Middlesbrough F.C.
Association football club in England / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Middlesbrough Football Club (/ˈmɪdəlzbrə/ ⓘ MID-əlz-brə) is a professional association football club based in Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire, England. The team competes in the EFL Championship, the second level of the English football league system.
Full name | Middlesbrough Football Club | |||
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Nickname(s) | Boro, The Smoggies | |||
Short name | MFC, Boro | |||
Founded | 18 February 1876; 148 years ago (18 February 1876) | |||
Ground | Riverside Stadium | |||
Capacity | 34,742 | |||
Owner | Steve Gibson | |||
Chairman | Steve Gibson | |||
Head coach | Michael Carrick | |||
League | EFL Championship | |||
2023–24 | EFL Championship, 8th of 24 | |||
Website | Club website | |||
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Current season |
Nicknamed the Boro, they were formed in 1876 and are the 12th oldest football league club in England and Wales. The club have played at the Riverside Stadium since 1995,[1] having previously played at Ayresome Park for 92 years, from 1903 to 1995.
Middlesbrough were one of the founding members of the Premier League in 1992, and have spent all but two seasons of their entire history competing within the top two tiers of English football.[2] Their highest league finish to date was third place in the top flight in the 1913–14 season. The outbreak of the First World War stunted their push for a first top division title, though the club pushed again during the inter-war years, finishing fourth in the 1938–39 season before the Second World War halted the English leagues and again prevented a push for a first title. The club came within minutes of folding in 1986 before they were saved by a consortium led by then board member and later chairman Steve Gibson.[3] A remarkable recovery saw the club immediately earn back to back promotions to the top division in the 1986-87 and 1987-88 seasons, the latter being the first and only time a second tier side directly relegated a first tier side through the English Football League play-offs. During the early Gibson years in the Premier League, the club signed several high-profile players in the hope of pushing to challenge at the very top of English football. Whilst this ultimately did not translate into the success that the club hoped for, suffering FA Cup and League Cup final defeats and a relegation in 1997[4][5] following a controversial 3 point deduction,[6] and losing another League Cup final the following season, the club did go on to win the League Cup in 2004, its first major silverware, and reach the 2006 UEFA Cup final.
Middlesbrough is the only major professional football club in the greater Teesside area (the 14th biggest urban area in England), the Tees Valley, and the county of North Yorkshire (the largest county in England by land mass [7]). With no other major professional football clubs based in these areas, the club has no direct city 'derby', however it does contest wider regional rivalries with the three closest major clubs, Newcastle United (the Tyne–Tees derby), Sunderland (the Tees–Wear derby) and Leeds United (Yorkshire derby).[8]
The club's traditional kit is red with white detailing, often in the form of a white chest band. The home shorts and sock colours have interchangeably been shifted between red and white, complementing the red shirt that was adopted in 1899.[9] The various crests throughout the club's history, the most recent of which was adopted in 2007,[10] incorporate a lion rampant.