I have seen any number of games that were preceded by choreographed ceremonies involving schoolchildren, acrobats, mime and giant balloons, but I never thought Middlesbrough would feature in one. Yet here they are in the PSV Stadion on Wednesday waiting for some kids in white suits to finish their act. A feeling of unreality has pervaded the whole day.
On an afternoon so hot even the trees are sweating, burly Tees-siders wander about the streets of Eindhoven with cans in their hands, oblivious to the thousands of Dutch cyclists whisking around them. You might run a sweep on what will knock them down first, the beer or the bikes.
In the square in front of Café Thomas is a red sea and the air is filled with a familiar mixture of chants and moaning. The veterans of Napoleon’s Imperial Guard were nicknamed Les Grognards, but believe me, nobody grumbles like Boro fans of a certain generation. Paul Thompson, a Middlesbrough-supporting photographer, says that after Boro beat Everton in the FA Cup quarterfinals a few years back he followed two elderly men down the Riverside steps. One says, ”So, the semis, eh?” And his mate turns to him and says, ”Aye, more bloody expense.”
Boro’s recent run of comparative success had created a generation gap between The Grumblers and the younger fans, like the one between people raised during rationing and those who reached maturity in the Summer of Love. The Grumblers are in a majority in Eindhoven because even to qualify for the lottery for the 9 200 tickets that the club was allocated you had to have held a season ticket at The Riverside since it first opened its turnstiles a decade ago.
Hence the number of fortysomething blokes wandering about Mathildelaan in a variety of authentic vintage replica shirts advertising products from the era before globalisation sucked the game into its great, greasy maw.
Sitting in the Brabant sun a friend of mine — we are both Grumblers, obviously — gestures towards a group of lads in their early 20s who are laughing and joking. ”They think this is normality, these,” he says.
My friend is a teacher in a Teesside school. ”The kids in my school,” he says, ”seriously think we’ll win this. I say, ‘No we won’t.’ And they say, ‘Why d’you say that, sir?’ And I say, ‘Because it’s Middlesbrough.’ And they say, ‘We won the Carling Cup’.” He shrugs hopelessly, a century of certainty undone by Bolo Zenden’s two-touch penalty. ”The worst thing is it’s started to undermine my lack of confidence. I say we won’t win, we won’t win, we won’t win and somewhere a little Mm … creeps in. And the Mm … becomes a maybe, and the maybe becomes a perhaps and the next thing you know I’m acting as daft as they are.”
”So you think we’ll win?” I say. ”No,” he says, ”no I bloody don’t,” but I can sense the pessimism is leeching from black to a misty grey. Massimo Maccarone is the man to blame. The Italian’s brace of last-minute winners against Basle and Steaua Bucharest would have breathed hope into Eyore.
Sevilla’s record suggests they are the Boro of Spain (in football terms at least) but their fans, bouncing up and down in the stands, seem unaffected. Perhaps they are just covering up their disenchantment with Latin exuberance. Maybe the rhythmic clapping and lusty singing is the Andalusian equivalent of shaking your head and muttering, ”That’s bloody typical, that is.”
”It will all end in tears, believe me,” one of The Grumblers who was left behind told me. He was right. Reality has been restored. Yet things have changed. Boro’s squad is packed with great young players, the chairperson is brilliant and a new manager is coming. Even among the old guard after a 4-0 defeat there is a feeling this chance will come again. – Â