15 years since 8-1

[Goodlove]

Brace yourself blues for countless ‘Before the oil money’ activity.

Such a lazy trope doesn’t take into account the other issues surrounding the game.

 

[youngbob]

Think what a lot of history has forgotten, aside from the chaos that was brewing around Sven and Thaksin, is that we went into that game knowing we could lose 25-0 and still qualify for the Europa League if we avoided getting more than 2/3 yellow cards. Then Dunne accidentally tripped over his own feet and brought down a Boro player on the edge of the area and got himself sent off, so our players put barely any tackles in during the rest of the game and allowed Boro to run away with it. To think, if we'd put up more of a fight and only lost 2-1 then that run to the QFs may never have happened.

 

[theres only one carlito]

Think what a lot of history has forgotten, aside from the chaos that was brewing around Sven and Thaksin, is that we went into that game knowing we could lose 25-0 and still qualify for the Europa League if we avoided getting more than 2/3 yellow cards. Then Dunne accidentally tripped over his own feet and brought down a Boro player on the edge of the area and got himself sent off, so our players put barely any tackles in during the rest of the game and allowed Boro to run away with it. To think, if we'd put up more of a fight and only lost 2-1 then that run to the QFs may never have happened.

Ahhh Richard Dunne,

Thinking of his calamitous defending at times still makes me shiver. Record own goal scorer but our POTY 4 years running. :-))) that really sums us up.

Also holds joint Red card record.

 

[Corky]

People turned up to Boro in shorts an t-shirts on a freezing day, sung about paedophiles and the police eventually reacted. Could see it coming a mile off so left at 6-0.

The result damaged our fair-play standing as the ref marked us down on the subjective bit, if we played better we could have gotten a better score. So we just scraped through.

 

[Bozzie]

Ahhh Richard Dunne,

Thinking of his calamitous defending at times still makes me shiver. Record own goal scorer but our POTY 4 years running. :-))) that really sums us up.

Also holds joint Red card record.

Thinking of that afternoon at Middlesborough makes me shiver .... never been so bastard cold stood there in shorts and football shirt whilst their stewards were dressed for the Arctic!!

 

[The Viking]

Some folks on Reddit added context of this game

It was the last game of the season and news had broken a popular manager in Sven was getting sacked (to be replaced by Mark Hughes, of all people). The players downed tools. There was also the early red card and a European spot on the line through the Fair Play rankings.

There was a place available into the Uefa Cup via the 'Fair Play' table that season (team with lowest amount of reds, yellows and fouls). Going into the final weekend City were just head of Fulham and would get the place if they didn't do anything stupid. City could afford a few yellows, but that was it. Then after 10 minutes Dunne got himself red carded. City could still get the Uefa place but could no longer risk any punishments (fouls). So City played the following 80 minutes of the match without making any proper tackles, and Middlesbrough knew City would not tackle and literally walked through City. It's problematic to play a football match without tackling, and resulted in City getting ripped apart, or walked through. Saying that several of Boro's goals were a bit crazy.

It had also just become known that the manager was being sacked, so players were happy to just walk around for 80 minutes.

It's a unique match due to a unique situation, City lost 8-1 and finished the season 0.8pts ahead of Fulham in the Fair Play Table and qualified for the Uefa Cup. The Premier League were very very very lucky City were not playing a team that profited from the result or else there would have been a shit show.

 

[jimharri]

Oh, how we laughed.

 

[Corky]

Some folks on Reddit added context of this game

And got it badly wrong, it wasn't just about cards. You got a sportsmanship mark off the ref, and we got a very low one after that display.

 

[pace89]

I maintain we didn't play as badly that day as we did when we lost 4-0 to Wigan the previous season. Everything Boro' hit went in the top corner. Normally we'd have got away with an embarrassing but not so memorable 4 or 5-1 defeat.

Despite losing 8-1 my overriding memory of the day was it being absolutely fucking freezing and having to buy a jumper in Top Man before the game to ward off hypothermia.

 

[Ducado]

15 bloody years ago! It feels like a couple of years ago