@Andy R Agreed, I don’t think 1-3 was ever a proper market price. Maybe our Chancellor stuck some gilts on CW, last Friday. 😉

Has anyone noticed that Darlington have now won their last 6 matches included one in the Qualifying Round of the FA Cup and are now in 3rd place in the National League North League table after 10 matches?  A long way to go, but the best start of the season for many a year.

I’ve always taken an interest in the Northern League but was fascinated by the progress of Boro Rangers FC who having been founded as recently as 2003 and joined the old Teesside League before it was dissolved have since  won the new North Riding League 7 years in succession. 

A couple of years ago they were admitted to the Northern League Division Two and have only played 3 home matches winning two matches and losing once, but now head the league table with 8 wins and 2 draws from their 10 away matches. Whilst wondering if they had any affiliation with Middlesbrough FC, I was surprised to find that they play their home matches at the New Ferens Park in the city of Durham where their total aggregate of attendances total a miserly 138 at an average of only 46 spectators per match. So surely a ground in Middlesbrough can be found for this ‘cuckoo in the nest’ Teesside club as their unbeaten record now stretches to half a dozen matches.

Thanks to OFB for the preview and breaking the bad news that the game is once again not available to stream live through my MFC Live 'Season subscription' - that's now 3 of the last 4 games not available for streaming and 6 of the 12 games so far being selected for TV somewhere (WBA, Sheff Utd, Watford, Sunderland, Rotherham, Coventry).

It's a complete joke and totally unacceptable that clubs can sell packages to supporters that fail to offer the bulk of the games they've paid for in good faith. Where's the regulator capping the games selected? I already missed two games while on holiday with the early start of the season and wouldn't have subscribed if I'd known I'd see only 4 MFC Live games before October.

Why should they be blocked? People who take out a club video subscription are not going to pay for a general monthly subscription to another company because of one game - besides, who are these people in Germany who are going to pay to watch either Boro v Rotherham or Coventry v Boro - they don't exist so I'd like to see the viewing figures of these overseas companies - especially if I was paying for advertising with them!

In addition, KP is right to say MFC Live are still showing that the Coventry game video is being streamed live for overseas subscribers but iFollow says only audio commentary is available - They seem happy to take our money but not bothered about providing a service - indeed, I've also had quite a few streaming problems this season in the few games that were available.

I would like to offer possible unofficial links for these games but even these have been a nightmare this season with an explosion in dodgy pop-up windows and links every time you try to click on a video - it's sometimes taken 10-15 minutes to get to the actual stream and needing to close 10-20 popups with some streams not even getting to the game. Then going through the whole thing again when they crash or freeze. So I'd be reluctant to post a link to an unofficial stream as they've become more than dodgy.

It should be simple to pay a subscription to watch your club games but since the rights have been sold several times over it's become a lottery - a bit like when airlines would sell more seats than they had and passengers only discovered they were going to miss out when they checked in.

As for thoughts on the game itself... I'm not expecting a classic and feels like Boro's season is on a knife edge - plus will Chris Wilder still be in charge in a week or two? Could be hard for the players to concentrate on matters on the pitch as the distractions are mounting. Hoping to see an end to the drift but further bad results would start to kill off the season.

The start of 7 games in October which can make or break our season. If we are seriously looking up the table then every single one of those games is a game we need to win. Clearly we can't expect 7 wins from 7 but if we don't gain at least 14 points in October then we're looking at mid-table at best this season. 

If come the end of October our form hasn't improved (say we get 7-10 points) then it is hard to see Wilder lasting the season. Up to now he's had to deal with massive churn of players and a pretty tough set of fixtures. 

Coventry have had a really poor start though in part that has been due to their home games being cancelled. They'll be eyeing this match as a chance to get their season up and running properly. Given our dismal away record and the various negative rumours swirling around, we really need a result and a good performance. I do worry about our tendency to crumble under pressure and it's hard to see anything other than a Coventry win.

So, I'm going to invoke the power of positive thought and go for a 3-0 victory us. 

@werdermouth.  I emailed the club this morning and asked for clarification regarding streaming the Coventry game and the conflicting information.  

I have not had a response but I see that the website has now been changed to show that only audio coverage is available to overseas subscribers!

I, like you am not happy with this situation, particularly as it appears that the EFL’s broadcast partner in Spain is not showing the match so why can’t it be streamed! 😖😎

@martin-bellamy 

In these affairs there is always a but, and on this occasion it is the fact that some tycoon is ready to sign up as the new owner of Bournmouth in the next couple of days, so it looks as though Gibbo will win the battle of wills over compensation. Though to be honest I cannot see this Manager paying us any damages.

