By Andy Morgan
February 11 2006

So with the titanic disappointment of the week before put temporarily on ice, off we went to Wembley to take on Ruud Gullitt's Chelsea. Only not all of us had a ticket, including myself but where there is a will, there is a way. Maybe. Steve Goldby
Chelsea 2-0 Middlesbrough, FA Cup Final, 17/05/1997

Typical Boro. After hundreds of years of waiting to get the to the final, we have to go and do it in a season where we get relegated as well. We'd taken the drop at Leeds the Sunday before and the fans were blaming the FA for the three points deduction. I actually think that it was more to do with the fact that our results between November and April were pretty awful but it stopped Robbo getting the sack at least.

So with the titanic disappointment of the week before put temporarily on ice, off we went to Wembley to take on Ruud Gullitt's Chelsea. Only not all of us had a ticket, including myself but where there is a will, there is a way. Maybe.

I remember watching FA Cup finals when I was a kid and the two team buses always seemed to turn up at the gates at around 12pm, park up and let the players get off and mingle with the fans, sign autographs and receive the fans' well-wishes. So my cunning plan was to just follow them into the stadium after they had finished talking to the fans.

I wore a suit with a red tie, hoping to pass myself off as officialdom and at the appointed time, the team bus turned up. I skipped the barrier, waited for the bus to stop and the entrance gates opened up and in went the bus without stopping, the gates closing quickly behind it. Bollocks.

So there I was left wandering around Wembley, dressed like a monkey on a boiling hot day. I got to see Pele on Wembley Way and he was wearing a Boro scarf as well and then it was time to put Plan B into action. Off to Willesden for the MSS function in an old smelly nightclub on a big TV. It packed up with an hour to go until kick-off. The picture was sort of there but the sound was non-existent. It was the quietest cup final I have ever seen, bar the curses at Emerson when he failed to pick up Di Matteo for the first goal.

The last part of my three pronged horror day was the worst. I went home straight after the match, just to get out of the fucking suit. I was living in London at the time and had the piss taken out of me mercilessly when I got off at my local tube station. I lived in South Kensington at the time, which is deep in Chelsea territory and about as blue as you will ever get. I stayed in that night but the local off-licence did good business...

Andrew Morgan
Chelsea 0-0 Middlesbrough, 10/04/2004

Nearly two years ago! It seems like yesterday that I was making my way down to the capital from Cambridge, apprehensive about another away day. Well I say another away day but this was only my second ever on my own volition (and my third overall). I had just got back into following the Boro the previous month and realised that being stuck in Cambridge gave me access to a few away games if nothing else. So I decided I might as well do some before the pull of moving back north became too strong.

Indeed I fell into going to this fixture more by accident – I had consoled myself about not getting a Carling Cup Final ticket by buying one for the away game at Charlton on 13th March instead and had had a bloody good time with an Arsenal supporting mate called Matt. I vowed to do it again and scanned the fixtures for the rest of the season to see how possible it would be. Chelsea (and Pompey) stuck out like thumbs in a medieval torture device and thus I decided there and then to commit to them. The day the Chelsea tickets came out, I was on the phone immediately to the ticket office and purchased my shiny ticket for a sum total of £31 (+£2 ‘booking fee’). Things were far cheaper in the olden days...

The problem was that 10th April was Easter Saturday and all my mates had gone home for the festivities (read to disappointedly open one Easter egg and watch the rain torrent from the sky whilst yearning for spring-like weather). So I was on my own. It was the year of my Finals at Cambridge and my sum total of a social life in four weeks had been one dodgy rock night at a local club and a tin of condensed soup (tomato no less). I didn’t want to be at Chelsea on my own, I had had enough of that and so I took a risk - I dived on to the messageboards.

I had joined the 606 community just after the Cup Final. In fact, I joined it on 11th March as it was two days before the Charlton game and I had asked the fraternity about the best pubs in the vicinity. They suggested the Anti-Gallican if you care. That was the Wiz. I knew that he lived in London so I asked him if he fancied a meet-up. What was there to lose? Meet some nutter on the internet who believed he was a wizard – the worst thing that could have happened was that I could have been assaulted by a potion bearing weirdo around the back of the Matthew Harding stand. And to be honest that probably could happen to anyone anyway. So I thought meet in a neutral safe location and all would be fine. So we chose O’Neill’s at St. Pancras – safe enough for me to run away from and board any number of trains or buses leaving from King’s Cross.

So with a description of ridiculous green deer-stalker lodged in my head I travelled down on the train from one bridge to another – from Cam to Stamford. Got to O’Neill’s and waited. And waited. We had arranged to meet at twelve. I had got there about ten minutes late and started to wonder where the Wiz was. 12.40 and I was on the brink of giving up when I saw a likely candidate walk through the door. We recognised each other through the telepathic malaise of Boro support and we clicked. We introduced ourselves to each other, had a drink and waited for a few others to arrive. All fears of having to drink any of Wiz’s magic potions were instantly dispelled.

Stamford Bridge is nowhere near as impressive as everyone says it is. In fact I think it’s quite a poor stadium, spoiled by the fact that you can see Chelsea Towers poking up from behind one of the stands. The away end is in the middle of one of the main stands and you have to stand in a glorified wind tunnel to drink. The home and away fans are not separated, which is quite odd considering the reputation Chelsea have had throughout the years. Either way, we grudgingly paid £3 for a pint of Budweiser and drank some more. By the time I went in I was pretty gone.

The Wiz was sat about four rows in front of me and across a bit – we had bought our tickets at separate times. I kept an eye on him but his view was constantly blocked by some prannet who had to be extricated at half-time as he kept standing up and giving it stick to somebody. I can’t remember who I was sat next to, I think it was an old bloke and his son.

