11th December 1982 - Boro 3 Chelsea 1

[erimus74]

Chelsea were our visitors to Ayresome Park for this relegation 2nd division battle

Boro's previous home game seen us get smashed 5-1 by Blackburn Rovers & our previous game away to Wolves seen us thumped 4-0 at Molenuix, 2 games, 2 big defeats, one goal scored & 9 conceded

Boro's former manager John Neals 1st return to AP since his resignation ended in a unhappy reunion as the mighty Boro won this fixture 3-1

Goals from talisman, Heine Otto his 5th of the season
Darren Wood his 3rd of the season
David Shearer slotting home the 3rd & final goal for his 8th of the season, with Boro recording our 5th win of the season

Big Mal's team.

Jim Platt
Paul Ward
Joe Bolton
Heine Otto
Mick Baxter - RIP
Irving Nattrass
Darren Wood
David Shearer - RIP
Ray Hankin
Mick Kenedy - RIP
Stephen Bell - RIP
Sub
Terry Cochrane

Attendance - 8,836

Big Mal who took over in the October with Boro at the foot of the league & following relegation the previous season looked odds on to go straight back down to the third division, eventually Malcolm Allison got the team performing 7 winning & eventually pulling away from the bottom 3 & with 3 points spare survived 

We also enjoyed a good FAC run

3rd round H Bishop Stortford 2-2
3rd round replay A Bishop Stortford 2-1
4th round H Notts County 2-0
5th round H Arsenal 1-1
5th round replay A Arsenal 2-3

League cup

2nd round 1st leg A Burnley 2-3
2nd round 2nd leg H Burnley 1-1 Losing 4-3 on aggregate

Still look back with fondness at those days