OK, "Paid", whilst true, is still a bit of a stretch. I think it was less than £50 per month during the season, but that's better than nothing and supplemented my day job to the tune of a couple of nights out, all for the joy of writing about my beloved Boro.
For, yes, ladies and gentleman, this post is all about Middlesbrough FC. It will get quite geeky at points too, so feel free to move on to a picture of a cute kitten or something more distracting if you're not a footy fan.
I started writing this post just a few hours before the 2015 Championship Playoff Final, where Boro took on Norwich in a winner-takes-all game to reach the Premier League. But as the kick-off approached I found myself unable to concentrate on anything but the match, so I abandoned the blog till afterwards... I'm afraid to say that as I resume (and it's taken me this long to want to think about Football again), Boro lost the final and will remain in the 2nd tier of English football as they have since 2009. I am, however, certain we will be promoted next season. (and I'm almost as confident about it as that statement sounds. Almost...) But, back to the blog.
As mentioned in Part 1, during the latter half of 2000 I was contacted by someone from the Boro website, MFC.co.uk, who had seen my ramblings on the now defunct official Boro message board. They were looking for someone to write a diary about the week's goings on at Boro from a fan's perspective and as I was a regular contributor to the message board and generally drivelled on in a semi-engaging fashion as well as implementing a prediction competition I called the CSLPL (don't ask), they thought I might fit the bill.
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| Were you part of the 2000-01 CSLPL on the Boro Message Boards? |
The mental nudge that has me thinking about this small but amusing job after so many years was stumbling across some of the posts last week when clearing out an old hard drive. 15 years or so later and now very much out of context, they are an interesting look at both the Middlesbrough team of 2000 to 2002 and my writing at the time; writing that almost entirely (though amusingly) misjudged both the requirements of client and my audience. Though the format of the blog was never discussed upfront, I imagine they were after a more sober review of the week than the one I presented.
The initial blogs seemed to take on the format of an actual diary, with each day listed individually. Of course, this format necessitated that something interesting happen each day to discuss, which it obviously didn't. A fact that probably prompted some of the more bizarre posts as I struggled to fill in quiet days with little news. The very first entry, from Tuesday Nov 7th 2000, is a case in point, being mainly about the weather at the training ground (it apparently rained so much on Teesside that week there were floods at Rockliffe.) coming in the style of a Parable from the Bible:
Tuesday
November 7th. 2000.
And God Gibson did
look down upon Noah Robson and did spake: “There will be upon the land
of Hurworth a great flood. It will last for forty days and forty nights or for
however long we doth lose in the league, whichever is the shorter. And yea, the
flood shall be great and thine entire squad will be forced to train two by two
within the walls of Jericho the indoor training pitch. Low, as I have
spoken, so shall it be.”
To be honest, I can't remember how bad the weather was in the autumn of 2000, and I wasn't exactly specific on detail, leaving this entry almost irrelevant within a week of it being written. This focus on what now seems extraneous detail continues as you read the blogs. The world of football moves at a fast pace at the best of times, so reading posts now that focus on contract negotiations, cancelled games, arguments between managers and all other minor incidents that are normally forgotten within a week, seems very strange.
The posts continued for a few more weeks in this daily "diary" manner, until I apparently gave up with that format and moved to a more recognisable blog, summarising the events of the past week or choosing one to elaborate on. This, of course, left me more room for outlandish tales, choosing just one or two stories to go wild with.
But it was an unusual period to be writing about Boro, probably leading to some of the more eccentric posts as the team weren't really offering much to work with at the time. The problem was, the blog sat rather neatly in-between the glorious failure and redemption of '96 to '99 and the actual glories of '04 to '06.
So... 2000 - 2002: A time that saw hugely influential Manager, Bryan Robson's Boro career sadly tail off to the point he needed Ex-England boss, Terry Venables to help him through the door, and the start of Steve McClaren's tenure, which, with due respect to his later achievements with Middlesbrough, began in fairly mediocre fashion.
Reading through the blogs now it's funny how excitedly I talked up Boro players which, in hindsight, never deserved such praise. I rightly seemed to think young academy graduates should have filled the team rather than expensive imports; a reaction to the Rav/Emerson era perhaps, but should I really have been championing players like Mark Summerbell into the team?
Other players mentioned throughout this period show the make-up of our squad at the time. At one point I mention that Paul Okon should be a definite starter in the next match and I even state that It's time for Noel Whelan to deliver on his obvious match winning potential! Did I say that? Really?
There were still some international stars in the team during this period, though I seem to credit Christian Karembeu's wife with a better performance modelling our away kit than all of his combined games for the team, which I at one point deemed "Hugely inadequate for a World Cup winner".
And then, of course, there was Alen Boksic.
The difference between my first post of the 2001-02 season where I looked forward to a glorious partnership between Boksic and (The New Maradona™) Carlos Marinelli is in stark contrast to the final post of the season where I thank the Lord for Dean Windass. Says it all, really.
Rather amusingly I tried looking for any remnants of the blog on Google just before I started writing and was surprised to find that three of the posts are still live, somehow surviving the many format changes the site has undergone since. (Though I assume they won't last much longer now that I'm pointing it out).
