Middlesbrough couldn’t make it in the end. Oldham leapfrogged them into safety and the tee side team couldn’t string enough performances together in what was a heavily clustered lower half of the table. Middlesbrough finished the season with 44 points, five points short of safety.
But their manager was hopeful that his side had it in them to come back strong the year later and gain a straight promotion to back in the big league.
Lennie Lawrence said “I have learned a lot of lessons. I have spent a lot of time analyzing where we went wrong. I’ve made a lot of mistakes and so have the players. I will learn from them and I hope the players will too. I believe that I am now equipped to try to build another promotion side next season. We have got a lot foundations here already. We have to add the crucial pieces of the jigsaw during the summer.”