Hands up. Baby hands up. Give me your love give me give me your love give me give me.

Tuesday 11^th  March 2014

Middlesbrough                  1.1      Nottingham Forest                      

(Carayol)                                              (HANDerson)

Desperate times call for desperate measures. In the midst of a horrible run of form and results, we were at precisely that stage whereby we would take that apocryphal goal that goes in off someone’s backside. A goal, any goal would have been welcome during our annual tepid performance at the Riverside, especially after succumbing to a smartly taken finish by the man who loves to score against us. (There really does seem to be quite a lot of these players nowadays).

Except, it didn’t go in off Henderson’s arse; he scooped/punched it in at the near post. A fine example of ingenuity? A cheeky manoeuvre epitomising the scorer’s existential will to score? I don’t recall too many non-Argentinians seeing Maradona’s 1986 goal in the same light; all I recall are angry headlines and opinions denouncing such a cowardly and underhand (ahem) example of cheating.

Of course we all enjoyed Henderson’s goal; actually, relief may well be the more precise adjective here. But wasn’t it all a little bit embarrassing? Wasn’t it….errrr…cheating?

This is no Victorian plea for a return to Corinthian values and jumpers for goalposts – football is far beyond redemption for that. Gaining the tiniest advantage in a game of fine margins is crucial and this I accept. But can you imagine how we’d have felt if Danny Graham had done the same thing against us? Can you picture the level of vitriol that would justifiably rain down on him?

Maybe that moment will signal a change in fortune for our depleted team. Maybe a little bit of luck is what we deserve at the moment.

Maybe.

And maybe I should climb down off my high horse that occupies the moral high ground and stop knocking one of our own for conjuring a goal from nothing.

Maybe.

I just found it a little bit unsavoury and embarrassing. That’s all.