Welcome Back, Nige

SOMETIMES, when managers and players return to old haunts, they can be unsure what sort of reception they’ll receive.

At the Riverside Stadium tonight, there’s no doubt that one former Boro stalwart can be guaranteed a quite rapturous welcome.

Nigel Pearson captained the first Middlesbrough side I ever saw in the flesh. It was a side which sported ‘Dickens’ across its chest, launched long balls in to big Paul Wilkinson, and managed to scrape a 2-1 win against bottom-of the-table Notts County.

Pearson was made Boro captain after signing for £500k from Sheff Wed in 1994

Big Nige was its heartbeat, its rock, its lynchpin. He was a mountain of a defender who marshalled the likes of Steve Vickers and Derek Whyte on the way to 18 clean sheets in the 1994/95 promotion-winning season.

Pearson, an instant Ayresome cult hero, led us proudly into the Riverside era before bowing out on that sun-soaked afternoon in 1998 when Craig Hignett tore Oxford Utd to shreds to confirm promotion back to the Premier League.

As Gareth Southgate plots another return to the top tier, Pearson brings his stubborn Leicester City side to the North East hoping to add to Boro’s recent setbacks.

Having lost their 12-month unbeaten home run to Preston at the weekend, the Foxes will be looking to re-assert their play-off credentials.

They sit comfortably in mid-table and have been more than a match for the Championship’s big-hitters after winning promotion from League One at a canter last season.

And it’s good to see Pearson finally making his mark as a manger. He was desperately unlucky to be sacked by Southampton after keeping them in the Championship the season before last.

How the Saints must be wishing they held on to him now as they languish in the drop zone of English football’s third tier.

But Leicester’s title-winning campaign is not the only managerial masterstroke etched onto Pearson’s CV. On transfer deadline day of the 1998/99 season, Pearson secured the loan capture of goalkeeper Jimmy Glass. Apparently he went on to score a pretty important goal.

Away from the Pearson pleasantries, Boro must get back on track tonight.

The sickening last-kick-of-the-game equaliser on Saturday made the draw at Coventry feel more like a defeat, which was only made worse by the Geordies’ sweeping aside of Roy Keane’s increasingly rubbish Ipswich Town team.

Newcastle are beginning to look a cut above at this level and it is important Boro don’t lose touch with them early on in the campaign.