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Archived News from January 2008

IT`S MIDDLESBROUGH IN THE FA CUP & IT`S LIVE ON TV
8th January 2008 14:36


Full draw for the fourth round of the FA Cup

Arsenal v Stoke City/Newcastle
Coventry v Walsall/Millwall
Oldham v Huddersfield Town
Swindon/ Barnet v Fulham/ Bristol Rovers
Wigan v Chelsea
Luton/Liverpool v Swansea/Havant & Waterlooville
Southend v Barnsley
Southampton v Norwich/Bury
Man Utd v Tottenham/Reading
Portsmouth v Plymouth
Derby/Sheff Wed v Preston
Watford vWolves
Peterboroughv Charlton/West Brom
Sheff Utdv West Ham/Man City
Mansfield v Middlesbrough
Tranmere/Hereford v Cardiff

Ties to be played on 26 & 27 January

Mark Clement on Radio 5 Live picks out Mansfield v Middlesbrough as the real stand out tie.
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TV features:

BBC News 24 feature and Sky Sports News feature here

Sky Sports News, ITV Central and BBC East Midlands feature here

Sky Sports News long interview with Billy Dearden here

editting by Martin Shaw

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http://www.gazettelive.co.uk/boro-fc/

Boro to face Mansfield
Jan 7 2008 by Eric Paylor, Evening Gazette

BORO must travel to tackle struggling League Two side Mansfield Town in the fourth round of the FA Cup.

The match at Field Mill will take place on the weekend of January 26 and 27.

Second from bottom Mansfield pulled off one of the shocks of the third round when winning 2-1 at League One Brighton on Saturday.

It was a massive improvement on the Stags' previous away form, having failed to win in any of their 12 games on the road in the league.

Boro boss Gareth Southgate will look forward to the match at the time, saying: "We worked very well as a team to beat Bristol City on Saturday.

"There are no easy games in the Cup, especially away from home, so we will treat Mansfield with the greatest respect.

"But we are playing well on our travels and we will go there looking to win the tie."

Mansfield boss Billy Dearden knows his side will have to be at their very best if they are to get past Boro.

"It's a tremendous draw," Dearden said. "We've got a Premier League club at home and we're looking forward to it - anything can happen.

"They are a top-class team, we'll have to be at our best to get any kind of result.

"We're always confident at home. We had a good win at Brighton, but we're now looking forward to welcoming Gareth Southgate and his squad down here."

Boro have not been to Field Mill for a competitive game since 1986-87, when a goal from Paul Proudlock earned them a 1-1 draw in the old Division Three.

In the previous year Boro lost 2-0 at Mansfield in the first leg of the Milk Cup first round, before going out of the competition when sharing an eight goal thriller at Ayresome Park.

Boro's only win in their three visits to Field Mill came in the Third Division in 1966-67, when they won 5-4 - on November 5!

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Mansfield Memories Are A World Away
Posted by on January 7, 2008 2:29 PM | Permalink
http://anthonyvickers.boroblogs.co.uk/archives/2008/01/mansfield_memor.html

NOSTALGIA ALERT! Last time Boro played Mansfield a place at Wembley was looming too. Back in March 1987 Bruce Rioch's side were squeezed out in the Northern semi-final of the Freight Rover Trophy, going down 1-0 at Ayresome Park in front of a crowd of 11,754.

The Rioch revival was gathering pace and a reshaped Boro were favourites: they had not been out of the top three of the third division all season and went into the game in excellent home form with six successive wins over Carlisle, Doncaster, Newport, Bristol Rovers, Fulham and Bristol City behind them. Mid-table Mansfield shoudl have been a formality but Boro froze and a golden chance for what then passed as glamour was snatch away. I was gutted and convinced Boro's Wembley Jinx would deny us glory for all eternity.

There was a buzz about Boro. The Rioch revival was just gathering real pace as belief in the team took hold. Boro had climbed out of the coffin and the near escape from liquidation, the new broom in the boardroom and a young, mainly local team that the crowd could relate - and feasibly could have lived next door to or bump into in Newboulds or Frankie Dees - were forging a strong bond with the Holgate. Gates were nudging up and a pre-meltdown gates of 5,000 had been transformed to regular figures of over 10,000 (calculation of an average is made difficult because of the approximately 52,000 who attended the Port Vale match at the Vic).

In an eighties retro 'typical Boro' moment Boro bottled it and on the night offered nothing. Mansfield won it with a late penalty after teenage striker Alan Kernaghan put in one of those 'a centre forward's tackles' that was to become his trademark and the Wembley dream was dashed. Mansfield beat fourth division Chester over two legs in the Northern final then beat Bristol City on penalties to lift the silverware at the Twin Towers.

Team: Pears, Coyle (Kerr), Cooper, Mowbray, Parkinson, Kernaghan, Slaven, Stephens, Hamilton, Gill, Hodgson (Ripley). Read it and weep.

Boro lost the next game away at Walsall but then bounced back by concentrating on the league and went undefeated in 13 games until the end of the season to clinch promotion. Wembley would have to wait.
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Stags to face Premiership side in FA Cup
CHAD.co.uk, by Tim Morriss
MANSFIELD Town have been drawn at home to Premiership strugglers Middlesborough in the Fourth Round of the FA Cup.
It is a fine reward for Saturday's surprise 2-1 win at League One Brighton on Saturday, which left the Stags as the lowest ranked club definitely through to the Fourth Round.

And it is being seen as one of few possible ties, if not the only tie, which keeps alive the romance of the famous old competition - a side 23rd in League Two against a club struggling at 15th in the top division.

The Stags, struggling at the foot of League Two and without an away League win all season, will meet Boro over the weekend of Saturday 26th January after the cup draw on Monday lunchtime - leading to the postponement of their League fixture at Stockport.