I'll link to the posts at the end for anyone who's interested in reading them, but here's one that caught my attention for tragic reasons, perhaps proving that I didn't always write inane drivel and could, occasionally, take my job more seriously:
DJ Stanley Blog Post, mfc.co.uk, Wednesday 30th Jan, 2002.
Eventually and with shrewd sense, the good people at MFC.co.uk decided that my weekly ramblings weren't quite what they were looking for and we parted ways. I really don't blame them. My final post for the club on 22nd April, 2002 was a review of the FA Cup Semi Final against Arsenal at Old Trafford, a great day that saw Boro play a blinder but narrowly fall short of the final, but the blog is full of optimism and hope that the game represented the start of Boro mixing it with the Big Boys again.
As I left my brief employment with the club coincidentally so did all of the players mentioned above, to be replaced for the following season by people like Juninho (again), Boateng and Maccarone, who would all go on to play major parts in the League and UEFA Cup glories that followed.
Was mine the first Boro blog? Actually I'm not sure, but possibly the first official one. Was it the best Boro blog? No, not by a long shot, a point proven by the many excellent websites and blogs about Boro by fans and journalists that abound at the moment, Anthony Vicker's Untypical Boro being the one I read most regularly, a blog rare on the internet these days because the people leaving comments are just as sharp as the blogger himself.
But was mine the strangest Boro blog? Almost certainly, though perhaps it was fitting that such a meandering diary covered an equally meandering time in Boro's recent history.
Here are the links to the two other surviving posts on the Boro Website for as long as they are allowed to remain live:
Wednesday November 14th, 2001
Tuesday March 19th, 2002
And as a final treat (or punishment, depending on how you view it) I've uploaded below my favourite of the remaining 60 or so posts that are no longer available on-line. This one details, in typical DJ Stanley style, the end of the Robson era and the beginning of the McClaren. For younger readers, ask your parents which film is being paraphrased. No, actually, better make that your Grandparents.
June 11, 2001
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| Bryan Robson & Terry Venables |
So... 2000 - 2002: A time that saw hugely influential Manager, Bryan Robson's Boro career sadly tail off to the point he needed Ex-England boss, Terry Venables to help him through the door, and the start of Steve McClaren's tenure, which, with due respect to his later achievements with Middlesbrough, began in fairly mediocre fashion.
Reading through the blogs now it's funny how excitedly I talked up Boro players which, in hindsight, never deserved such praise. I rightly seemed to think young academy graduates should have filled the team rather than expensive imports; a reaction to the Rav/Emerson era perhaps, but should I really have been championing players like Mark Summerbell into the team?
 |
| Boro Legend Mark Summerbell |
 |
| Boro Legend Paul Okon |
 |
| Adriana Karembeu arguably made a bigger impression at Boro than hubby, Christian. |
And then, of course, there was Alen Boksic.
The difference between my first post of the 2001-02 season where I looked forward to a glorious partnership between Boksic and (The New Maradona™) Carlos Marinelli is in stark contrast to the final post of the season where I thank the Lord for Dean Windass. Says it all, really.
Rather amusingly I tried looking for any remnants of the blog on Google just before I started writing and was surprised to find that three of the posts are still live, somehow surviving the many format changes the site has undergone since. (Though I assume they won't last much longer now that I'm pointing it out).
I'll link to the posts at the end for anyone who's interested in reading them, but here's one that caught my attention for tragic reasons, perhaps proving that I didn't always write inane drivel and could, occasionally, take my job more seriously:
DJ Stanley Blog Post, mfc.co.uk, Wednesday 30th Jan, 2002.
Eventually and with shrewd sense, the good people at MFC.co.uk decided that my weekly ramblings weren't quite what they were looking for and we parted ways. I really don't blame them. My final post for the club on 22nd April, 2002 was a review of the FA Cup Semi Final against Arsenal at Old Trafford, a great day that saw Boro play a blinder but narrowly fall short of the final, but the blog is full of optimism and hope that the game represented the start of Boro mixing it with the Big Boys again.
As I left my brief employment with the club coincidentally so did all of the players mentioned above, to be replaced for the following season by people like Juninho (again), Boateng and Maccarone, who would all go on to play major parts in the League and UEFA Cup glories that followed.
Was mine the first Boro blog? Actually I'm not sure, but possibly the first official one. Was it the best Boro blog? No, not by a long shot, a point proven by the many excellent websites and blogs about Boro by fans and journalists that abound at the moment, Anthony Vicker's Untypical Boro being the one I read most regularly, a blog rare on the internet these days because the people leaving comments are just as sharp as the blogger himself.
But was mine the strangest Boro blog? Almost certainly, though perhaps it was fitting that such a meandering diary covered an equally meandering time in Boro's recent history.
Here are the links to the two other surviving posts on the Boro Website for as long as they are allowed to remain live:
Wednesday November 14th, 2001
Tuesday March 19th, 2002
And as a final treat (or punishment, depending on how you view it) I've uploaded below my favourite of the remaining 60 or so posts that are no longer available on-line. This one details, in typical DJ Stanley style, the end of the Robson era and the beginning of the McClaren. For younger readers, ask your parents which film is being paraphrased. No, actually, better make that your Grandparents.
June 11, 2001
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