@k-p-in-spain 

It's completely out or order that they're blocking streaming if the match isn't being shown in your country - makes me wonder if it is even legal and they maybe in breach of contract with your subscription.

To be honest (or even dishonest) I'm starting to consider getting a vpn for a country based in the dark markets - after all it's legal to stream the game from countries that aren't showing the game!

@werdermouth    NordVPN is my shout.

Posted by: @plato

@martin-bellamy 

In these affairs there is always a but, and on this occasion it is the fact that some tycoon is ready to sign up as the new owner of Bournmouth in the next couple of days, so it looks as though Gibbo will win the battle of wills over compensation. Though to be honest I cannot see this Manager paying us any damages.

The thing is, I reckon the Betting Companies will know that information too and would be unlikely to be offering odds of 2-1 if they thought it was definitely going to happen. Although, my limited betting history tends to point out that I’m no expert - even though I backed Boro to go up before Big Jack’s winning promotion year.

As one who follows several sports this is my take on the various situations.

GOLF has been ruined by the Saudi LIV breakaway meaning that some of the best players have now been banned from playing in the 4 majors and participating in the Ryder Cup. I expect that when Greg Norman introduced this new conception of LIV based tournaments he thought that they could run hand-in-hand with not only the DP European tour but with the US PGA tour as well. Not so, with World rankings not including any prize money earned on the LIV tour included.As yet we’ve had the proposed European Ryder Cup captain Henrik Stenson forced to resign in favour of Luke Donald. Fortunately Rory McIlroy, Shane Lowry and Matt Fitzpatrick have won US PGA tounaments to almost guarantee enough points to participate in next year’s Ryder Cup in Rome. Nevertheless shouldn’t the European Ryder Cup team be based on points scored in Europe rather than in the USA anyway?

RUGBY LEAGUE is at the crossroads especially in Super League where the decision is whether to reduce the number of clubs to 10 or increase them to 14. At the moment each club plays each other home and away with 4 loop fixtures based on the previous year’s league positions. The big clubs like St Helens, Wigan, Leeds and Warrington would probably be in favour of either maintaining the status quo or reducing the number of league clubs to 10 and increasing the number of loop fixtures, but certainly not receiving less money from the Sky shareout that 14 clubs would entail rather than the current shareout. There’s also the problem of Thursday night matches and the notorious M62 motorway where it would be far easier for fans either side of the M62 to play each other in either Lancashire or Yorkshire. That probably would cause less less of a problem if matches were all played on a Friday night, Saturday and Sunday afternoons instead although 3 clubs (Huddersfield, Hull FC and Wigan) are merely tenants of the football clubs or either have second choice to football in the choice of venue and of course Headingley is used for cricket as well as both codes of rugby. The biggest problem is the suspension review panels where some panelists one week might differ in their interpretation as to whether yellow or red cards were appropriate or not to those panelists making decisions in other weeks. All we ask for is consistency, and that goes for football as well.’

CRICKET also has its problems deciding whether to cut back on the number of County Championship matches or indeed during which part of the summer they should occur. Whoever invented the Hundred is doing no service to cricket at all. In my opinion it is gimmickry gone wild, but to have it played at the same time as other cricket competitions is pure madness. I admit that more people watch one day cricket than 4 day cricket, but Test Cricket is for the purist and how is the reduction of 4 day cricket helping the product of Test Cricket I fail to see. I’d much prefer to revert to one league of 18 counties playing each other once, 17 matches each with reverse venues every other season, and allow cricketers to decide for themselves when they need to rest for some matches not at the behest of the Test selectors. More than most sports players they have suffered most from the Coronavirus pandemic so I can understand to some degree that they wish to make money where they can, but if they want to enhance their Test  match careers then their first allegiance should be to the counties that employ them. As I write this blog I notice that Yorkshire have been relegated, but what can one expect when their outstanding batsmen have not been allowed to play for the counties that pay their wages, but have also been deprived of their best young seamers for almost the whole season through injuries.

