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THE LONG VIEW 10-8-07
Steve Morley
What's that shimmering object on the horizon, a pot of gold. or just another friggin' mirage?
A few mornings ago I had a strange experience. You know that feeling when you're surfacing from a deep sleep but you haven't quite made it to waking consciousness? Vague, unformed anxieties assail you like a flock of sparrows pecking at the inside of your stomach while a distant siren grows ever louder.
With tremendous relief you struggle groggily to the surface and prise open your sleep-encrusted eyes. Through the fog you slowly realise that the piercing sound isn't the alarm clock but a shrilly-clucking vulture perched on the headboard and it's sinister beady eyes - fixed dead on your fleshy stomach - flicker with a voracious light, while a sliver of saliva drops from its blood encrusted jaws. Yup, it's Monday morning again.
Well the morning in question couldn't have been different. This time I awoke with a feeling of deep joy and a smile as big as Yakubu's bank account. It was that big. but it wasn't natural. It didn't feel right.
I tried to put matters right and tugged at my insanely grinning face to make it conform to the laws of gravity. But it wasn't having any of it and sprang back into a rictus grin with the reflexively instinctive action of Fat Freddy heading for the coke spoon. What the hell was going on? As my sense of panic receded in the face of overwhelming bliss it suddenly became clear.
I'd had a dream. A wonderful dream. A dream that outshone even Martin Luther King's dream. This was serious. It was Boro.
There they were on this lush green turf moving at lightning speed, scything through opponents with rapier like thrusts, effortlessly stringing together pinpoint passes that left the opponents lumbering around like elephants in a swamp.
Alliadiere was streaking through the centre linking up with a whippet like Tuncay, Stewie Downing was steaming down the left with the ball glued to his foot, Johnson was leaving opponents bedazzled like frightened rabbits caught in headlights.
Even Mad Pog had suddenly acquired a supernatural balletic grace as he jumped and twirled to sink a thundering header into the back of the net. Funny though, Woodgate seemed to be laying prostrate, face down, on that long white line that runs the length of the pitch.
'A clear case of mistaken identity', I thought and swiftly put the image out of my mind while feeling for my nose. No it wasn't a Roman beak of noble and generous proportions. It was still small and flat. I felt my hair. No it wasn't short and curly. It was still greasy and thinning.
I groped for my trousers and wallet. No it wasn't bulging with wads of twenties; there was a worn crumpled fiver and a fistful of slag to get me through the week. Clearly I hadn't transmuted into Gareth Southgate or Steve Gibson overnight.
And there's the rub. It was a dream. A dream nonetheless wrought from the ambitions of Southgate and Gibbo. But a dream that thousands of Boro fans yearn to see become a reality. To put it another away, the collective bones of our bodies are the very fuel for the fire of intense longing that's burning us up to see some glittering success. Or something like that.
And up until several days ago the tealeaves were hinting at good fortune. The Gate wants sweeping change; pace, excitement, blistering attacks from every quarter (hell, I want to win the lottery) and with the recent buys, he's clearly been making the moves to realise it (I haven't bought a ticket in ages).
The signs were looking good. The recent transfer market dealings are only the first pieces of the jigsaw - this project is going to take several seasons - but I was still prepared to buy into the dream because of the real-life concrete signs of promising change - and clearly on that very strange morning, my subconscious was shouting loud and clear.
And then. Then. Well what can I say? Five. yes that's five, central defenders out injured. Woodie, Mad Pog, Huth, Bates and possibly Twiglet. Look inside the Boro trophy room cupboards and what will you find? An albatross that Keith Lamb shot? A black cat run over by Steve Gibson? A piece of dried heather that an old Gypsy woman hurled at the first ever Boro manager as she was conjuring up a curse of a thousand years? Scores of shattered mirrors, broken by Willie Whigham, possibly the ugliest goalkeeper to ever man the posts in 120 years of English football?
Typical you might say with some deep felt justification. Here we are going into the new season with a clutch of new signings that have the potential to resemble thrusting red-hot pokers but backed by a defence that resembles three thin reeds in the path of a herd of rampaging hippos.
What can you do? Adopt Southgate's serene, unflustered pose, cultivate a tubby tummy and rename yourself Billy Buddha? Or stick with the dream? One and the same thing, perhaps.
Well I tell you what I'm going to do. First thing is get me a gun and shoot that bloody vulture. Second thing, start saving for a one-way ticket to Australia - a land that that French geezer Nostradamus said would be untouched by global conflict.
Why? Some time ago, Harry Pearson astutely pointed out in one of his columns that in over 100 years of being consistently crap (give or take a few swooning moments in the last decade or so), Boro have been on the verge of significant success only twice. On both occasions world war broke out.
I'll repeat that: on both occasions world war broke out. The football league was cancelled, effectively damning to hell Boro's chances of glory. So with the Yanks rampaging around the world, the Russians virtually tying up most of the world's future energy supplies, legions of demented jihadis pouring out of the mountains of Afghanistan and Southgate putting together the first pieces of his master plan I reckon I've got four to five years to save for that ticket - or am I dreaming?
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