Your stories from the carling cup weekend

Norman_Conquest said:
After a work injury and being out of work for 3 years, on the Monday after the cup final, I was starting a new job in a new career. I ended up staying over in Bristol and having my first day off. Luckily for me, I had carried out voluntary work for this company and rang the lady in charge who smoothed everything over.

I had contacted HR at first and tried to explain and the lady on the phone asked if I would be in by 9 am. I said I was in Bristol, not Billingham - I think I was still drunk from the night before.

On the Wednesday after the win, my manager took me to a celebration for support services at the Riverside hosted by Alli Brownlee. My manager knew the Carling Cup was going to be there and I got my photo taken with it.

I've copied and pasted this story below from the 20 Years Ago Today thread but feel it is well worth sharing again. It always makes me laugh when I think about it.

I went on a coach the day before with a group of mates and stayed in a hotel outside Bristol. On arrival, there were three weddings taking place at the hotel and they had different buttonhole flowers at the reception for each wedding. Whilst booking in I helped myself to one of the flowers and told everyone that when I got changed I would go into the wedding and have something to eat before going out on the town.

The lads all gathered in the hotel bar and I was all suited and booted and was telling them my plan that I just had to match my buttonhole to the correct wedding and then go in for something to eat. It didn't take long to match my flower to the right wedding and I went in. I opened the door, spoke to one or two people and as I made my way to the buffet the fire alarm went off in the hotel and we all had to evacuate. I am looking at the food with a plate in my hand and everyone makes the way to the door. At this point, I am approached by the bride and I think I've been rumbled. 'Come on greedy she said, we all need to leave and we aren't leaving you' and then she asked me to help her with the train on her brides dress.

So as everyone is leaving and making a mad rush to the door to the muster points, I walk out slowly with the bride, carrying her train over one arm and the bride linking the other. The official photographer greets us at the door and is snapping away along with other guests. We reach our muster point and I hand her over to her new husband.

The lads all shouting 'How cheeky Charlie, get back over here' but I'm having none of it and I am now thinking I am an official guest. The photographer is making the most of having everyone outside and getting people to pose for photographs and I pose with the bride and groom, the best man and woman and both sets of parents on one photograph and then with all the bridesmaids on another.

You can imagine all their faces and expressions when they received the official photographs and asked who I was. 'I thought he was on your side of the family'. No, surely he is on yours. Who is the mystery guest? 🤣 🤣 🤣
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👏🏻👏🏻
 
goalscrounger said:
Sitting next to Rob Nicholls in the Servicemen's Club in Cardiff, he gets up and says "need to do something, I'll be back soon". Ten minutes later and he's on the big screen in front of me being interviewed live on Sky TV in the centre circle of Millennium Stadium. Ten minutes after that he was back in his seat next to me to finish his pint!
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I was in that Club as well. Beer cheap as chips and Boro only. Sadly no longer in Charles St and replaced by a beauty clinic
 
After Mark Schwarzer gifted Bolton their goal I couldn’t bare us losing another cup final again, so I walked down to the concourse, the exit doors of the ground were open (the stand that backed onto the river) so I walked out and rested on the railing just looking at the water thinking please god don’t let it happen again

I got a tap on the shoulder off a policeman who asked if I was ok.

I said I couldn’t bare losing again so was having a quiet moment and said if we got too half-time 2-1 up, I think we will win it and I’ll go back in

He said OK but he would have to stand with me in case I jumped 😊

I told him I wouldn’t, but he wouldn’t leave me.

Anyway, can’t remember what we talked about, but he was getting score updates for me over the police radio 😊 suffice to say half time arrived 2-1 up we shock hands and I returned to my seat with my mate asking where the hell have you been.

The final whistle saw floods of tears from me and said mate as we had finally done it.

We were winners UTFB.
 
Unravel_Morrison said:
I was also in that club.

I found a photo this week of myself and some Fly Me 'veterans'. There was Fischer, Shack, Piquet, Algarve and the Pleather King.
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I reckon I’ll have been in that club as well, as my footy day tending to follow pleather king, captain and the Jackson brothers
 
Massive respect to the Bolton fans who were absolutely superb in defeat and made the whole night more enjoyable, we were waiting to go into an Indian when a group of Bolton fans came out and I asked them if there was any silverware left ? They took it in the spirit intended and a dam sight better than I would have done.
Remember getting back to the digs and the highlights were on telly and being very very drunk and having tears rolling down my cheeks,was a very emotional poignant moment.
 
I remember watching the highlights in our hotel in Porthcawl bricking it thinking we were going to blow it!! Just what supporting Boro does for you😜.
 
We drove down. I thought it a good idea💡 to book train tickets from Cheltenham to Cardiff as it would be quiet. The station was packed solid with Boro fans. Doh. They had to find more carriages as the usual 2 was not going to do.
I remember Cheltenham fans had made a banner woth 'Good luck Boro' and were standing with it at the station wall.
Great day. "one Job on Teesside" ⚽😀
 
I still get nervous watching the match on DVD. It's a relief whenever the big Aussie makes a save. Can't wait for the final whistle.
 
