family in Scotland's central belt for some years and spent holiday time with her grandparents in Arbroath before her parents plus my wife and her younger sister moved south to live in Saltburn and then in Redcar because her father had moved to Teesside to work as a dentist. He spent the rest of his career down here. I met my wife when we both lived in Redcar. My wife's sister went up to Scotland with her husband and children from where she lived in Saltburn (?20 years ago?), to take up a job running the Post Office in Ullapool. My sister-in-law and family stayed in the Ullapool area until the eldest daughter went off to University - by coincidence at Stirling where one of the University buildings was the very one in which my wife was born "all those centuries ago" (Stirling University is in Bridge of Allan).
My wife's in-laws, then in retirement, had gone up back to their native Scotland in about 2010 to spend their final years there (a decade or so in Granny's case). A large house, near Ullapool, is the one bought so my parents in-law could move in with my wife's sister and family so they could all live together and the grandparents could have "family" care. It is that large house near Ullapool which is owned by my wife and her sister. But the grandparents have now died, our neice is studying for further post-graduate qualifications in Newcastle to be an educational psychologist (having lived with us down here for about 6 or more months last year until she found suitable accommodation nearer for her studies and fieldwork in schools on Tyneside) and our nephew has just gone to Australia to work as a chef in Melbourne, so the house near Ullapool, once so full, is currently "less than full". No grandparents and no children, though they are now young adults. We go up as often as we can. The Scottish North West Highlands is a great part of the world.
@forever-dormo I’ll add a second vote for the Highlands. Ardnamurchan is our place of choice.
Thanks for sharing that charming family history with everyone and not just Jarkko.
Although we have lived in Scotland ever since we came back to Britain in 1999, we have never ventured any further north than Nairn. That said, never a year has gone by without us visiting the Cairngorms. We have many, many memories of great family holidays, summer and winter, in and around Aviemore. Recently, now there is just the two of us at home, we have been discussing how we want to spend our holidays over the coming years and discovering the far North and the Northern Isles is what we have both agreed is what we want to do ... and very much looking forward to that we are.
@powmillnaemore We had a trip, island hopping in our Campervan to the Outer Hebrides. I’d thoroughly recommend it.
https://c13mpr.com/2014/09/07/island-hopping-outer-hebrides-august-2014/
Stayed a number of times at the Ferry Boat Inn in Ullapool as a base for touring the Highlands. A great part of the world, and what a come down it always was to see the reality of industrial Lancashire after experiencing so much unalloyed beauty.
@forever-dormo Thanks for sharing the info. Is was facinating to read and I have again cut corners in presuming your wife was from Ullapool. My bad. Thank you again for clearing things up.
I have been to Scotland on holiday only twice. With work, I sometimes visit Dumfries and Edinburgh (airport and Whisky Experience) as our company have a big factory in Galloway.
My doughter spent one school season in Glenrothes - so we went to see her once (naturally via Riverside). So we have been to Fife and St. Andrews.
In 1980's we stayed nearly a week in Edinburgh and went to see both Hibs and Hearts while there. Then we drove to Fort Williams, Loch Ness and Inverness. Then we continued to Dufftown and Glenlivet (recommemded 😇). And then we drove South, River Tweed area and all the way to Teesside (again).
I have always dreamed of travelling more North, though. My eldest went to Scotland last year - she did the North Coast 500. Ullapool is in there, too. We would also like to consider the Islands in the Highlands.
There again, I would like to see Boro again in the EPL. Last time around I was able to combine a business trip to Manchester and then afterwards have a couple of days off. I and my wife ended up at Goodison to see Boro there - what a coincident, me thinks 😉.
And finally, Boro will play on Saturday. I have been lucky to see three matches live this season (two at the Riverside and one at Wigan with Hackney scoring and Boro4). And I have seen practically all the other matches via RiversideLive or on TV (Viasat/ViaPlay). I am happy.
I hope we will beat the team of Warnock on Saturday. If we play up to our normal level, it should be a 1-3 win, me thinks. Up the Boro!
@forever-dormo Ulapul or Ullapool? I presume Scottish and English spelling differences ... Up the Boro!
Thanks for that whistle stop tour Martin. Looked a fantastic holiday.
Lorna, that's Mrs Powmill to me, knows Skye and has promised to take me there one day. Iona is the only one of the islands I have visited. We went there a good few years ago now. The Abbey on the island was a wonderfully peaceful place to be.
I am keen to visit the stone age monuments and houses in the Orkneys. That won't be this year, but hopefully next.
@powmillnaemore - We had our honeymoon near Aviemore, going up Cairngorm and touring the area.
Martin, Len & Jarkko - Much of Scotland, not only the Highlands, are great to visit. Nairn & the Moray Firth are good fun and, of course, the Spey Valley is great for whisky lovers. The Hebrides are wonderful; so is Orkney: full of ancient ruins but with very small villages (apart from towns such as Stornoway on Lewis and Kirkwall & Stromness on Orkney) and the archaeology is incredible. I've not been to the Shetland Islands, though. But it's not only the NW Highlands and the Islands like Skye, Arran & Mull, because Perthshire, "the Kingdom of" Fife and Ayrshire are worth repeated visits, too. Scotland is not all about only the cities in its central belt.
Jarkko - Many towns and villages in the Highlands have a Scots Gaelic (pronounced rather like "Garlic" without the "r") and an English name. Ullapool is the English and Ulapul is the Gaelic. Inverness is English and Inbhir Nis (meaning "mouth of the Ness" river) is Gaelic. Wikipedia tells us that Ullapool's name may derive from Norse - "Ulli's farm" (local leader called Ulli?) or wool farm (the whole NW coast of Scotland had a massive Norse influence over the centuries with invasions and settlement by Vikings; Shetland was only coinfirmed as being part of Scotland rather than Norway in 1472). Go to Dingwall and the supermarkets have aisles signed in English & Gaelic. The Outer Hebrides are very much more Gaelic than the rest of Scotland and youngsters have Gaelic language education. Scots Gaelic is separate from Irish Gaelic which I THINK is pronounced more like "Gaylic".
Right - time to follow Martin's link to island hopping in the Outer Hebrides (above). I MIGHT have seen it before though...
