Boro tyros plot fitting farewell

Middlesbrough FC's young guns are hoping to "send Steve McClaren off on a good note" when the northeast outfit take on Sevilla FC in the UEFA Cup final in Eindhoven. It will be the manager's last game before taking over as England boss and having benefited from his youthful revolution at the Riverside stadium, the likes of Stuart Parnaby and Chris Riggott are keen to repay the favour.

Youthful promise
Middlesbrough made Premiership history on Sunday when a team including ten homegrown players under the age of 22 slipped to an admirable 1-0 defeat at Fulham FC. It suggests a rich legacy for whoever inherits McClaren's squad, especially as the vanguard of the club's harvest of youngsters was absent. However, Parnaby, Riggott and English international Stewart Downing are likely to return at the PSV Stadion for the biggest day in Middlesbrough's 130-year history.

'Tremendous turnaround'
"It's what I hoped for when I signed [from Derby County FC in January 2003]," said 26-year-old centre-back Riggott. "I would never have expected we'd reach the UEFA Cup final but then we're a big club." Big club or not, any notions of success seemed distant when Middlesbrough shipped eleven unanswered goals in games against Arsenal FC and Aston Villa FC at the start of the year. "That is the lowest I've felt in football," said Riggott of the 7-0 loss at Highbury. "It's been a tremendous turnaround."

Common thread
Dramatic comebacks are a running theme for Middlesbrough. The fightbacks in the last two rounds against FC Basel 1893 and FC Steaua Bucuresti are merely sequels to a long-term Lazarus act for a club that endured a crushing nadir 20 years ago. Relegation to the third division forced Middlesbrough into liquidation before a consortium came to the rescue, kick-starting a recovery that many thought had reached its peak when they won their first-ever trophy in the English League Cup final of 2004.

'Tough game'
Two years on, a greater prize possibly awaits and although Massimo Maccarone, Middlesbrough's match-winner against both Basel and Steaua, told uefa.com that his dream was to repeat the feat at the PSV Stadion, Riggott is keen to make things easier. "We could do without giving them a 2-0 head start," he said. "They're going to be very difficult to beat. If you look at the quality they have up front then you'd have to expect a tough game, but we're aiming to keep a clean sheet."

Fitting farewell
Should they do so, and the likes of Maccarone, Mark Viduka and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink continue their rich goalscoring form in this competition, then Parnaby and Riggott will achieve their aim - etching McClaren's name even further into the Middlesbrough annals. "He gave me my debut," Parnaby noted. "Hopefully we can send him off on a good note."