When Boro almost died.......

T

Trug

Well-known member
On my treadmill today and my mind wandered to those dark days. And I wondered "what caused it?"
Just 5 years previously we lost in a cup quarter final replay. The team we had was brilliant, talented and going for bigger things. I think we all knew after that defeat it was the end of an era. In the previous 10 years we had reached the Cup quarter finals 4 times and a League Cup semi final.
We were solvent and had very good gates.
Did that sports centre built at Ayresome really cause all the money troubles as many people say? Or did Charlie Amer throw the towel in for other reasons?
The trouble with treadmills is they make you think too much.
 
My understanding....
The QF defeat against Wolves led to the breakup of that team (*) and to John Neal leaving.
That led to relegation and with no real prospect of promotion crowds fell to less than 10k and then even worse.
It was unsustainable and when we were relegated again, creditors started asking for their money back (including Charles Amer for that bloody sports hall). We were screwed.

(*) one thing I've never understood is how we all knew this at the time. It was common knowledge that we had to win the FA Cup to keep the team together and to stop Amer trying to cash in on the players. But why would winning the FA Cup have made a difference? European qualification? Sponsorship? Season tickets? I don't know.
 
Our crowds had started to really drop off in John Neal's reign (as with many clubs). The economic climate was grim in the early 80's.
We sold our home grown jewels (Johnston, Proctor, Armstrong; then Hodgson the next season) and then recruited cheaply and poorly.
We had an owner that was unwilling and unable to fund the club.
They appointed a good coach but totally inexperienced manager and hung him out to dry.
The 81-82 relegated team were dire and went on a death spiral towards the third tier. Maddren's youths were just too young and raw to prevent the drop.
An owner without funds was unable to keep the wolf from the door.
Whether he was also without scruples/morals over the "Sports Hall" is seemingly very clear, but Amer was certainly a terrible leader of our club.

Henderson, Fordy, Moskowitz (and Gibson) deserve huge credit for breathing life into a dead club.
 
indeedido said:
Our crowds had started to really drop off in John Neal's reign (as with many clubs). The economic climate was grim in the early 80's.
We sold our home grown jewels (Johnston, Proctor, Armstrong; then Hodgson the next season) and then recruited cheaply and poorly.
We had an owner that was unwilling and unable to fund the club.
They appointed a good coach but totally inexperienced manager and hung him out to dry.
The 81-82 relegated team were dire and went on a death spiral towards the third tier. Maddren's youths were just too young and raw to prevent the drop.
An owner without funds was unable to keep the wolf from the door.
Whether he was also without scruples/morals over the "Sports Hall" is seemingly very clear, but Amer was certainly a terrible leader of our club.

Henderson, Fordy, Moskowitz (and Gibson) deserve huge credit for breathing life into a dead club.
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Why put Gibson in brackets, he was the instigator of the consortium that saved the club ?
 
Rofesleg said:
My understanding....
The QF defeat against Wolves led to the breakup of that team (*) and to John Neal leaving.
That led to relegation and with no real prospect of promotion crowds fell to less than 10k and then even worse.
It was unsustainable and when we were relegated again, creditors started asking for their money back (including Charles Amer for that bloody sports hall). We were screwed.

(*) one thing I've never understood is how we all knew this at the time. It was common knowledge that we had to win the FA Cup to keep the team together and to stop Amer trying to cash in on the players. But why would winning the FA Cup have made a difference? European qualification? Sponsorship? Season tickets? I don't know.
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"It was common knowledge that we had to win the FA Cup to keep the team together"
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An absolute new one on me !! , it could have possibly kept the team together but would Liverpool have ended up buying Johnson and Hodgson ?

I know for a fact Hodgson didnt get any more in wages by joining Liverpool, not sure if he got the 20% signing on money out of the transfer fee. I cant divulge how I know the wage bit. Charlie Amer, dear me. It never got a safety certificate the gym for a good while.
 
(*) one thing I've never understood is how we all knew this at the time. It was common knowledge that we had to win the FA Cup to keep the team together and to stop Amer trying to cash in on the players. But why would winning the FA Cup have made a difference? European qualification? Sponsorship? Season tickets? I don't know.

1. We had a lot of players that were too good for an average Div 1 team not winning anything
2. We weren't playing those players what they could get elsewhere
3. Being in Cup Winners Cup would have been huge for both players profile and not doubt their pay packets, the players would still have left at some point but we would have kept some of them for another season or 2
4. Repeat most of the above for John Neal who left us for a team that was no better, probably even worse but clearly paid better
5. Winning the FA Cup back then was as big as winning the league from a financial point of view if not bigger the sponsorship and revenue from a semi and final alone would have probably doubled our income for the season
6. Because of the higher profile we would have been able to potentially recruit better players when Proc, Johnston, Hodgy, Spike etc left

Obviously, this is all very unlikely because at the end of the day we were being completely mismanaged by the owner and his administration
 
The town gave up on the team and we didnt have the owners with enough poke to do anything with the club, although Duffield and McCullagh were good decent men.

