Within a day of arriving back in England I was able to get along to the Riverside for my first Boro game of the season. Jen and I stayed about half an hour away in a cottage at Ingleby Greenhow. It was close enough to Teesside to be convenient, but with the benefits of being out in the countryside. It also had an open fire so I was able to burn stuff, something that Travelodges tend to frown upon.
We’ve been walking the Cleveland Way in stages for a couple of years now and on the morning of the match we slogged up a hill from the cottage to Battersby Moor, where we joined the trail and then covered a section to Kildale and back. I’d been hoping to spot a deer or two but over the course of eleven miles we saw nothing more exciting than a rabbit. Plenty of sheep and grouse, though.
As Tom and I approached the Riverside that evening I noticed the Tuxedo Royale was moored next to the stadium again. It looks as if it someone has started scrapping it, a far cry from its days as a pre-match drinking venue where the barmaids would step in if the strippers didn’t turn up.
The upper tier of the South Stand has sold out to season tickets this year and so Tom and I bought tickets for the lower section. I felt fairly confident of a result against Brentford. We’ve improved our team substantially from last season, particularly up front, whilst Brentford’s results to date suggest that they’ve gone backwards a bit. I wonder how long it will be before their owner realises that Mark Warburton hadn’t been doing such a bad job after all.
We looked by far the better team, going a goal up early on before a mistake from Dimi let them back into the game. Two more goals in the second half, including a cracker from ‘back in the fold’ Albert Adomah secured the points and kept us up at the right end of the table.
Tags: Boro, Championship, Cleveland Way, Ingleby Manor, Middlesbrough FC
Trail of the Lion King 
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