09 March 2008. It will forever be imprinted on our minds as the date of a spectacular cock-up. Chelsea and Manchester United had been eliminated from the FA Cup a day earlier, and despite another struggling league campaign Boro had relatively clear passage to Wembley. Sidestep visiting Cardiff at first asking and most likely make your second domestic cup final in 3 years – fifth in 12 years! Go back to Europe and avenge the lugubrious result from Eindhoven. Piece of piss, as they say…

2 goals in the first 23 minutes deflated the Riverside and the paradigm of phantom entitlement was born. Fans were too fucked off to even stay the full 90 minutes as the ignominy became almost insurmountable. We managed to stay up, avoiding the further notoriety of being relegated on the back of a crushing cup defeat, but it was a sea change nevertheless. 21 months later we languish out of the top flight, and the direction of the club, or absence of it, has become emblematic of the current plight. Gordon Strachan didn’t just inherit a depleted squad, or severe financial restrictions, or an enormous task to get us back up. Bequeathed to the gaffer was a fan base so morose at the cumulative impact of those 21 months – indifferent to cash constraints and fiscal restructuring. We found the year zero – the big bang, as it were – the moment that the mood changed on Teesside, for the detriment of club and community.

Much like how fortunes changed that fateful Sunday morning (here anyway), Cardiff come to town hot off a 2-0 pasting at the Hawthornes to second place West Brom. The latest Boro home blunder rendered a 3-0 tonking from Blackpool. Divergent paths. The Riverside riddle needs to be solved – a result on Sunday can tell the televised world that we do have the bottle, the balls, the resolve, to make a fight of it and remain in contention, w/ clubs like Cardiff, for the escape hatch marked UP.

Gordo is surely cogitating squad permutations as we type. Will there be an early start to the enforced gardening leave for Sean St Ledger that will see him miss the rest of December? Do Chris Riggott and Emanuel Pogatetz reunite in the centre of defence? How about a recall for Danny Coyne? Too many questions – which is troubling at this stage. We’re witnessing first hand how clubs can stutter and vacillate at this level. The quest for a winning formula leading to a rich vein of form is still elusive. Winning Sunday may not catalyse that, but it certainly can help exorcise those old demons.

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