From Guardian message board
vastariner
1d ago
16
17
An open letter to Steve Gibson, chairman of the Middlesbrough All-in Wrestling and Rugby Club.
Steve, Steve, Steve. You seem like a good bloke, you're adored in the Boro community, you've invested hugely in your childhood club. You've been loyal to managers beyond breaking point, and you don't seem to have the sort of ego we see elsewhere in the game.
Are you happy with what went on at St Andrews today? Really happy?
Are you happy that you've spent a fortune on such a dirty, cheating, diving, head-clutching, handballing, shirt-pulling, time-wasting, constant shoving parody of a football team? Really?
I see that your average attendances have gone down nearly 10% this season. Perhaps the supporters are getting fed up with it. I wouldn't blame them.
But they seemed to be happy with it at the final whistle, Steve. Is that because the ends justify the means? That it doesn't matter how much of a rancid excuse a team has to be so that you can get back to that multi-billion Sky trough? And then on relegation outspend the proletarian clubs to buy a place back at that trough?
Because it's one thing to rely on Pulisball when you're a team assembled on buttons and brass farthings up against superstars. It's quite another thing to rely on the same thing when one substitute costs more than the oppositions entire squad. Every single Middlesbrough player is better than every single Birmingham City player, man for man. Every one. You should have murdered us by outfootballing us. Not by cheating from start to finish and relying on a cretin of a ref who couldn't have been more Boro had he been wearing a red shirt.
Indeed the proof is surely that, after a second half in which our equalizer was just reward for battering you throughout it, it took about three minutes for a hitherto bored Boro to score again. OK, it ultimately came from yet another shove from yet another defender on Adams, which yet again the referee missed, but it was a sublime pass and finish.
When your team is capable of that, why does it have to rely so much on players constantly having handfuls of opponents' shirts? Constantly climbing? Constantly diving? Every time they wanted a break someone would hit the turf holding their head to get the ref to stop play. The nadir of that when the no. 6 did so right in front of the referee to try to get him to think Juke had elbowed him. An utter disgrace to get a professional sent off. Referee did nothing. Although he did book Adams for getting fouled in the area. For a proper referee that could cope with Boro's shithousing it would have been an obvious penalty, but the clown we had today...my God. There is a growing belief in the St Andrews stands that the EFL has told referees to give everything against us as a sort of FFP penalty. Today was ample evidence to support that conspiracy theory.
And before you say it's sour grapes, look whom I support. Birmingham City. The two biggest wins I've seen at St Andrews have been for the visitors. I've seen us lose twice to non-league clubs. I've lost count of the number of relegations. I am almost immune to individual match results. On here I try to post something positive about the opposition in our games.
But I've not been so angry about a game since Stoke 1992. Your side, sir, are a virus on football's body. Indeed I didn't join in with the end chant of "Tony Pulis, your football is shit." For one very good reason. I wouldn't dignify such conduct with the sacred word football
1d ago
16
17
An open letter to Steve Gibson, chairman of the Middlesbrough All-in Wrestling and Rugby Club.
Steve, Steve, Steve. You seem like a good bloke, you're adored in the Boro community, you've invested hugely in your childhood club. You've been loyal to managers beyond breaking point, and you don't seem to have the sort of ego we see elsewhere in the game.
Are you happy with what went on at St Andrews today? Really happy?
Are you happy that you've spent a fortune on such a dirty, cheating, diving, head-clutching, handballing, shirt-pulling, time-wasting, constant shoving parody of a football team? Really?
I see that your average attendances have gone down nearly 10% this season. Perhaps the supporters are getting fed up with it. I wouldn't blame them.
But they seemed to be happy with it at the final whistle, Steve. Is that because the ends justify the means? That it doesn't matter how much of a rancid excuse a team has to be so that you can get back to that multi-billion Sky trough? And then on relegation outspend the proletarian clubs to buy a place back at that trough?
Because it's one thing to rely on Pulisball when you're a team assembled on buttons and brass farthings up against superstars. It's quite another thing to rely on the same thing when one substitute costs more than the oppositions entire squad. Every single Middlesbrough player is better than every single Birmingham City player, man for man. Every one. You should have murdered us by outfootballing us. Not by cheating from start to finish and relying on a cretin of a ref who couldn't have been more Boro had he been wearing a red shirt.
Indeed the proof is surely that, after a second half in which our equalizer was just reward for battering you throughout it, it took about three minutes for a hitherto bored Boro to score again. OK, it ultimately came from yet another shove from yet another defender on Adams, which yet again the referee missed, but it was a sublime pass and finish.
When your team is capable of that, why does it have to rely so much on players constantly having handfuls of opponents' shirts? Constantly climbing? Constantly diving? Every time they wanted a break someone would hit the turf holding their head to get the ref to stop play. The nadir of that when the no. 6 did so right in front of the referee to try to get him to think Juke had elbowed him. An utter disgrace to get a professional sent off. Referee did nothing. Although he did book Adams for getting fouled in the area. For a proper referee that could cope with Boro's shithousing it would have been an obvious penalty, but the clown we had today...my God. There is a growing belief in the St Andrews stands that the EFL has told referees to give everything against us as a sort of FFP penalty. Today was ample evidence to support that conspiracy theory.
And before you say it's sour grapes, look whom I support. Birmingham City. The two biggest wins I've seen at St Andrews have been for the visitors. I've seen us lose twice to non-league clubs. I've lost count of the number of relegations. I am almost immune to individual match results. On here I try to post something positive about the opposition in our games.
But I've not been so angry about a game since Stoke 1992. Your side, sir, are a virus on football's body. Indeed I didn't join in with the end chant of "Tony Pulis, your football is shit." For one very good reason. I wouldn't dignify such conduct with the sacred word football