The signing of Juninho signalled a new, glamorous era of transfer activity at the club. Manager Bryan Robson went on to sign Emerson and Fabrizio Ravanelli the following season, while England internationals Paul Merson and Paul Gascoigne followed the next. Previous 'big name' signings such as Jan-Aage Fjortoft and Nicky Barmby paled in comparison to these illustrious new faces, and football fans across the country remember these heady days on Teesside.
They often forget, however, that before Boro signed Juninho they were comfortably in the top half of the Premier League, with Christmas approaching. By the end of his inaugural season, they were flirting precariously with relegation. A year later, along with Emerson and Ravanelli, Juninho was relegated. The question I want to address here is simple: why?
The simple question can be approached from two distinct angles. Firstly, why was the team successful before Juninho joined? And secondly, why did its performances deteriorate afterwards?
In answer to the first, the promotion-winning team which Bryan Robson put together in his first-season as player-manager of Middlesbrough was built mainly on unglamorous, hard-working professionals. The squad had quality, and Robson spent sizable transfer funds to make it more so, but there were no massive 'big names.' On transfer deadline day that season, Robson made a record signing by splashing out £1.3m to prise Jan-Aage Fjortoft from Swindon Town. Prior to that, Neil Cox (£1m from Watford) and Nigel Pearson (£750k from Sheffield Wednesday) were about as big as it got. The team was well set up though, and with the addition of Barmby, it was ready for the step up to the Premier League.
In Alan Miller and Gary Walsh, Robson had two solid and reliable goalkeepers. Pearson, along with Steve Vickers and Derek Whyte formed a fairly formidable trio of centre-halves. Neil Cox and Curtis Fleming were defensively effective playing as wing-backs, while Robbie Mustoe and Jamie Pollock were industrious in central midfield. But the genius was upfront. Fjortoft played ostensibly as a lone striker, performing the modern version of the target-man role. Behind him were Barmby and the much under-rated Craig Hignett. It was the interchange of these two which bamboozled Premier League defenders in the early part of that season: each would play as a conventional forward one moment, a winger the next, before dropping in to what we now call 'the hole' behind the front two (comprising of Fjortoft and the other of Barmby and Hignett). Indeed Hignett and Barmby, both diminutive and fair-haired, became so interchangeable that they required a collective name: The midget gems were born.
The triangling of this front three gave the deeper players an almost permanent range of out balls - a short pass to the feet of Hignett / Barmby, a through-ball to the other, or a punt to Fjortoft's chest or head, where he was well-versed in feeding the ball off to The Midget Gems. This was uncommonly difficult to mark - permanently having to guard against three varieties of attack, never sure exactly where each of them might pop up next. It was also new: no one had quite played this curious 5-2-2-1 formation before.
There was no blistering pace in this side, and no magic flair. There was, however, craft, guile, hard work and enthusiasm. The defensive players were workmanlike and willing. The forwards were like-wise. There was also a sense of the underdog spirit: itself a powerful performance enhancer. This effect is often put down to camaraderie, and this is probably partly true. The other part of the truth here is that football is an 11-a-side sport, and any 11 can beat any other 11 on any given day.
The names of the players do not give them a divine right to win. Rather, is it invariably the teams who combine a high quality of players with the excellence of tactical and cultural organisation which succeed. Manchester United do not build their team around star players: they have built their club with a fabric of hard-working, highly effective and versatile squad players in to which star players can be inserted and, just as easily, removed. This is why, after the respective departures of Eric Cantona, David Beckham and Christiano Ronaldo, they have continued to win titles. The stars are dependant on the club's set up, not the other way around.
I think we have just hit on the reason why Middlesbrough's performances deteriorated after the signing of Juninho. Suddenly, Bryan Robson decided that the team must orbit its star.
With Hignett dropped to accommodate the Brazilian, the midget gems were shattered. Barmby and Fjortoft were adapted to a more orthodox front two - which didn't really suit either of them. Juninho became central to everything, dropping deep to collect the ball and going on exciting, lovely-to-watch mazy dribbles. Every fan willed the ball to be given to him, and every other player seemed to accept that this was now their role. The result: Boro became predictable, with only one channel of attack. Mark The Little Fella out of the game, and Boro were scuppered.
If the fruitful harmony of the old, well-tuned Middlesbrough side had been disrupted by reconfiguration to Juninho's sound, the acquisitions of Ravanelli and Emerson only served to amplify the interference. With three stars in the ascendancy, Boro's previous workmanlike consistency was replaced by soaring highs and crashing lows. Two great cup runs. Stuttering league form. Two cup finals, two defeats. Three points docked. Relegation. Team spirit and shared endeavour had been replaced by the occasional brilliance which can be sparked by individual talent. This is the Juninho factor and, despite the player's enduring (and deserved - it's not his fault he was misused) popularity, it got Middlesbrough relegated.
Strains of this Juninho factor have been evident in every facet of the club since, although it does seem that Tony Mowbray has set his heart on dragging the club back to its pre-Juninho roots. For the club of 1986-1994, the highest idea of ambition was to compete in the top-flight. The collective identity of the club, which Mowbray gladly embodies, is that of a working-class, industrial town. The club should probably never have tried to represent anything other than that. Under Mowbray, it seems, they won't.
The club will be rebuilt with a squad, an ethos and a playing style of which we Teessiders can be proud. Like Mowbray, our squad, our ethos and our playing style are one of our own. They are Teesside. If that means being a yo-yo club (which seems some way off now) then so be it. If it means that any future 'big-names' brought in must be carefully selected to fit in with these parameters then so be it. If that means relegations and promotions, and a dearth of European football, then so be it. At least any achievements gained, and any failures endured will, like our team, be our own.
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