Shooting Down The Gunners: Middlesbrough v Arsenal 2003/04
30 years/30 games
Words: Rob Fletcher
Your football team is part of your identity. It might be in your blood. Born and bred in the place your team plays. Sometimes family ties dictate the club we support. When we travel abroad or visit another city we often start a conversation about our football team. Who they are, why we support them. You have to feel for those that have the most convoluted reasons for supporting a team.
Yeah, I support Aston Villa because my brother’s uncle’s sister’s next door neighbour’s mum bought me an Asics Villa shirt in the 90s and I’ve supported them ever since.
Sound mate, yeah, that’s great. I support Middlesbrough because I’m from there.
One of the other times you’ve got to explain your football roots is when you leave home. It could be for a job elsewhere, moving in with friends, earning mega bucks offshore, or going to university. For me, it was university. Sheffield was my destination.
That journey to University, three years of making new mates, boozing and attending (some) lectures is a rite of passage for many. A melting pot of class, social expansion and tribalistic behaviour, university is a prime place to share your sporting allegiances.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Blair and Brown’s ‘Education, Education, Education’ mantra permeated society. Half of the population were encouraged to go to uni. Normally this meant the future workforces of provincial and coastal towns upping sticks and heading of the big cities. It didn’t matter what degree you did. There would be jobs for you. And those jobs would surely be better than what you could access back home. I am one of that generation.
Before the social media armageddon and reduction of the university system to a customer-based drain on the finances of the generation who will shape our future, education felt like a route into the good life. Leave a small town and head off to a city that had a similar feel and sensibility with better prospects and first-class education. That was the plan in the summer of 2003. So far, so normal.
Middlesbrough Football Club were also coming of age. Steve McClaren succeeded Bryan Robson in the hope he could bridge the gap between promise and achievement. Progress was there in the league table, but the football was at times frustrating. Often felt like a case of two steps forward and one and three quarter steps back.
In the summer of 2003, McClaren invested in proven quality. Double loan signings of Danny Mills and Gaizka Mendieta was a huge statement of intent. Two players who possessed quality, had played in European competition and were clear upgrades. Another key loan signing was Bolo Zenden; a player who defined the McClaren era.
About 15 minutes from the Riverside, my summer involved turning 18 and packing up most of my NME magazines, CDs, DVDs and posters that would make me look cool. With the help of my Dad’s mate’s people carrier, we made the journey down the A19 and M1 to Sheffield.
The weekend journey coincided with Boro’s first league victory of the season, and first home game I’d missed for a long while (my season ticket started in the summer of 1996), against Everton.
That 1-0 victory thanks to a goal from Joseph-Désiré Job early in the game. It was another novelty for me; I watched the game in a ‘Scream’ pub, famous for the cheap drinks and yellow discount card that would be passed around whichever group of uni mates you found yourself with.
There were plenty of football fans in my uni halls - it was a male-only on the bottom two floors in halls - so there were plenty of people to ask to watch the game. And it was in a pub. So a no brainer really. Staying about four rooms down from me was another Boro fan, Chris, so that was even better. Someone else to share the joy or pain with.
Fast forward to Christmas, and Boro had only lost twice since the awful early season run of four defeats in the first five games. They had also come away from White Hart Lane with a penalty-shootout victory over Spurs in the Carling Cup quarter final.
Arsenal were Boro’s next opponents. A semi-final of the league cup to look forward too. Games that had defined my early years as a Boro fan. Now here in the next phase of my life, was a game that signified the next stage in Boro’s.
Around this time Arsenal were a very easy team to hate. First of all, they were really good. Never hard to hate good teams. Frequently, they would dish out beatings on whatever sorry state of a Boro side was put on the pitch against them. In the 2003/04 season they had already put four past Boro in the first home game of the season. To make matters worse, they had been three goals up after 22 minutes. No fun playing them at all.
There’s a full match version of this on YouTube. I will spare you the pain. But it’s here if you want it - PLEASE DON’T WATCH IT.
