CarlingCupFinal 2004 - Millenium Stadium, Cardiff
Sunday 29 Feb 2004 - Middlesbrough vs Bolton Wanderers
My photo diary - Adam
Apologies for the poor quality of my photos - taken from my phone and a disposable camera.
Outside the Ground - Cardiff city centre
Cardiff City centre was very nice. For one day the Red Army took over town, crowding every pub and street within sight of the Millenium Stadium on the river and creating a lively pre-match mood. The stadium itself could be seen for miles by the large 4 spires in its corners, the Boro end was totally swamped by fans having their final pints before entering the ground under a large netted banner of Steve McClaren hung from the top. After the match the Boro and Bolton fans were labelled by the football league as the best behaved fans the tournament has ever seen.
First impressions - why don't we have a ground like this in England? I have been to Wembley and although it is unfair to compare Cardiff to the legend that was, this place takes some serious beating. I was sat in block N2 row 16, right in the heart of the Boro end. The stadium roof was closed, adding to the electric atmosphere we created to cheer the lads on. Pre-match entertainment was provided by a fat bloke from Bolton who can only be described as a Peter Kay wannabe. Huge flags of the Boro and Bolton club crests were paraded around the pitch before kick off on giant balloons. As the match got underway we scored twice early on 2 mins and 7 mins, Joseph Job finishing a world class Boro move from Mendieta, Juninho and Zenden. Second, a dubious penalty was slotted away with a slip from Bolo Zenden. Boro were dominating and on a high, until a pot shot midway through the half from Davies was spilled into the net my Schwarzer. From then on we had our backs to the wall, relying on Schwarzer to redeem himself with some world class saves as Bolton hammered us up to half time. Second half we came out much more composed and ready to finish the job off properly - soaking up everything Bolton through at us and hitting them with many counter attacks - Juninho the most unlucky not to get on the score sheet.
128 years of waiting - we have finally won a major domestic honour, finally won anything at all! Everywhere you looked there were strangers hugging like close family. The biggest cheer of the day came when Steve Gibson walked out onto the pitch. Everyone was ecstatic even the roughest, hardest looking blokes in the ground had a tear in their eye - what a city, what a stadium, what a day!