 FOOTBALL especially concerning Middlesbrough FC is not what most fans envisaged at the beginning of the season although I wasn’t as confident as most in thinking that Boro would be fighting for a playoff place never mind promotion at the end of the season, based purely on how they ended last season and the fact that rarely have Boro won enough games away from home in their history. However this Saturday could be the start of their season. Remember back in 2006 that 0-7 drubbing at Highbury and the 0-4 home defeat to Villa when a fan threw his season ticket at Steve McLaren in disgust as Boro slumped to 17th in the Premier League. Who would have imagined that the much maligned McLaren would have turned the season round 7 days later by inflicting Jose Mouinho’s  Chelsea their heaviest defeat of the season. Boro also reached the FA Cup Semifinal that season unluckily losing to West Ham plus an amazing season in the EUFA Cup when against the odds they came from behind to beat FC Basel and Steau Bucharest and again like most fans I didn’t envisage that either, so I’m not calling for Chris Wilder’s head jthis season whatever happens. Is he as good a coach as McLaren I’m not so sure, but in my opinion doesn’t deserve a lot of the flack thrown against him by fans who expected too much too soon. I don’t think that Boro will be relegated but any question of their reaching the playoffs is pie in the sky. However there is plenty of time yet to finish mid-table in such a tight league and Wilder’s past record shows that he is the man to do it. One doesn’t become a bad manager overnight at his age, so let’s stick with him.

It’s a sad day for me to learn of Yorkshire’s relegation, as I’m unlikely to see them raise from the ashes in my lifetime and most of my time supporting the Boro have been outside the top tier where goals were aplenty and arguably where they really belong. 2006 was some miracle probably never to be repeated, still Boro are probably in a better position than the other sports I follow which have now become just fading memories ruined by greed.

@ken 

Great Post Ken.

@pedro.  I am assuming you use Nordvpn?  Does this mean that you will be able to live stream Saturday’s game?

Looking at the MFC website, Gibraltar is one of the EFL unsold markets so if I could log on using a Gibraltar based server and IP address then presumably I could also watch the match. I assume that Nordvpn would let me do that? 😎

@werdermouth?  Been thinking the same and finally bitten the bullet this morning and installed NordVPN.  

I have purchased a match pass for tomorrow’s game so hopefully it will all work when I log in tomorrow.

Just annoying that I have had to cover the cost of the VPN and a match pass when I have already paid for an annual match pass which to date has not been value for money both in terms of the number of games watched via it or the quality of football on display; fingers crossed tomorrow will be a turning point.

Next year I will purchase my annual match pass via the NordVPN to avoid this situation recurring. 😎

@k-p-in-spain 

I see you've gone for the cautious approach by buying a second match pass using your vpn for those games not available rather than risk your season pass - though in theory is there anything to stop you 'moving' house during a subscription 😏 

I was also looking at vpn's before Pedro's recommendation and was thinking of PIA, which is about €3 per month for a year contract or as low as €1.70 per month for a 3-year contract.

The other reason I'd been thinking of a vpn is that I currently watch English TV using my 120cm satellite dish but since the summer I usually get a poor signal between 9.30-11.30pm - which is most likely caused by the proliferation of satellites (I looking at you Elon Musk) and their interference on the fringes of the signal. So to access the BBC iPlayer I need a UK IP address.

Anyway, I've yet to decide on whether to take that 'new job' in Liechtenstein, which means I'd be awaywhen watching Boro games...

@werdermouth.  I did wonder about the option of moving house but was not sure how it would work so decide to play safe and set up a new account in my wife’s name using a Belgium IP address (Gibraltar not an option with NordVPN).

All went through without a hitch so I am hopefully set up for the future. 😎

Ps Good luck with the Liechtenstein job.  😉

@k-p-in-spain 

I was wondering if first logging in with a vpn for games that weren't being shown on TV to see if the subscription was bothered as in theory there's nothing to stop me watching those games.

@werdermouth.  That might work.  

I have just tried booking a match pass using both VPN and without VPN and both were indicating it would let me albeit I did not complete the whole process and may have been stopped later in the transaction.  

If you try, I will be interested to learn how you get on. 😎

@k-p-in-spain  and Werder.    I started using a VPN some years ago when the satellites that Sky TV used were replaced with new. In the south of Spain we lost our reception although I believe that the area north of mid Spain was still OK.

I then accessed UK TV through a VPN.Then came IPTV services which could  be subscribed to through a mag box. Openly advertised on the Costa del Sol.

However life changes and after the pandemic went back to accessing through a VPN. The thing is most anti virus offer a VPN, I have Kaspersky. However it does not work as they do not have sufficient servers in the UK to keep ahead of the likes of the BBC.

So I had to subscribe and Nord was recommended. Express VPN is also good I believe. 

Werder have you thought of an Amazon Fire Stick for your normal UK TV. You can load it with your VPN. They have them also in the App Store on the stick. You can then use it where you want.

