Ten and a half things you never knew about.....Middlesbrough

AFKABartram

1. The Town was originally called Clevelondia, but during the annual Clevlondia summer fete of 1782, the travelling dignitories noticed the distinctily high number of hairy one-brow's on display. It become known in other areas as 'Middle Brow', and was officially named 'Middlesbrough' in 1786.

2. 90's striker Hamilton Ricard is now the 2nd biggest drinks distributor in Columbia after a family fall-out led to him imitating his uncle's Pernod recipe.

3. Away to Boro in 1968, Charlton's Matt Tees scored an own goal that was of such hilarity, a pregnant woman's waters' broke on the terraces. As a result, the nearby river was renamed the River Tees as a lasting legacy.

4. Milddlesbrough women introduced the Brazilian lady garden arrangement to the UK in 1995 following the signing of Juninho.

5. The Middlesbrough Supporters Trust are currently campaigning to make the town's Job Centre an Asset of Community Value.

6. 90's misfiring striker and boyband wannabee Mikel Beck was rushed to hospital with alcohol poisoning in 2004 after bathing in a bathtub filled with Beck's lager. He steadfastly refuses to give up in this bizarre ritual, but has since made the process safer by adding some lemonade.

Covered End

7 They used to greet the away supporters, getting off the coaches at Ayresome Park, by kindly throwing them bottles, from over the top of the nearby houses.

BlackForestReds

8. Middlesbrough's top tourist attraction is the Transporter bridge which was removed to Arizona in the third series of Auf Wiedersehen Pet. The bridge out-acted the entire cast.

March51

9) The oppressive dark and dreary M'bru skyline was the inspiration for the setting of Ridley Scott's 'Blade Runner' (he was born there).

Covered End

10 The Geordies & Mackems call them The Smoggies.

Covered End

11 Many of their supporters like to sport a moustache, even some of the men.

soapy_jones

12. Middlesbrough has the highest percentage of lycra per average body weight in the Western World which stands at 17.6%

masicat

13. There is a lounge at Middlesborough called the Lennie Lawrence Lounge named after a manager they had in the late 80's who used to commute every day from Locksbottom.

Jarman

14. Middlesborough should be beating teams like Charlton Atheltic.

kigelia

15. Middlesbrough council are currently planning in applying to twin the town with the planet mars if nasa manage to locate intelligent life there.... The nasa probe is scheduled to land in Middlesbrough in early 2014.

MrOneLung

Middlesbrough Borough Council have recently canvassed their residents to as to whether they are finally going to move from imperial to metric coinage.

Jack Smogson 94 was quoted as saying 'there is no need to follow those modern day fancy dans in Sunderland and Newcastle who have had their heads turned by the posh decimalists down south'

'pound shillings and pence were good enought during the war and are good enough now'

thai malaysia addick

In 1632, some rich merchants from London travelled on horseback for many days to the area now known as Middlesbrough. The main gift that they brought for the local folk was a gilded rhombus. The local townsfolk had never seen a gilded rhombus, so the rich merchants carved the words 'Gilded rhombus' on the curiously gilded shape.

The rhombus though was stolen, but the thief was spotted. As he ran away, he dropped the gilded rhombus as he was pursued by an angry mob. As it hit the ground, it smashed into 13 pieces each with a carved letter on from the words 'Gilded rhombus'. The letters were laying on the ground in the order M-I-D-D-L-E-S-B-R-O-U-G-H. Thenceforth, they called the area Middlesbrough.

Stig

Mr & Mrs Brough lived on the catholic side of Cleveland and were so poor that they couldn't afford a television set. As a consequence of these two circumstances, Mrs Brough soon fell pregnant. And again. And again. In fact dropping sprogs came so easily to Mrs Brough that she joked it was just like shelling peas. A tradition in the Brough family was that all sons would be named after their father. Their father in this case being Leslie, all of the sons were also called Leslie or Les for short.

It was a standing joke with the neighbours that the Brough family would soon have enough sons to field a football team. A joke that is, until that day when their eleventh son become old enough to kick a ball and they decided that they really should form a team. Not any old team, but the greatest team that North Acklam had ever seen. The eldest son, Big Les Brough, wore number one and played in goal. The youngest, Quick Les Brough, wore 11 and played at outside left. The other nine took the numbers in between and played at various positions on the pitch. They were actually very good, so good in fact they enjoyed a meteoric rise through the local leagues. The Albert Park Amateur League, The Transporter Bridge Supervisors League and the Grangetown & District Thursday Night Candlelit League all being won in successive seasons. Then their big break came; an invitation to join The Smokey Northern Towns Alliance. This would really put the Broughs on the map. Sadly though, this being 'up North' no-one had the necessary 1'6 for the enrolment fee. No-one, that it except their number 6, who had secretly been saving up farthing tips from his tripe round. He saved the day and the team was re-named in his honour: Midd Les Brough.

soapy_jones

In a groundbreaking piece of research painstakingly undertaken by Professor Dean Kyrouliski of Teeside University, it has been proven that at some point in the 2012/2013 Championship season, Middlesbrough's manager Tony Mowbrey had a head shaped like all the basic 8 geometric shapes (see below).