Redwurzel
Well-known member
In the 1982/3 season I used to get United service Bus for Boro home games from Newcastle to the Boro. It went through Durham City and quite of the Durham villages, Sedgefield and Stockton. Boro fans got on in Sedgefield and alot in Stockton, but none that I was aware of before Sedgefield. It wasn't a great season we averaged 10,000. Also I got on the bus about 11am to get into Boro for about 1pm, so it may have been a bit early. If I got the train down the East Coast of Durham, no Boro fans got on till Seaton Carew.
The same season coming from Whitby on a United Service Bus, Boro fans started getting on in Loftus and constant after that. They were really hard times say season 1984/5 with only 4,000 at some games. A lot of the women on the bus had adult children that had moved away. At the time I thought by 2023 no one would be left in East Cleveland. Whitby was about 75% Leeds then - most Whitby people have never been to Teesside, even they went shopping etc outside Whitby, it was Scarborough or York if they were posh. A coach went to every Leeds home game, it used to be 2 coaches in the 1970s from Whitby. Whitby is 33 miles to Middlesbrough and Leeds is 75 miles.
I think the Boro suffered a bit from been a borderland between Durham and Yorkshire, in Yorkshire but not fully In Yorkshire psychologically and not in Durham. Socially it has been different to me too with probably 80% of its population from other parts of the UK and Ireland. Making it a bit of an Island. Add in very heavy industry and the fact that it was a complete new town made it different and a bit scary to the surrounding rural populations. The large population influx in the 1850-1880 period had never happened on such a scale in the UK(and I don't think has happened since) and it left a mass of people in a small area needing regular employment and poverty followed when ther Iron industry failed to expand, so the area became associated with working class/poverty/struggle for a lot of years after 1880. The legacy of this is a tight band of bonded supporters with the football club woven psychologically into the Town and its close surrounding areas roughly defined as Teesside i.e there was no Middlesbrough FC before Middlesbrough but also no Middlesbrough before Middlesbrough FC, in the minds of the 21st Century people. Reading 3,000 Boro fans travelled to Sunderland for a friendly in 1883 shocked me, but its showed the connection with the new inhabitants and their football club was woven many years ago.
The same season coming from Whitby on a United Service Bus, Boro fans started getting on in Loftus and constant after that. They were really hard times say season 1984/5 with only 4,000 at some games. A lot of the women on the bus had adult children that had moved away. At the time I thought by 2023 no one would be left in East Cleveland. Whitby was about 75% Leeds then - most Whitby people have never been to Teesside, even they went shopping etc outside Whitby, it was Scarborough or York if they were posh. A coach went to every Leeds home game, it used to be 2 coaches in the 1970s from Whitby. Whitby is 33 miles to Middlesbrough and Leeds is 75 miles.
I think the Boro suffered a bit from been a borderland between Durham and Yorkshire, in Yorkshire but not fully In Yorkshire psychologically and not in Durham. Socially it has been different to me too with probably 80% of its population from other parts of the UK and Ireland. Making it a bit of an Island. Add in very heavy industry and the fact that it was a complete new town made it different and a bit scary to the surrounding rural populations. The large population influx in the 1850-1880 period had never happened on such a scale in the UK(and I don't think has happened since) and it left a mass of people in a small area needing regular employment and poverty followed when ther Iron industry failed to expand, so the area became associated with working class/poverty/struggle for a lot of years after 1880. The legacy of this is a tight band of bonded supporters with the football club woven psychologically into the Town and its close surrounding areas roughly defined as Teesside i.e there was no Middlesbrough FC before Middlesbrough but also no Middlesbrough before Middlesbrough FC, in the minds of the 21st Century people. Reading 3,000 Boro fans travelled to Sunderland for a friendly in 1883 shocked me, but its showed the connection with the new inhabitants and their football club was woven many years ago.
