Gibson admitted that Boro had been punching above their weight in the Premier League, but insisted that when they got back they would be prepared to cope, both financially and from a playing point of view.

He compared Boro to Hull in revealing how small an area was covered by the club’s supporter base.

Gibson said: “People said that we were a small town in Europe, but in fact we are a small town in Yorkshire.

“Everyone is talking about the emergence of Hull City, yet the population of Hull is twice that of Middlesbrough.”

In answer to a question pointing out that the conurbation of Hull was as big as Teesside, Gibson replied:



“We know from postcode addresses that 90% of our season tickets holders live within five miles of the Riverside Stadium.

“Of course we have support in outlying areas, but the majority of Stockton people support Sunderland.”



I checked, the WHOLE of Stockton lies within a 5 mile radius of the shiverside.



And Stockton supporting Sunderland??? Maybe now!!!

Middlesbrough is a Teesside team and could justifiably be called Teesside FC, with additional support drawn from parts of North Yorkshire and the Darlington area, although thankfully not much from Hartlepool. That catchment area has a population in excess of 250k.

Middlesbrough has only become a small town since the redrawing of the unitary authority boundaries when Cleveland County was abolished.

What bollox from Gibson.

It's true, funny feckers them Yorkies, excepting of course than canny lad who plays for the PK's.

Having lived in Thirsk for 30 years I wouldn't say that there's an overbalance of Leeds fans. There's certainly a good few and they're mainly the local inbreds that have been here since birth. There's at least eight to ten Poolies that I know of who regularly attend the Vic and some away games, and a handful of Loids to provide sport for us

However there's plenty of Smoggies and some Barcodes but for some unexplainable reason there's loads of Mackems. The Mackems are a fickle lot and only show their colours when they're on the up. You can go into the local newsagents on a Sunday and if the Mackems have won you won't get a copy of the Sunday Sun, if they've lost there'll be piles of em left
There's still plenty of Yorkies supporting their team too

In the past Thirsk has been a sort of boundary town where you can get both Yorkshire ITV and Tyne Tees, but generally the Yorkshire reception was better so it predominated. It was the same with newspapers in that the Yorkshire Post always had the edge over the Northern Echo. I'd say this previously had an effect on who locals supported. This changed as the A19 developed and folks from the north east moved down this way and could easily commute back up. For some reason though loads of Mackems used to and still do spend their weekends down here on the caravan sites, and I guess more of them than any others have moved down here explaining why you see so many of their shirts around.

As for Leeds shirts since the clubs decline so have the vast majority of their fans around here

I'd say its 70/30 boro leeds here....more towards loftus way for Leeds like.
Redcars a huge boro town, is that within 5 miles of Middlesbrough? must be!

The borers started this small town in Yorkshire line a couple of years ago by saying they were the best supported team for a town of their population size, conveniently failing to mention they draw their 'support' from all over Teesside and the likes of Redcar, Saltburn and Guisborough. I'd love to know what percentage of their support actually comes from Middlesbrough itself.

Here it's mostly AIG united. Normal. We're only about 80 miles from Manchester.

Serious question: would you recommend living in Thirsk?

I know just the man to ask.

Mr Ed where are you?

Certainly would!

If you want to ask specific questions PM me, I'm happy to help

But then that's par for the course in Middlesborough. I once saw an old map of the area, circa 1900 and there was absolutely nothing there apart from 3 or 4 farms. They've got form for borrowing their population from other areas.