What is your best and worst season following MFC?

Best - 04/05 season. Southgate and Riggot at the back. Boateng and Zenden in midfield. Hasselbaink and Viduka up front. Quedrue in his prime and Downing coming of age.

I remember my mate and I were so excited by our summer transfer business and then we found out we were signing Parlour on a free as well. Genuinely felt we could challenge for the top 4 and probably would have had Boateng and Viduka stayed fit.

Honourable mention for the 98/99 season as well as it was the first season I became obsessed with football. I remember being at a Guisborough town game and how excited my mates and I were when we found out we were winning 1-0 at Old Trafford, then 2-0, 3-0!!!! We went into the clubhouse to checkmon the tele as it didn't feel real.

Worst - Covid season. No crowds and a dismal 2nd half of the season. All went downhill after we'd signed Mendez-Laing and Kobana and I actually couldn't even be bothered to watch the games towards the end of the season.
 
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05-06 will likely never be beat for me. A European final just felt beyond our wildest dreams, before or since.

16-17 the worst. Had some definite high points in the first half of the season but we just kinda to55ed it off second half, culminating in Karanka's sacking.
 
Marvanelli said:
They weren't a substantially better team than us in the FA Cup because Defoe was cup tied. Their only striker was Kanu.

Granted if Defoe was available, then yes, they'd have been favourites, rightly so.
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Kanu, Milan Baros, John Utaka and David Nugent - probably stronger than our strikeforce of Alves, Tuncay, Mido and Aliadiere
 
Best is really difficult.
87-88 promotion in the play offs
04-05 because we were a genuinely quality premier league side
91-92 promotion
15-16 promotion
All contenders

Worst
(09-10) The season Strachan took over. Awful crowds, bleak football, a team full of awful new signings. Felt like we'd slipped back 20 odd years
 
Marvanelli said:
They weren't a substantially better team than us in the FA Cup because Defoe was cup tied. Their only striker was Kanu.

Granted if Defoe was available, then yes, they'd have been favourites, rightly so.
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They were 15 points ahead of us when those cup matches were played.

For context, we only had 29 points, so over 50% further ahead. They were much better than us.

They were 12 points head on the day Defoe signed for them.
 
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Best - 97-98. A team that was from day 1 too good for the 2nd tier. We were still an ambitious club and riding the Robson wave. I loved the players we had. It was a joy to watch Merson. We brought through youngsters (Baker / Harrison / Ormorod). Supported by graft (Pearson / Mustoe / Townsend). And when in with a shout we went out and brought in 3 strikers to seal it (Branca / Armstrong / Ricard).

Recent memories mean the Brighton game is at forefront of best games but the atmosphere and build up to the Oxford game was better in my opinion and when you factor in that I watched the Brighton game (especially the last 10 plus injury time) through my fingers, being 2-0 up 3 minutes into the second half meant you could celebrate and enjoy the rest of the game. And it was a great cup run in beating Barnet, Sunderland, Bolton, Reading and Liverpool to the Wembley Final.

Worst - the Woodgate season. Still angry about it now and the closest I’ve ever come to falling out of love with Boro and walking away. Ironically this season was stopped due to Covid-19 and the pause in being unable to attend a live game made me realise how much I missed it and when I was lucky enough to get a ticket for the Bournemouth game I had tears in my eyes as the teams came out. I will never take it for granted again. But there were times I would get in from work and the thought of going out to a night match made me sick. I always remember going to a game v Luton in awful winds thinking ‘why do I do this’, watch us meekly surrender in a 1-0 defeat, and walking back thinking no, not interested anymore.

I still struggle to understand Steve Gibsons ‘jobs for the boys’ attitude in hiring Woodgate and it was as bad as I feared. I will also remember the anger on seeing the teamsheet on the 1st game after the Covid break v Swansea and seeing that Woodgate thought Rudy Gestede and Lukas Nmecha were the best forwards we had, leaving Assombalonga and Fletcher on the bench. He might as well have handed in his resignation at that moment. And after the Charlton game where it was our first win in 11 games I am still convinced Covid saved the club from disaster as I strongly believe we’d have dropped into the 3rd tier for only the 3rd time in our history if we never had the season broken up. We were THAT BAD!
 
The two Karanka seasons of 14/15 & 15/16 were my personal faves. Loads of big followings and we always seemed to win. Man City in the FA cup a notable high, and honourable mentions to some great ways days in London with friends.