"I don't care what anyone says, it is a tremendous draw at home against a Premiership side," said manager Billy Dearden.

"More than anything though I am delighted for our supporters who have had two bad away trips in the last two rounds and got soaked through at both of them. This is their reward for their support in those games.

"Middlesbrough won't relish coming here. Looking at the sides, we have no chance against them as would be the same against any Premiership club. But this is the FA Cup and we will give it our best shot to cause an upset."

"But we have to put it to one side now and not be distracted from our position next to bottom of the league.

"We don't want to be there. We want to be away from the bottom, as our supporters do and we have got to do something about it.

"A Cup draw like this could keep things bubbling or go the other way for us. I don't want to talk about Middlesbrough again now until we prepare for the game in the week leading up to it."

There is a good chance that the match will be featured live on TV, as was the Stags' Second Round clash at non league Harrogate Railway, as it is the only real potential giantkilling tie.

If it is shown live on TV, the Stags will be handed a bumper £150,000 windfall. If the match is shown as part of a highlights package, they will receive £18,000.

This will be added to the estimated £200,000 the club has received so far for its terrific run to the Fourth Round.

And should Town defeat Boro, they would receive a further £60,000 in prizemoney.

And the club will further benefit financially from a full house at Field Mill, which currently has a restricted capacity.

Problems with a turnstile, coupled with previous stewarding issues, have left the capacity cut to just over 50%, 5,064.

But new chief executive Stephen Booth said the club would be redoubling its efforts to get the restriction at Field Mill lifted.

He told Chad: "James (Derry) is now the licence holder and he will be meeting with Nottinghamshire County Council to ensure that everything is in order for them to be able to raise the capacity back to 100%."

The rogue West Stand turnstile issue, which had previously led to the reduction from the council's Safety Advisory Group (SAG), has been addressed and the main SAG concern is now over the club's committment to health and safety.

Mr Booth added: "The council has been very complimentary about Les Norman, who is in charge of health and safety matters. As far as I am aware their primary issue now is with the training of matchday stewards, which Les has put a lot of effort into."

If the capacity is lifted, Mr Booth is convinced that Boro will sell out their allocation of around 2,000 tickets for the North Stand.

He added that it would then be upto Stags fans to ensure a full 9,000 house and fill the remainder of Field Mill.

And he ruled out increasing the Boro ticket allocation to include part of the West Stand, saying that he believed the police, and health and safety officials, would not allow it even if the Stags wanted to.

Mr Booth repeated his warning to Chad yesterday that while the cup run is a 'wonderful bonus' to help him stabilise the day-to-day financial running of the club, it does not solve the problems of the lack of income through the club's low League position, low attendances and poor commercial revenue.

But he added that a proportion of the money made from the Fourth Round tie would be made available to manager Billy Dearden in his quest for new players this month .

"I would be prepared to speculate and give some of the money to the manager ahead of the tie, as the match itself is only just before the transfer window closes," he told Chad.

Boro are struggling in the Premiership and will not relish a trip to a League two side.

One of the most famous previous meetings between the two sides was in 1966 at Field Mill when the Stags lost a nine-goal thriller 4-5. In the same season the Stags knocked Boro out of the FA Cup in the Third Round in front of 17,332 at Field Mill, before losing 4-0 at Sheffield Wednesday in the Fourth Round.

The clubs have rarely met over the years and aside from the 1966-67 League and FA Cup clashes, there other matches came in the 1985-86 season in the League Cup (4-4 at Ayresone Park and 2-0 at Field Mill) and a season later in the old Division 3 (1-0 to the Boro at Ayresome Park and 1-1 at Field Mill).

But perhaps the best cherished result between the two sides came in 1987 on the Stags' famous run to Wembley in the Freight Rover Trophy final.

On 11th March at Middlesborough in the Northern Area Semi Final, Mark Kearney struck the only goal in front of 11,754 fans.
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Radio clips:

BBC Radio Tees preview - interview with Martin Shaw

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thefa.com
FA Cup TV games
Tuesday, 08 January 2008.

The FA Cup sponsored by E.ON
Fourth Round Proper
Saturday 26 and Sunday 27 January 2008

The FA Cup Fourth Round TV ties have been selected, with the BBC cameras heading to Field Mill to kick off the weekend as League Two Mansfield take on Premiership Middlesbrough.

That match kicks off at 12.30pm and will be followed later that day, at 5.15pm, with the all-Premiership clash at the JJB Stadium between Wigan Athletic and holders Chelsea, also on BBC.

Sunday's live TV action begins at 2pm at Old Trafford, where Manchester United will entertain Tottenham Hotspur or Reading, again on BBC.

Sky Sports will screen the weekend's final live tie, at Bramall Lane, as Sheffield United will welcome either West Ham United or Manchester City. That match kicks off at 4pm.

Each club featuring in FA Cup ties live on TV will receive £150,000 from The FA's Broadcast Fund.

Confirmed FA Cup TV ties

Third Round replays
Liverpool v Luton Town
8pm, Tuesday 15 January 2008
Live on Sky Sports

Manchester City v West Ham United
8.05pm, Wednesday 16 January 2008
Live on BBC1

Fourth Round
Mansfield Town v Middlesbrough
12.30pm, Saturday 26 January 2008
Live on BBC1

Wigan Athletic v Chelsea
5.15pm, Saturday 26 January 2008
Live on BBC1

Manchester United v Tottenham Hotspur or Reading
2pm, Sunday 27 January 2008
Live on BBC1

Sheffield United v West Ham United or Manchester City
4pm, Sunday 27 January 2008
Live on Sky Sports

 

Latest | January 2008