SOMETIMES in football the enormity of a single moment doesn't become clear until much later.

That was undoubtedly the case on September 24, 2003.

At a sparse Riverside, in front of just over 10,000 fans, Steve McClaren's top flight Boro made hard work of a League Cup second round tie against second division Brighton.

It took extra time and an instinctive finish from substitute Malcolm Christie to seal Boro's passage.

It was, all things considered, a very forgettable night. And yet it was the start of the most memorable journey, the first of seven wins that would lead to Middlesbrough ending their long, long wait for silverware and Gareth Southgate hoisting high the Carling Cup on the Millennium Stadium pitch.

"I don't know how you can describe the goal really, it was like a pirouette where I backheeled the ball while I was in the air and spinning round," Christie tells the Northern Echo, looking back on that night.

"It was one of those instinctive finishes."

That's what Christie was good at and how he'd made his name.

"I remember coming off the bench alongside Juninho and he was a bit of a hero of mine," says Christie.

"There'd been a similar game when I was at Derby and it was against Boro funnily enough, I came off the bench alongside Georgi Kinladze when we were 3-0 down and we ended up getting a 3-3 draw and I scored.

"It just gives you a special buzz when you come on alongside a legend and Juninho was definitely a legend!"

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Christie had signed for Boro in the January of the previous season but had endured something of a stop-start introduction to life on Teesside due to a couple of niggling injuries. Around the time of that Brighton game, though, he felt like he was finding his feet. Just four days after his goal against Albion, he scored the winner in a 1-0 win at Southampton in the Premier League. Take off, he hoped. Little did Christie know at the time, however, that his days as a leading top flight striker were numbered.

In late November, Christie suffered a bad leg break in training. It was an injury from which he'd never properly recover and the player who set Boro on their way to Carling Cup success would play no further part in the competition. After that goal came pain and anguish.

"I would never have thought that at that time in 2003, that I would never be the same player again," he says.

"That's the way it happened for me. The player that Middlesbrough got at the start of 2003 was not the player they saw leave in 2007.

"The hardest thing about being a footballer is when you're out injured. If you layer that up with, the hardest thing is being injured and the thing you want to do is a success and you're not part of that, it's a bit of a double whammy.

"It's very easy for people to look from the outside and think it must have been so good to be part of that. But it was difficult, it was hard not feeling part of it.

"I remember watching some of the games on the TV and it was hard. The club was riding the crest of a wave but I felt like a passenger."

Come the final in Cardiff, Christie was in the stands rather than on the pitch celebrating with his teammates, which hurt. So upset was the striker, he couldn't bring himself to join the party at the Tall Trees the following night.

He spoke to club psychologist Bill Beswick, who in turn talked to boss Steve McClaren.

"I didn't get a medal but it was never about the medal," says Christie.

"The bit I had a problem with was I was left up in the stands and didn't feel part of that special day.

"Steve didn't really have a conversation with me but his apology was that he wanted me to lift the trophy first on the bus tour.

"I'd got my head together a little bit and thought, right, try to live for this moment a little bit and enjoy it as much as the supporters are. Of course that was a special moment. It was incredible, the buzz, the adrenaline, it's a magnificent memory for everybody.

"But that was such a difficult time for me.

"Looking back now, it gives me great satisfaction and a lot of pride knowing I was part of something very special and to have my moment. But I understand that people rarely remember what happens so early in a cup run. It's the later games and the final that stay in people's minds."

That may be true to an extent but Christie is doing himself and that Brighton goal a disservice.

Ask Boro fans from that era to recall the crucial moments in that cup run and the majority will point to Christie's instinctive flick that got the ball rolling.

It wasn't necessarily known at the time but it turned out to be a huge moment not only in Boro's season but in the club's history. Without that goal, there might not have been a Cardiff. And without Cardiff, there's no Basel, Steaua and Eindhoven.

Christie's time at Boro turned into something of a nightmare for the striker but he'll always be in the history books for his part in the club's greatest achievement.