I couldn't go due to certain issues at the time. Was in my local at bang on opening time so we could get our usual seats. Nervous as hell. In a way was quite chuffed as our celebrations after the match lasted a long time (we ordered champagne at full time. Tracy (the owner) barred us from.using the posh glasses as she knew we'd ruin them!). 6am start the next day...think I was still on a high...boss walked in at 7 and said "you were the last person I expected to see today"
 
ForssAwakens said:
On the way home we stopped off at a petrol station, the club bus pulled in as well.

We got all giddy and went looking for the players. They weren’t there haha.

Whilst that was happening a member of this board wife was filling up the car. Anyway the wrong fuel was put in and we had to be taken to a garage etc 🤣🤣 fricking nightmare

I had my first jazfrezi the night before in Newport and then I cleared the platform at the train station the next day.
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I can still remember the platform clearing 😂
 
Mile Riley and his linos were in our hotel. My 11 Yr old daughter wanted to go in the pool and so I tagged along as i didnt want her to drown. Particularly with a cup final looming. Riley was in there by himself, just wandering around in the shallow end. If I could have done a peter kay accent I'd have given him some **** to try and foster some anti Bolton sentiment.

On the morning after the win, I was chatting to the one of the linos in the car park. I asked him about Ugo's handball at the end and he reckoned that he saw it but concluded that it was ball to hand.
 
I was in floods of tears when we went 2-0. Pure joy, never felt like since Ravanelli scored the first goal in the cup final in 1997.

Best day of my life.
 
We were on a bus there and back on the day and there was a big group of let's say unsavoury characters on it at the back.

When we got back on the bus after the match they were absolutely leathered. I remember them chanting at one of the females within the group

"t*ts out, if you won the cup"

She duly obliged.

It was then followed up with

"Rat out, if you won't the cup"

Again she duly obliged 🤦🏻‍♂

I was 16 and sat with my mam about 4 rows in front. 😅 This scarred me to the point I remember it more vividly than any of the match
 
Watched it at Eston institute, went to get a box of fags at half time and got a ice ball thrown at my head which cut it. Cleaned that up in the toilets went and watched the 2nd half and got extremely drunk.
 
I flew down in one of the charter planes from Ben Houchen airport. I remember a couple of things - it was unbelievably cold, and it was unbelievably early.

Consequently, I wasn’t entirely ‘compus mentis’ when I got dressed, and compensated for the weather by putting on about 10 layers. I turned up at the airport looking like the Michelin Man wearing an Eskimo’s wardrobe.

I was amazed to find tables full of empties and lads already looking the worse for wear.

Having stripped off my top 7 layers, I grabbed a spot to sit down and found myself near to Steve Gibson and his wife, who, in sharp contrast to me, was dressed and accessorised like a Chanel advert.

I wandered over, looked him the eye and simply said “We’re going to do it for you today”, and I meant it. It was the only time I’d ever felt confident before a final - all the others were just a terrible day-long unfolding of the seemingly inevitable gut-wrenching disappointment. The FA Cup final and the Sheffield replay being the very worst.

Cardiff itself was fantastic - the streets and pubs outside the stadium were absolutely jammed, and it was ace to have the Milennium and the enormous Boro banners hanging down as a backdrop.

I seem to have gone to school with or be related to every 3rd person there - it was just one gigantic reunion - and it was one of those times that I felt almost hysterically happy and proud to be part of something this amazing.

There were footballs being kicked around, and, inevitably, they started being booted higher and higher. How windows weren’t put in is a miracle.

Inside the stadium (I was seated on one row, high up, with 10 mates, all from Stockton) I was amazed by how steep the incline was - I felt like I was half way up Snowden rather than a football stand - and the fact it was late afternoon and getting dark just added to the atmosphere.

And the game, well, after 10 minutes I thought I was going to die, I was so happy. Then Skippy’s mistake, and the dreaded ‘oh no, here we go again’ started to creep in. The rest is just a blur of Skippy’s brilliance, Ugo and Sir Gareth’s heroism, and TLF almost, ALMOST, slaloming his way to clinching it.

And then the final whistle. Juno on his knees facing our corner. And me wailing, not just the odd tear, but actually screaming and wailing, with tears streaming down my face. I was like a demented animal. It was a letting go, a complete catharsis. 38 years of supporting the Boro; 38 years of highs and lows, but mainly “oh no, not again’’ s; that sense of being a Boro fan was a curse rather than a blessing, all gone in that moment, monkey finally off the back, all released into that Cardiff night with a full-blooded, wolverine howl.

And then the journey back. Cardiff airport strangely subdued. Lots of smiling faces, but very quiet, as if we were all stunned, but immensely happy and lost in our own thoughts. I was expecting bedlam, but it was much more serene.

The Bolton fans there were OK, but puzzled by how quiet and well-behaved we were - I spoke to a few, and just explained that I, for one, was simply too happy and exhausted - blissful was the word I think I used - to jump about and scream.

And that feeling is with me again as I write this.

I am lucky enough to have enjoyed a rich and varied life, with a wonderful marriage and so on.

But February 29th 2004 was, without a shadow of a doubt, the greatest day of my life.
 
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