Making New Memories

How many times have you sat back amid a bout of apathy with Boro and reminisced about moments from the past? How many times have you yearned for those feelings again? How many times have you gotten caught up in a loophole of ‘the good days’? I can answer that myself: many times.

Apathy: a lack of interest, enthusiasm or concern. It’s not a rare feeling in football. It’s a normal and natural state of mind when you want your club to succeed but they’ve become stuck in amongst mediocrity. As Boro fans, we’ve experienced it a lot through different managers since our return to the Championship. It’s quite possibly the worst feeling a fan can experience and it sets off a trigger to look backwards instead of forwards.

As recently as this season I was thinking about the days of Aitor Karanka and how much I’d love to see that again. It has set a standard, but it’s tough. The more you look back at the past the more it weighs down on the present and the future.

Whenever Boro’s home form has been a topic of conversation, for example, you’ll usually always see a comparison to the Karanka years. That Sky Sports graphic showing just how much of a fortress the Riverside was is brilliant, until you realise what it’s like now and then the mood quickly deflates.

I will always look at those years with great appreciation, they contained some amazing, lifelong memories. Hell, to be packed in that shed of an away end at Anfield watching the world’s longest penalty shoot-out again. But don’t you think it’s probably time we created some new memories now?

Chris Wilder said the same when asked about his time at Sheffield United in his pre-Millwall presser: “I’ve got incredible memories and experiences that’ll last me for a lifetime, but I want to build some new experiences and I want to create some new memories.”

That’s what it’s all about. Creating new chapters that we can enjoy right now, in the present, and keep flicking through into the future.

There’s a really nice and refreshing sense of mystery around Wilder being in charge. Over the past fortnight I’ve thought a lot about how we could set up. Much has been made about overlapping centre halves but I’m not convinced that’s even a tactic we’ll see — at least for now. He’s spoken a lot about tactical flexibility, and I do get a sense that maybe there’s a lot he’ll have to tweak from the successful formula he had at Bramall Lane, just to keep teams on their toes.

Personally, I have virtually no expectations at the time of writing this (that is subject to change, of course), and that’s not because the past few years have sapped all the happiness out of me, but because this feels like so much of a perfect fit that I don’t feel the need to. I’m just going to enjoy it for what it is.

With that said, play-offs anyone?

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