As Tony Mowbray returns to Middlesbrough as manager, 19 years after leaving his hometown club, Assistant Editor Scott Wilson looks back on the career of the man who captained the club as a 22-year-old

THANKS to the wonders of the internet, it is easy to reminisce.

Moments long since forgotten are just the click of a mouse away; memories blunted become sharp and intense once more.

It is almost 20 years since Tony Mowbray said his farewells to Teesside, and in the meantime, so much has happened, so many heroes have come and gone, that it is easy to forget just how much he once meant to Middlesbrough Football Club.

Easy, but thanks to the wonders of modern technology, also easy to put right. Head to YouTube, search for “Tony Mowbray 1988” and snippets of a documentary charting the club’s rise from the Third to First Division will appear.

The hair is significantly blonder, the brow is considerably less furrowed, but the pride, passion and commitment remain unchanged.

Yesterday, Mowbray spoke of his determination to turn Middlesbrough around and the closeness of his relationship with the people and places on the banks of the Tees. Twenty-two years ago, and his sentiments were the same.

“Middlesbrough’s in my blood now,” said Mowbray, in an interview delivered during the early stages of the celebration party that accompanied confirmation of the club’s promotion to the top-flight. “You can’t look to the future thinking, ‘What will happen when I’m 40 or 50 and stopped playing football’, but Middlesbrough will always be deep in the blood. I’ll still be coming to Ayresome Park and watching football here.

“I’ve been here such a long time and for things to have turned around, and us to have done as well over the last few years, is brilliant. That pride has been instilled again.

“It’s the whole area, everyone talks football.

You go out on a night and the lads and lasses are all walking around with smiles on their faces. It’s brilliant to see.”

With Mowbray back in the place that cherishes him most, who is to say that such smiles cannot be seen once more?

BORN in Saltburn in November 1963, Anthony Mark Mowbray joined Middlesbrough from school and made his professional debut in 1982 at the age of 18.

His first task? Marking Kevin Keegan at St James’ Park. It was a difficult start to a career that would contain more than its fair share of testing times.

Admired and groomed by Malcolm Allison, who of course sadly passed away earlier this month, Mowbray quickly established himself in Boro’s first team, initially at left-back, then under Jack Charlton’s successor, Willie Maddren, at centre-half.

Tough, uncompromising and resilient, his wholehearted approach instantly endeared him to the fans, and he was wearing the captain’s armband by the time he turned 22.

On the field, he was battling, valiantly, to try to keep Middlesbrough afloat in the Second Division, winning the club’s Player of the Year award for two seasons in succession. Off it, however, things were about to implode.

The tale of Boro’s liquidation is a well-told one, from the locks on the gates at Ayresome Park, to the training sessions on plots of public land, to the comeback game at the home of Hartlepool United.

Steve Gibson’s role in keeping the club afloat is rightly lauded. Mowbray’s role in terms of holding the playing squad together deserves equal praise.

“I knew Tony was a special individual from the first moment I met him,” said Bruce Rioch, who coined the famous ‘Fly me to the moon’ quote that will forever link Mowbray with Middlesbrough. “I took over the club in 1986 and it went into liquidation pretty much straight away. Lots of the big names left and I named Tony as my captain.

“He was just 22, but such a mature individual.

He was a good player, fiercely competitive, but he was also great at handling the dressing room, even at that age.

He knows how to look after players and get the best out of them.

“Some people have a way about them, a manner, and Tony Mowbray has that. He is a special person. An absolutely outstanding human being who has a real quality and feel for people. I never had any doubts he would be successful in life at whatever he chose to do.”

Mowbray was present through many of the darkest days in Middlesbrough’s history, but once the club was stabilised and saved, he proved integral to its growth and rebirth.

Having led his side out at Victoria Park for their first post-liquidation match – a 2- 2 draw with Port Vale – he oversaw successive promotions that sent them surging into the top-flight.

Playing alongside fellow Teessider Gary Pallister, he formed one half of a defensive partnership that many believe was the best in Middlesbrough’s history.

Pallister provided the brains; Mowbray supplied the brawn. A simplistic assessment perhaps, but one that both players were happy to go along with.

In many ways, the promotion season of 1988 was the apex of Mowbray’s time on Teesside. The club struggled in the top-flight, and when relegation followed, failed to make an immediate impact in Division Two.

There was the high point of leading Boro out at Wembley, ahead of the final of the Zenith Data Systems Cup, but even that was tempered by an injury that prevented him from playing in the game.

Mowbray’s final season saw Colin Todd guide the club into play-offs, but months later, Mowbray was off, joining Celtic in a £1m deal.

He returned to Ayresome Park for a testimonial, attended by more than 20,000 supporters, and while Lennie Lawrence made an unsuccessful attempt to resign him in 1991, he ended his playing days with a fiveyear spell at Ipswich Town.

Sadly, he also suffered intense personal tragedy at this time, with his wife, Bernadette, dying of cancer just eight months after the pair had married.

WHEN his playing career ended at Portman Road, Mowbray went straight into coaching, and his first taste of management came as a caretaker sandwiching the reigns of George Burley and Joe Royle.

In May 2004, he got his first permanent position, in charge of Scottish Premier League side Hibernian, and was an immediate success.

From the off, his sides played a brand of attractive free-flowing football seemingly at odds with the competitive, pragmatic style that had earned him so much success as a player.

He was named Footballer Writers’ Manager of the Year in his first season at Easter Road and guided Hibs into the top four of the SPL for two seasons in a row, something the Edinburgh club had failed to achieve for more than two decades.

His successes did not go unnoticed and, in October 2006, he was offered the vacant managerial post at West Brom, replacing another former Middlesbrough legend, Bryan Robson.

His first season at the Hawthorns ended in despair, with the Baggies losing to Derby County in the play-off final, but after signing the likes of Chris Brunt and James Morrison in the close season, his second saw the club claim the Championship title.

Charged with the task of keeping West Brom in the Premier League, Mowbray refused to alter his open, attacking approach, but the weaknesses within his side were ruthlessly exposed as they were relegated in 20th position.

Mowbray, however, emerged with his reputation intact, and in the summer of 2009, he was handed one of the biggest jobs in British football as manager of Celtic.

Things started badly, with a wrangle over Neil Lennon’s position on his backroom staff, and quickly went even further downhill. Celtic fell ten points behind rivals Rangers before Christmas, stumbled their way through the turn of the year, and the writing was effectively on the wall when St Mirren subjected them to a barelybelievable 4-0 defeat in March. Mowbray was dismissed the following day.

Placed on a 12-month period of gardening leave, he was linked with a number of positions in the latter stages of last season, but never showed any inclination to return.

Until, of course, Middlesbrough came calling.

Football is littered with examples of players and managers failing to live up to their initial achievements when they return to the same club once again, but few have lived through as many highs and lows as Mowbray.

If things go badly, they will surely not be as devastating as they were 24 years ago. If they go well, however, who better to lead Boro back to the Premier League than their most celebrated commander-inchief?

A flight of fancy? Why not a journey to the moon?