@pedro. Thanks for the feedback and recommendation regarding the use of a VPN. 

We still have a large satellite dish on the Costa Blanca through which I obtain my Sky TV via my UK subscription.  I also use a UKTV router which provides me with a UK IP address and through a set top box connection enables me to obtain the Sky 7 day planner information, recording facilities and Box Office Services.  

NordVPN was so simple to download and install and I was up and running within a few minutes.  Hopefully when I log on tomorrow all will work fine and Boro will do the business!😎

Wedermouth.  I have tried again to purchase a match pass tomorrow and it is still allowing me to do so using my Spanish IP address and via VPN. 

It shouldn't allow the former and it may be the club have still not updated their payment system to reflect this match is not available to all overseas subscribers. 

It did appear that until I emailed MFC that they were unaware of the restrictions on this match; I have still not had a response to my email! 😎

@k-p-in-spain   One tip that you may need to know, hopefully not. 

Occasionally a box pops up saying you are in the UK or maybe just an error has occurred. When you check your VPN you are showing as still connected.

Normally you just need to disconnect, noting your server number before you do. Then reconnect and again normally it will connect to a different server and all will be OK. The VPN companies are always reconfiguring their servers to keep ahead of the TV companies and their likes.

@k-p-in-spain 

I've just been to the MFC Live page and it states...

This fixture has been selected for international TV broadcast. Video streaming will be available for supporters within unsold markets only. Audio will be available worldwide.

Given you said that the game wasn't being shown in Spain it may well mean you could access it with your Season Pass after all. If so I hope the game ends up being worth paying for it twice - though it's a bit vague as to what an unsold market is!

@pedro 

Thanks for the suggestions, I will look into it if the satellite problems continue - plenty of options though in this digital age.

It's become a minefield for those involved providing content but they've gone down a high-price complex rights issues system when perhaps they'd be better off providing non-geographical affordable packages that mean people wouldn't have to look for work-arounds. Football supporters have become easy targets for exploitation as they know many will pay what it takes to follow their club.

iFollow was £5 a game when it started but now that price has doubled with available games reducing every season as they sell more and more games packages overseas. In turn companies use these packages either to bulk up subscription packages to consumers or to sell more advertising. I suspect the reality is that few people outside the fans of the teams being shown are tuning in to watch bottom-half clashes in the second division - could you imagine anyone in the UK actively paying to watch second division German or French teams play? People have far better things to do with their time or indeed more higher level games of interest to them to watch. It's simply a marketing scam or an illusion where local fans have to miss out in the pretence that somewhere in Europe neutral foreign fans are so bored with having nothing to do that they are paying to watch Coventry v Boro.

Overcharging will be their downfall as it has in the music industry where digital downloads have been priced similar to manufacturing, distributing and retailing a  physical product - as a result illegal downloads far outnumber legal ones as the people just refuse to pay or use alternative providers.

So time to call their bluff that somehow people who just want to watch their team having paid to do so are costing some media company money by circumnavigating these pointless blocking of streams.

@werdermouth    Exactly so Werder. When one sees the audience numbers for some of Sky’s EFL matches, never mind the low  Premier League viewers of the unimportant games, one wonders why Sky bother showing them. They surely cannot be even covering their costs?

I assume it is the big six teams that make it all worthwhile with the global viewing numbers. Outside of those who is really bothered in this global world of football exploitation.

Malcolm Christie 

Very pleased to announce that I’ve taken a position with the Middlesbrough FC Academy to work as a YDP Academy Coach with the U11 & U12’s. Helping, guiding and nurturing the next batch of kids in their footballing journeys. My existing commitments with Christie Coaching will continue as normal. Ends

OFB

This could well be Boro’s last visit to the Coventry Building Society stadium formerly known as the Ricoh Arena, as joint users Wasps RUFC have filed for administration. Formerly known as London Wasps since 1866 it would seem that the relocation to Coventry has seen crowds diminish though whether a return to London is an alternative to administration I’m not sure. Nevertheless Coventry City may be looking for a new home next season with a possible ground share back to St Andrews, the home of Birmingham City a possibility.

Could be a scrappy game today as I seem to remember that they had issues with the pitch at the beginning of the season, leading to a number of postponements.

Anyone know if the pitch has been replaced, it never was one of the best because of the rugby games played on it?😎

Boro will be playing in their new 3rd strip.

https://www.mfc.co.uk/news/2022/october/01/boro-s-third-shirt-unveiled---buy-it-now-/

Come on BORO.