The West Stand
Herbert Chapman in the famous marble halls
Access to the North Bank
It seems no one told Middlesbrough this was not a meaningless end of season kick around. Doncaster, relegated at the weekend, were playing for little more than pride and at least that showed. They seemed the livelier of the two teams though that is a relative term.
Boro on the other hand, buoyed by their surprise win last time out at Baseball Park, sorry Pride park, came into the game with renewed optimism regarding a play off position but you wouldn't have thought so seeing their performance.
In fact they looked like a side that was scared. And little wonder given that the Derby win had ended a run of eight games where Boro had amassed a meagre four points. Confidence has visibly drained from this team that had celebrated new years eve in second place.
The highlight of the first half was wa woman behind me boasting about how she had spent the last 10 minutes at Derby as well as complaining that the sofa she had ordered back in December wouldn't arrive till this weekend.
You'll never hear that at the Bung Karno!
To be fair, any play off bid is nothing more than pie in the sky judging by what was on the pitch. Boro are a long way short of being a Premier League side again and it says much about this current team that the players with the biggest reputations were those sacrificed as manager Tony Mowbray tried for the win.
Julio Arca and Barry Robson made way as did top scorer Marvin Emnes. And then we had Justin Hoyte, the one time Arsenal man. He would have been an ever present under Terry Neill and Don Howe. Sideays and backwards were his default modes and apathy was his body language. The last minute of injury time, Boro had a corner and their keeper went racing upfield only to be stopped in his tracks by Hoyte. A brief altercation between the two but the corner was wasted anyway and the ref put us out our misery by blowing the whistle.
Game of two pens, neither given. The first for Rovers, everyone around me said deffo; I thought it was a spectacular dive. The other for Boro was hand ball and everyone saw it except of course the man who had to.
As for Doncaster, the world's first football club run by an agent? Many aging stars had gone there hoping to further their career. Players like El Hadj Diouf, John Oster, Giles Barnes, Frederic Piquionne, Pascal Chimbonda and Habib Beye. Many players pulled in by an agent to showcase their wares.
The football club, this season at least, has been a failed experiment designed to benefit one man; said agent. That it failed should force the club management to rethink that strategy. Were players brought in to benefit the football club or the agent?
For the second consecutive home game Manchester City were forced to come from behind to earn a result. Against Chelsea they turned a 1-0 deficit into three points while against last weekend they managed to earn a point after going 3-1 down to Sunderland.
The Mackem’s renaissance has been little short of incredible since Martin O’Neill took over at the Stadium of Light, replacing Steve Bruce early in the season. They have been much more compact at the back, their 4-0 reverse against West Bromwich Albion being the only blot in their goals against column which has seen 20 conceded in the 17 games under the Irishman.
As Sunderland digest their performance it is a sign of the times that they are thinking more about the points lost in Manchester rather than a point gained.
Certainly they took the game to the title challengers and for much of the game City were a shadow of their former selves when they were rattling in goals for fun before December . The home team were very fortunate to have received a penalty while after the game manager Roberto Mancini was reportedly fuming over his mercurial striker Mario Balotelli’s performance.
Despite the presence of the tall Danish striker Niklas Bendtner up front, Sunderland were anything but static. Stephane Sessegnon was a threat all game with his pace while James McClean and Sebastian Larsson were quick to support.
Sunderland of course were the first team to collect a point at the Etihad this season and they will take some satisfaction from knowing that their own record of being the last team to go through a season with a 100% home record back in the 19th century will last for at least one more season.
While many would have been surprised, not just by the result but also the performance, O’Neill would correctly point out that they had in fact beaten City earlier in the season at the Stadium of Light and that this result was just the latest in a string of good performances against the top teams.
