Trail of the Lion King

The second game of my Christmas trip to the UK was another home game for the Boro and this time involved a catch-up with Paul and Aiden. I usually see Paul a couple of times a year for gigs or football tournaments but with Aiden it’s generally once every three or four years and almost always a festive fixture at the Riverside.

We had a spare ticket too, but Paul’s dad, Mike, who would have come in the past wouldn’t entertain it. Tom was working and as Harry was at his nanna’s, it went unused.

We were in the West Upper and the first half was spent catching up on each other’s news. Aiden had just retired. That seems weird. It shouldn’t really at fifty-four, but just being fifty-four in itself seems weird. Mid-fifties. How did that happen?

Half-time discussions quickly turned to how crap we are. I don’t see a lot of the Premier League on the telly as the time difference in Malaysia makes it an arse on, but for Paul and Aiden who are able to watch the likes of Man City or Liverpool, it must have been like sitting through a different sport.

I thought that the inclusion of Howson at wing back and Wing in midfield made us a bit more adventurous than in the game I’d watched three days earlier, but maybe that was more a reflection on the relative merits of Ipswich and Sheff Wed.

Still, the result worked out better. We’d taken a first half lead through a Hugill penalty that nobody seemed to appeal for and then second half sub Tavernier capped a livewire performance with a goal. That’ll be him dropped for a while again then.

Overall though, nobody was much impressed with anything at all and by the time the full-time whistle blew half the twenty-three thousand crowd had already cleared off. It’s the time of year when football is supposed to get you out of the house and away from that between Christmas and New Year stupor, yet most people seemed keener to head back home. That speaks volumes.

Tags: Middlesbrough FC, Pulis Out

This entry was posted on March 29, 2019 at 3:00 am and is filed under Football. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.