Match Day Preview: The Big Tees
Posted by Ratbert in Bolton, Middlesborough | 24 March 2006
Middlesbrough v Bolton, Riverside, Sunday 26 March, 1:30pm, Sky Sports
Time was when Middlesbrough tried picking a fight with Bolton. They saw us as rivals. Rivals! Quite why I’m not sure. Both clubs are probably similar in size and fan base, but that’s about it. Yet many games in recent years brought fans of each team out against each other in a Dennis the Menace vs Walter the Softie (you choose who is which) style verbal custard pie fight.
Then have been a few niggly factors in our respective recent histories – Michael Ricketts saying he wanted to join a bigger club and win trophies! Ahem. How much did Boro pay? Nuff said. Then of course there was Diouf spitting water on the pitch close to the crowd, though you’d think he was Robbie Savage the hysteria it caused on Teeside.
The apex, of course, was the Carling Cup final of 2004. That gosh-darn game has already been well documented far and wide, but it at the very least enabled Boro’ fans to spend far too much time reminding us of it at every opportunity they got – in some cases, over a year after they’d won it!
Our ‘rivalry’ has calmed down of late. Perhaps our shared experience in the UEFA Cup has taken the sting out, with both sets of fans actually wishing one another GOOD LUCK this season, unthinkable not so long since., and the Carling Cup memory finally fading. Perhaps the whole reason for the ding-dong in the first place was the fact that both Bolton and Boro live in the shadow of more prominent rivalries, and never get due credit for their achievements. I for one have no issue with Middlesbrough; it’s a well run club with a nice stadium and decent players, even if Steve Maclaren has the ability of being able to give interviews and leave you unable to remember a word he said in them afterwards. England manager? Hmm…
Much is riding on this one, more than might be at first thought. The UEFA competition has boiled down to just fifth and sixth place with the non-Chelsea / Liverpool FA Cup finalist getting a back door ticket to the continent next season. And said Europe league race gets tighter each week, with all the teams in contention winning with gay abandon. So can we do it? Boro have improved since they flirted perilously with the bottom three a few weeks ago, are still in the FA and UEFA cups, and on home ground not to be taken lightly. Bolton will no doubt still be buzzing from two recent Premiership wins, and the advantage of a week’s rest.
Both teams have little in the way of injury problems to report: the one big change for the Whites is likely to be the return of the scourge of everyone, El Hadji Diouf, to the line-up, though he will probably start on the bench. Chris Riggott is a rumoured return for the hosts.
Prediction: 1-0 to Middlesbrough. It will be close, and probably not pretty, but I just have a feeling they need a win and will have a slight edge (don’t all hit me at once; I’d like to be wrong).
Anyway, remember the last time we won at the Riverside? A stunning 4-1 triumph in February 1996 with Nathan Blake, Simon Coleman, Fabian De Freitas and David Lee on the score sheet. Blimey!
