This month marked the fiftieth anniversary of my first Boro match, a home win against Birmingham at Ayresome Park. My second Boro game was actually fifty years to the day, a Boxing Day victory over Sheff Utd. Fifty years feels right for both those games as I was only a kid. What does seem strange though is that I only watched games at Ayresome for twenty years and we are now approaching the thirtieth anniversary of the move to the Riverside. Time moves much more quickly these days.
It’s moving quickly for Harry too as this was his last day as a thirteen-year-old. It barely seems any time at all since I rocked up at North Tees after he was born with some mince and mash for his Mam.
We got to the ground early enough to catch up with Tom and his mate Murgy in the fan zone. There were long queues for the bar, but Murgy very generously gave me a can of Stella from a carrier bag-full that he had brought with him.
It all started very well with Doak putting us one up early on and then Azaz adding a couple more. With half an hour gone we were three up and quite a lot of the away fans were streaming out for an early start back down the A19. Wednesday had a couple of chances towards the end of the first half, but when they went off at the break my main interest was whether we would emulate the 8-0 result against them from the Charlton’s Champions season.
It all went tits up after the restart. Latte Lath had an easy opportunity to square it to Doak for a fourth but took the shot himself. Wednesday went straight down the other end and pulled one back. Even then, I wasn’t worried and was disappointed that the announcer didn’t troll them by referring to their goal as a consolation.
They quickly scored another, Rav got a red, new keeper Sol Brynn knacked his shoulder and suddenly it was three-each. The momentum was all with Wednesday for the last half-hour and from what had seemed a certain victory I finished up relieved to see us hold on for a point. I suppose that after fifty years I shouldn’t really be surprised by such a turn of events.
Trail of the Lion King 
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