Oh, and the other thing about that Arsenal team - they were on course for an unbeaten league season. No pressure Boro.
By this point in Sheffield I was more than settled into the uni life. Playing football a couple of times a week, watching as much as possible in the pub and the odd game of Championship Manager. Lecturers were in there somewhere. If you look hard enough.
In a quirk of fate, Boro would travel to Arsenal twice in a matter of days as the Premiership fixture Gods conjured up what felt like a customary trip to Highbury in the winter darkness. Cameras usually panned to a sea of Boro faces, their glum expression hidden behind layers of unwanted Christmas gifts that actually proved a pretty decent source of insulation.
Arsenal demolished Boro that day. They were rampant. McClaren’s side struggled to cope with the pace, movement and all-round quality that Arsène Wenger had at his disposal.
Aggregate score in the two league games against Arsenal; 8-1 to The Gunners.
Boro had two games to earn a place in a League Cup final (a third in eight years) at Cardiff, or be embarrassed again by a football juggernaut.
To be honest, there could be a whole other piece written on Juninho’s jig after his brilliantly taken goal to win the away leg. Highbury was stunned by the diminutive playmaker’s goal. Boro fans probably were too.
Seven consecutive defeats against the Gunners was not good reading. The last time Boro had actually beat the North London side was in the bizarro 3-0 victory under the Venables-Robson axis of survival.
Now, Boro’s seasoned pros had inflicted a first domestic defeat in 30 games for an Arsenal side that was sprinkled with youth and experience.
After that victory there was another twist in the fixture list. Another trip to Highbury for an FA Cup tie.
And guess what - normal service was resumed as the big gun(nner)s returned to smash four past Boro.
So, just to tally up those results so far in a crazy January period, we’ve got:
10th January 2004 - Arsenal 4 - 1 Middlesbrough (Premier League)
20th January 2004 - Arsenal 0 - 1 Middlesbrough (Carling Cup semi-final first leg)
24th January 2004 - Arsenal 4 - 1 Middlesbrough (FA Cup fourth round)
Both teams would get a break from each other until they would meet again in early February for the second leg. Judging by those results, the only thing on the cards was a Boro win you’d imagine.
My January as a first year, if I remember rightly, probably included a load of exams that went badly. I found out that engineering really wasn’t my thing, but kept on plugging away regardless. The constant pummelling from Arsenal didn’t help, especially as there was a die hard fan on the corridor next to me. That one glimmer of hope of an away goal and the return leg at the Riverside definitely gave some hope. But, then again, expecting Middlesbrough football club to upset the odds is never a hill to die on.
Until the 3rd February 2004. A cold night at the Riverside. I wasn’t there. I still had a season ticket, but journeys up the M1 became rarer as uni friends usually took my attention. We had a pub in our halls as well. Not a bar by the way, an actual pub. But not the stuffy version, something a bit more laminate.
Boro put out a strong side: Schwarzer; Mills, Southgate, Riggott, Queudrue; Greening, Mendieta, Doriva, Zenden; Maccarone, Juninho Paulista. Subs: Jones, Parnaby, Job, Ricketts, Downing.
Arsenal’s line up was mixed: Stack, Toure, Keown, Cygan, Cole, Parlour, Vieira, Edu, Clichy, Reyes, Bentley. Subs: Taylor, Hoyte, Owusu-Abeyie, Skulason, Smith.
Pretty strong for the Gunners when you look at it. Strong defence and midfield. Maybe light up front without Henry, Bergkamp, Kanu, Wiltord, Pires or Ljunberg but we didn’t care. They had done enough scar us that season.
Before the start of the game I did fear the worst, but we started well.
Both teams had early chances, including a glorious opportunity from a corner that Massimo Maccarone somehow managed to fire straight at Arsenal keeper Graham Stack.
The big turning point came when Martin Keown twisted himself in knots under pressure from Maccarone and a bouncing ball. Arsenal’s wind-up merchant managed to bear hug the Italian as the striker set off towards goal. Keown knew what he’d done. Referee Dermot Gallagher didn’t waste any time and sent off the defender. Boro had a man advantage to add to their away goal advantage.
