This day the 4th March 1986 The beginning of Riochs era

[Erimus74]

On the 1st February Willie Maddren's Boro lost 3-1 at home to Charlton & shortly afterwards the board dismissed Willie & promoted Bruce Rioch from 1st team coach to temporary Boro manager till the end of the season

The visit of Grimsby Town, this day 34 years ago was the 1st game after that Charlton defeat, 4,412 of us Boro fans that turned up on the tuesday night to witness the beginning of an era, that those who were there will never, ever forget

Boro ran out 3-1 winners with a brace from Bernie Slaven taking his tally to hios 1st season at the Boro to 5 & a Tony Mowbray goal, his 3rd of the season

Bruce Riochs 1st team as manager was:-

Stephen Pears - Missed 2 games
Brian Laws - Ever present, excellent signing from WM
Irving Nattrass - 5th player to don the No3 shirt that season
Tony Mowbray
Don O'Riordon - Ever present, signed by WM
Gary Pallister - Excellent signing by WM
Bernie Slaven - Excellent signing by WM
Gary Gill - 1st game after been out of the team for 22 games, 4th game of the season
Dave Currie - 1st start at No9
Gary Rowell - Excellent signing by WM
Peter Beagrie - Given his debut by WM the previous season

 

[Lemmy_kilmister]

Of those of us that were still loyal, and hadn't turned our backs on the club as thousands of others had done, we all knew Willie had next to nothing to play with.
Bargains, kids, free transfers. We still stuck with him and Alf Duffield... We blamed Amer. It was sad to see him sacked as he'd completely done his best. However he ended up laying the foundations for Bruce. Serendipity maybe.

Imagine if FMTTM had been around in those days.

 

[coluka]

I often wondered when Alf Duffield persuaded Willie to appoint Rioch rather than John Pickering as his first team coach if Alf had one eye on Willies future by then and saw Bruce as a potential future manager.

 

[Michael_Vronsky]

If only we had a Rioch now...

 

[Erimus74]

Of those of us that were still loyal, and hadn't turned our backs on the club as thousands of others had done, we all knew Willie had next to nothing to play with.
Bargains, kids, free transfers. We still stuck with him and Alf Duffield... We blamed Amer. It was sad to see him sacked as he'd completely done his best. However he ended up laying the foundations for Bruce. Serendipity maybe.

Imagine if FMTTM had been around in those days.

I think Rioch wouldnt have got off scott free either, he'd have been blamed too for the releagtion