Paul B

"Any spirzzzz?"

Well Deitmar Hamman, who is, in a very real sense, German, may disagree. But I know watchermean.

Squad numbers. Remember when they wore 1-11 and your favourite player might be wearing a different number each week?

This content is not viewable to guests.

This content is not viewable to guests.

Why would he be entitled to any sort of reaction at all? After all, he didn't get one when he actually played for us.

This content is not viewable to guests.

As a youngster, 'Boro were always one of my favourite teams because of the amount of fans they would bring to Anfield and the incredible noise they would make. I always used to tremble at the thought of going to Ayresome Park (which I used to think of as Awesome Park) as it was always a deafening occasion and a worrying one for the threat of potential violence that hung heavy in the air. After seeing the empty seats there at our game this season, it got me thinking that this hot bed of football is seeing a decline in interest. Boro are arguably having one of the best periods in the club's history yet the fans are deserting them in droves. After our recent game away at Sunderland, we heard with despair that Boro were at home and knew we'd have to share the southbound A19 with heavy traffic once we got to Teeside but the road was empty. This was mainly because only 10,000 had bothered going (alright, it was only the Mickey Mouse but still..) After seeing the empty seats in their half-taken allocation yesterday, it made me wonder; are we seeing a general downturn in interest in the beautiful game? If Sunderland can have hundreds of empty seats V the European Champions and Boro can play in front of increasingly large gaps in the Riverside, are we witnessing a downturn in popularity? Anyone else thinking along the same lines?

Just e-mailed the shower of incompetent tossers.