The game itself was one of comfortable mediocrity. In fact we kept Chelsea at bay for most of the afternoon – the only scare being when Lampard missed an open goal by cracking his effort on to the post. The Boro had one or two good attacks and were largely the equal of their opposition – but this was, of course, the Easter before Abramovich took over. Either way we were well worth the point that we obtained that day and we were to coast out another season in mid-table mediocrity (coast out by losing four of our last five games mind).

Upon conclusion the Wiz and I made our way back for another drink before shaking hands and saying farewell. He had revealed to me that he had always wanted to meet up with some of the lads from the board and that he was glad we had done this. I said we would do it again and that I was going to Pompey. He pencilled it into his diary immediately (well, okay, he remembered it then – how am I to know if he’s got a diary?) and then went on his way. I went back to Cambridge a very happy man. And who would have predicted what would happen at Pompey – 5-1 defeat, more friends made, large volumes of alcohol consumed and the nascence of this very website. Football is a funny old game…

The Wizard of Smog
Chelsea 1-0 Middlesbrough (agg. 1-2), Play-off Final 2nd leg, 28/05/1988

Out of many, the stand-out is the play-off game at Stamford Bridge. The play-off was for a place in the (old) First Division, i.e. the top flight. The first division team finishing third or fourth bottom (Chelsea) played the winners of a knock-out tournament for the teams finishing third to sixth in the second division (which Boro won), over two legs. The winners would start the next season in the First Division, the losers, the second.

It was a really hot day.

We'd won at Ayresome 2-0 so I think most of us, despite the natural defensive pessimism of the long term Boro fan, thought we were going to do it. Certainly where we were drinking before the game, despite everyone being acceptably cautious, the atmosphere belied the words- we were there to party!

On to the tube (we'd been drinking with MSS in Holborn) and when we got to Earl's Court there were lots of Chelsea around and the atmos was starting to crackle. And not in a good way. I'd gone with a Scots friend, a Jags fan. On the tube he fell into a conversation with a Chelsea fan. I attempted to join in a couple of times but the guy wouldn't acknowledge me, wouldn't even look at me. He kept glancing in my direction but was careful not to catch my eye and I could hear the adrenaline thickening his throat, making him choke on his words almost, so I shrugged and gave up. I realised then that this wasn't going to be a normal day.

Walking up to the ground from Fulham Broadway, we were part of a big group and we had a big police escort. Chelsea were pouring out of the pubs and screaming at us as we passed- standard 80's shit I'd seen a thousand times before and yet there was something less ritualistic and more visceral about them than normal, you looked at some of them and they were, to use the sportsman's term, zoned, oblivious to anything but the job in hand- which was screaming death threats at me. Wasn't scared but I was...dunno...impressed I guess.

Younger readers will be astonished to learn that for this almost unbearably important game, I bought my ticket on the gate! That's how low the game had sank in the 80's. We were on the terrace behind the goal at the north end, opposite the Shed (which was still there then) at the south end, where away fans go now. There was a big perimeter between the fans and the pitch back then, it felt like you were miles from the game, and there was no roof. The sun was fierce by now and I envied the people in the stands their shelter. The only bit of the ground that's still there from that day is the east stand, now the Matthew Harding stand, to our left.

The game was impossible. They scored first half and the tension second half was so bad. I literally didn't see the last twenty minutes. But we held out. We were up!

On the final whistle the team came over to us clapping, dancing, etc. Some Boro fans scaled the fence (we were caged in those days) and joined them on the pitch to celebrate. I think that was a goad too far for some Chelsea fans. There was a breach in the fence at the shed end (reports varied as to how, but the one that had a steward deliberately opening it rang true for me, of which more later) and 400-500 or so came streaming through towards us.

More of them ran round the back of the Matthew Harding stand and emerged on the corner terrace to our left; it had emptied quickly on 90 minutes but now started to refill with wannabe murderers. The Boro players sprinted off quick for the dressing rooms and none were hurt. While all that was happening, the Chelsea in the Matthew Harding's upper level were shotting coins at us, hard and from a height. I got a 10p (for the youngsters, in those days it was only slighter smaller and lighter than the 50p is now, quite a substantial coin) on the collar bone, which stung. I've still got the coin.

Anyway the police regained control of the terrace to our left quickly but the Chelsea on the pitch were starting to climb the fence in front of us. People were coining them, jumping up and battering their fingers, anything to stop them- it was proper mediaeval for a couple of minutes. The ones who got to the top looked behind to see how much support they had coming, then looked down at the Boro waiting for them, and thought better of it. That was the turning point, their momentum was lost and the police got them shot out fairly soon after. There were sporadic incidents for a few minutes but that was basically that.

Oh yes the stewards - hoolies in hiviz tabards mate, nothing more or less. At least one (he was distinctive looking, long blond hair and green checked shirt is how I spotted him) pulled off his steward's tabard and was one of those climbing the fence. He'd also attempted to hit one of the Boro fans on the pitch. As we were leaving another steward, totally contorted with anger, said "Go on, fuck off to the First Division where you don't fucking belong". That might have turned nasty but instead we laughed long and hard in his stupid, ugly face the fucking Chelsea tramp. He was in tears as I went past him.

One thing I never found out was how the Boro fans who'd got over the fence to celebrate with the team ever got away. I wonder if they went to the changing rooms with the players?

Once order was firmly restored the team came back out and we had a sing and dance with them, which was cool. I shook the hand of one but I'm buggered if I can remember who!

I'm told there was trouble at Notting Hill tube later but I never saw it, I'm glad to say. When I got in I saw that the sun had burned my right side so I had a very Boro half red/half white face! Marvellous.

So that was a day...

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