Worst was probably one of the wilderness Strachan/Mowbray seasons. Can't we just stay in the pub...

04/05 was a good one also- qualifying for Europe through the league! Might not happen again.
 
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Humpty said:
We absolutely weren't.
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It didn't matter that the football wasn't free flowing though as we always seemed to win and get a goal when we needed to. Even with whatever happened at Charlton the feeling between squad and fans was the best I've known.
 
SE4 Red said:
It didn't matter that the football wasn't free flowing though as we always seemed to win and get a goal when we needed to. Even with whatever happened at Charlton the feeling between squad and fans was the best I've known.
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Couldn't agree more but we weren't a joy to watch.
 
Another for 86-87. Loved almost every minute. My first season at every home match and the atmosphere was fantastic. Closely followed by the very next season.

04-05 was the best football and if Boateng hadn't got injured it could have been really special.

Worst for me was the Strachan season. The Riverside half empty with crap football. Doesn't get any worse
 
Best 87/88 - 2 years after almost going out of business and back in the top division
Worst 96/97 - relegation was such a backwards step, and lost both the cups that for me made us take our eyes off the league until too late
 
Best...probably my first as a season ticket holder as a kid in 1987/88 season..north stand lower near the tunnel.

We all rocked up to that Leicester game in party mood...then we all thought we ****ed it up...only to go through the roller coaster of the play off's

It was the season that taught me what it meant to be a Boro fan...with the ups and downs...

Those play off games got me hooked...can still the the floodlights and the crowd now at the Bradford second leg.

Worst...hmmmm probably the post UEFA Cup time...feels like we missed an opportunity to push on. Relegation under Southgate felt like a surrender, down with a wimper really.

I was going to say Robson's first season, or 1996/97 as best what with the cup finals. Even when we got relegated we kinda knew we would bounce straight back...plus we had another cup final 1997/98. The the UEFA Cup final season was another close one.... But 1987/88 will always have the special place in my heart because of the squad at the time and what they did.

We should have stayed up in 1988/89 also! Gutted when we went down.
 
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parmoboy said:
Best - 04/05 season. Southgate and Riggot at the back. Boateng and Zenden in midfield. Hasselbaink and Viduka up front. Quedrue in his prime and Downing coming of age.

I remember my mate and I were so excited by our summer transfer business and then we found out we were signing Parlour on a free as well. Genuinely felt we could challenge for the top 4 and probably would have had Boateng and Viduka stayed fit.

Honourable mention for the 98/99 season as well as it was the first season I became obsessed with football. I remember being at a Guisborough town game and how excited my mates and I were when we found out we were winning 1-0 at Old Trafford, then 2-0, 3-0!!!! We went into the clubhouse to checkmon the tele as it didn't feel real.

Worst - Covid season. No crowds and a dismal 2nd half of the season. All went downhill after we'd signed Mendez-Laing and Kobana and I actually couldn't even be bothered to watch the games towards the end of the season.
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Was it 04/05 when we signed Mendieta?

That was the most jaw-dropping Boro breaking news notification I have ever seen, even more than Boksic / Rav / Woodgate from Real Madrid etc.
 
MickaelDebevePhenomenal said:
Worst - The Strachan implosion season. Never, as an adult, in pre season have I felt so sure we would do well, to do so spectacularly $hit! Pulis second season was very close. 451/541 with 4 centre mids was something I aint seen before!

Best - Probably 97/98. Felt like a real burning sense of injustice (still does) and that we were fighting back against the establishment and would go on to smash the top flight once we had righted the wrongs of relegation. Just shades 96/97 and the two cup finals, because for huge swathes of 96/97 season we were terrible and abject to watch, especially away from home. Think that gets lost a little a little when people play it back in their minds.

The AK play/off promotion seasons are obvious answers for a lot of people but for me personally was probably the era I attended the least due to work, sadly I was able to renew by the time Pulis was manager!!!!!!!
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97/98 was class.

The buzz around the town when we signed Branca, Armstrong and Ricard just before the Liverpool second leg was unreal.

Thrilling promotion run-in, the Andy Dibble games where we lost 0-5 and 0-6, then had to beat Swindon 6-1 to go top again - and did exactly that. Merson in the England squad, scoring penalties at the World Cup. Unforgettable times.
 
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