I've adopted a Scandinavian approach and now take particular delight in the exploits of ex-Boro players on Match of the Day
A decade ago I spent a summer wandering around Scandinavia. Everywhere I went there were Pizza Huts, Body Shops, McDonald's and teenagers wearing the shirts of Barcelona and the other big beasts of the European game. Even in the age of globalisation, however, there were signs of local culture. I knew I was in Denmark when the Milan jerseys had "Helveg" on the back, in Norway the Man United tops proclaimed "Solskjaer".
In Gothenburg I noticed more Lazio and Bologna shirts, all decorated with the surname of Kennet Andersson, the former IFK striker Fifa once bizarrely described as "the prototype footballer of the new millennium", an assertion that suggests by now all teams should be made up of 11 tall, thin blond centre-forwards.
It occurred to me then that in countries whose clubs hadn't the financial clout to compete in the Champions League some fans had stopped supporting clubs and begun supporting players, following them from team to team. I imagined that in 500 years, after some catastrophe had destroyed all records of football, archaeologists would be able to trace the swerving career paths of Brian Laudrup, Jon Dahl Tomasson or Jesper Gronkjaer using a clutch of shirts found buried at the back of a Copenhagen wardrobe, in much the same way they can tell when volcanoes erupted by studying the rings in ancient trees. "And we can see that he did not stay long at Atl�tico Madrid, because there is only one style of shirt, and in those days the retainers of the great clubs changed the design of their livery with great frequency. This acted as a punitive tax upon the populace."
This season, when watching the tragically Middlesbrough-less Match of the Day, I have adopted a Scandinavian approach to proceedings, taking particular delight in the performance of ex-Boro players and adding my own commentary, so as to impart due and proper emphasis to events.
"Oh yes," I found myself gurgling at the screen on Saturday, "you have to say that's a top-class strike from Adam Johnson, the whey-faced wing wonder who was taught his trade on Teesside'.
Swansea's game with Bolton forced me into full John Motson mode, chuckling, "Oh, and would you believe it? Danny Graham has scored for both teams! And despair has turned to delight for this goal-grabbing graduate of Middlesbrough's famous youth academy."
Graham also tends to be put up for post-match talking-into-the-microphone-while-looking-nervously-off-to-the-side-as-if-expecting-someone-to-chuck-a-bucket-of-water-over-him duties by the Swans. On Saturday, he was the third interviewee of the evening to use the humming phrase "game management". So far nobody has described people who play in Graham's position as "goal solution providers", but it is only a matter of time.
And while we briefly drift off topic, can I ask why, if, as we are constantly assured, Manchester United is an internationally recognised brand name, BBC presenters are allowed to mention it so brazenly? Just as Blue Peter folk used to talk of sticky-back plastic rather than Fablon, surely Gary Lineker and co should be forced to speak euphemistically of "red-shirted ball-kickers".
Whatever, it was an exciting Saturday night for me, because if Stewart Downing's shot from the edge of the box had gone in instead of cannoning back off the woodwork ("Oh and you have to say that's desperately unlucky for the lad from Pallister Park") I'd have had a post-Boro hat-trick to celebrate and would have been able to intone in the Churchillian tone the late Brian Moore used to adopt for anything involving Arsenal: "Scored on Merseyside, Manchester and in South Wales, but made on the banks of the Tees".
I operate a strict selection policy on whom I follow, differentiating between ex-players (players who were brought up via the youth system) and former players (those who passed through on the way from one club to the next). Thus, though I am delighted to acclaim James Morrison, or celebrate David Wheater with a Pearce-esque gargle of joy ("Oh terrific block from the man they call the Redcar Rock!") I have no interest in what Fulham's Mark Schwarzer gets up to, because ? despite over 300 games for Boro ? he rightly belongs to fans of Marconi Stallions.
Even with such strictures these are exciting times for those following Middlesbrough's ex-players, with many of us (well, me, really) believing that the current crop of footballers-that-have-left could go on to rival the achievements of the "Steel Generation" of the late-80s, who carried off an incredible five league titles on the trot thanks to Gary Pallister and Stuart Ripley. It's early days I know, but with Manchester City's massive investment and Chelsea's emphasis on the Champions League I can't help believe that in the next few years either Adam Johnson or Ross Turnbull might become the first ex-Boro player to lift Europe's top trophy since Craig Johnston, nearly 30 years ago. "And you'd have to say, Mark Lawrenson, that that would be quite a feather in the cap of what, in days gone by, we used to call County Cleveland".
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2011/nov/03/ex-middlesbrough-players
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