It was soul destroying going week on week and seeing it slide, but I never gave up. Greatest fairytale I could have wished for in the end. Im glad I stuck around. And those that did take a bow.
 
To me one of the most interesting aspects - certainly from a footballing point of view - was how lucky we got with the quality of what was really the only playing resource available to us as we started out cash strapped in division 3: young local players.

Without the exceptionally fortuitous situation of being able to field a team containing the likes of Mowbray, Pallister, Cooper, Parkinson and Ripley we'd have been finished.
 
Being completely naive to the whole thing, as I wasn't born until 1983, surely the transfer fees for the players sold would have funded this sports hall surely? or if they didn't where did these funds go? As people have pointed out, we weren't paying high salaries so running costs cant have been that high? was it a case of the owners taking money out of the club?
 
MickaelDebevePhenomenal said:
Being completely naive to the whole thing, as I wasn't born until 1983, surely the transfer fees for the players sold would have funded this sports hall surely? or if they didn't where did these funds go? As people have pointed out, we weren't paying high salaries so running costs cant have been that high? was it a case of the owners taking money out of the club?
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Nothing seem to add up, and nobody ever got to the bottom of it.
That's why Amer was always disliked, not sure about his Alsatian though, but if you run with the pack.
 
“We sold our home grown jewels and then recruited cheaply and poorly. We had an owner that was unwilling and unable to fund the club.
They appointed a good coach but totally inexperienced manager and hung him out to dry.”

Hmmmm…. This post has a certain familiarity to it Indeedido 😁
 
atypical_boro said:
“We sold our home grown jewels and then recruited cheaply and poorly. We had an owner that was unwilling and unable to fund the club.
They appointed a good coach but totally inexperienced manager and hung him out to dry.”

Hmmmm…. This post has a certain familiarity to it Indeedido 😁
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The symmetry was indeed drawn with full awareness.
weststandwally said:
Why put Gibson in brackets, he was the instigator of the consortium that saved the club ?
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He put in lots of energy, but little money. To people like you he did it single handedly.
Of course that energy was catalytic, but the ICI, S&N and Moskowitz money was critical.
The 93-06 adventure was all on Gibson though and he should always be revered for that.
 
Our crowds dropped from the late 70s and the drop accelerated in the early 80s. The area was really struggling economically, Was only a child but no one seemed to have any money and a lot of people were out of work. I don't it was unique to Middlesbrough, Newcastle and Sunderland also had generally lower crowds around this time. On top of that Amer's bad running of the club, he was probably extracting money out of the club all the time this only became a big problem as the crowds and hence income dwindled.
 
motownjunk said:
Our crowds dropped from the late 70s and the drop accelerated in the early 80s. The area was really struggling economically, Was only a child but no one seemed to have any money and a lot of people were out of work. I don't it was unique to Middlesbrough, Newcastle and Sunderland also had generally lower crowds around this time. On top of that Amer's bad running of the club, he was probably extracting money out of the club all the time this only became a big problem as the crowds and hence income dwindled.
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I think that is probably the best explanation. I remember being in very big crowds and when the attendance was announced over the speakers it was always lower than what it looked like from the terraces
 
Whole of football was struggling with crowds by the mid 80s average home crowds in top league over the season was generally around 20K. Was a grim old time for football supporters but personally I loved it as a late teen with no real bills to worry about.

Premier League 1985/1986 - Attendance

Premier League 1985/1986 » Attendance » Home matches
www.worldfootball.net www.worldfootball.net
 
There were lots of clubs that ended up like we did in the 80s, Bristol City, Wolves and Palace to name a few off the top of my head. Football just wasn't as popular due to the crowd trouble, dilapidated facilities and recession. Where the Boro were unique and I believe this is a major source of Gibson's chip on his shoulder with the powers that be, is while the others I quoted above were able to go into liquidation and reform to avoid paying the creditors in full the football league decided to make an example of us and insisted that Middlesbrough 1986 agree to pay our creditors in full before allowing us to continue in the league.

Amer was probably creaming off income from transfers, but he was fairly typical of the small time local business men who ran clubs in those days, see Peter Swales at Man City and Tom Cowie at Sunderland. Maybe if we had stayed up in 81/82 we would have been able to limp on. Bobby Murdoch was given some funds from the sale of our players, but bought badly.....Mick Baxter, Joe Bolton etc.. spring to mind. My recollection of that 81/82 season is that we weren't bad defensively but had little creativity, we expected the likes of Shearer, Colin Ross and Mike Angus to fill the boots of Proctor, Armstrong and Johnston. I think Hodgson was also injured for quite a bit and we did at one stage when we beat the Makems away look like we could pull off the great escape. Relegation in 82 though we meant we sold and lost the remaining stalwarts from the 81 quarter final team and crowds fell off a cliff.
 
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