Arsenal had their own chance earlier in the second half when Kolo Toure fired the ball towards goal from a corner, only for Mark Schwarzer to get his body in the way and keep it out.
The Boro opener summed up the growing quality in the Boro side. McClaren had upgraded the squad since the end of Robson’s days and it showed.
Deep in his own half, Bolo Zenden sent a pass out wide to Maccarone. The striker hugged the touchline and motored towards Arsenal’s goal. The £30m loan signing (official title) Gaizka Mendieta joined the attack and collected his pass.
Zenden did not stop after he moved the ball forwards. He continued. His third man run, found by a pinpoint through ball from Mendieta, set the Dutchman through.
Graham Stack committed himself and raced out of goal. By the time he reached Zenden he was almost on the edge of his box. With Stack on the floor, Zenden lifted the ball into the gaping net with a dink from his left foot. A goal that summed up the midfielder’s quality.
A goal for Boro and now two ahead in the tie.
If Boro held on they were going to Cardiff.
I remember watching on in total disbelief as the goal went in. Despite three other semi-finals I had seen us triumph (Stockport and Chesterfield and again in 96/97 and Liverpool in 97/98), memories of Arsenal at Old Trafford - the Michael Debeve game - flooded back. A good performance undone by bad luck.
But not tonight.
After Schwarzer palmed away Patrick Vieira’s long range effort, Arsenal won a corner. From it, they made Boro sweat as Edu scrambled in from the cross.
77 minutes on the clock. Game on.
Needless to say in that halls of residence pub in Sheffield, the Boro fans (me and my mate Chris) were outnumbered. Arsenal fans at this time had the titles to back up their fans’ confidence.
This moment made things tense. Now only a goal ahead on aggregate and Arsenal had their away goal.
But then came some magic. The ball at the feet of one of the Boro players. Oversized shirt hanging off his slight frame. A feint to beat his defender. A scuffed, deflected shot into the bottom corner.
Stuart Parnaby.
A proper scruffy goal from the youngster. Took the ball on from Juninho’s run. Sent Ashley Cole back to North London, and then deliberately deflected his shot off Jose Antonio Reyes into the back of the net.
A third goal for Boro in the tie.
Time for Cardiff and another chance to win our first major honour.
By the end of that game, I had a simple message for the Arsenal fans - encouraged by the lads around me: ‘Flip off Arsenal.’
Shocking behaviour.
That’s what they teach you at uni.
So, on the 29th February (so typical that Boro would win a trophy in a leap year…) we went to Cardiff and sealed the victory inside 10 minutes. Easy.
Europe was the next stop on the Boro journey. For me, it was another year at university supporting McLaren’s men from sunny South Yorkshire.
And for the record here were the final results against Arsenal that season:
Played 5 | Won 2 | Lost 3 | Scored 5 | Conceded 13
24th August 2003 - Middlesbrough 0 - 4 Arsenal (Premier League)
10th January 2004 - Arsenal 4 - 1 Middlesbrough (Premier League)
20th January 2004 - Arsenal 0 - 1 Middlesbrough (Carling Cup semi-final first leg)
24th January 2004 - Arsenal 4 - 1 Middlesbrough (FA Cup fourth round)
3rd February 2004 - Middlesbrough 2 - 1 Arsenal (Carling Cup semi-final second leg)
For Arsenal that season their overall record was incredible:
Played 58 | Won 37 | Drew 15 | Lost 6 | Scored 113 | Conceded 47
No other side beat Arsenal twice that season apart from Boro. The other teams to beat the Gunners in 03/04:
Manchester United (FA Cup semi-final)
Inter and Dynamo Kiev (Champions League group stage)
Chelsea (Champions League quarter-final)
Not bad company to be in.
Anyway, go and watch the highlights of that second leg.
Here’s the short version, with all the best bits.
And for a little bonus, here is the full game.