This article is part of Football League World’s ‘Rewind’ series, this content strand is where we rewind back to a particular moment at a club, assess the initial reaction from the fans, and then proceed to evaluate and reflect on whether fans were right to react in that way….

The Riverside Stadium sees Middlesbrough welcome Birmingham City to Teesside in a match which has a distinctly different taste to the clash in the Second City.

Despite falling to defeat against Fulham on Friday night, Jonathan Woodgate's side have enjoyed a positive run of form of late after going six games without defeat - including the FA Cup third round clash with Tottenham Hotspur.

That was followed up with defeat in North London last week, but back-to-back defeats in the capital certainly won't be enough to put the Teessiders under the sort of pressure they faced earlier this season.

Tonight's opponents are in a similar position to Middlesbrough as they sit comfortably on top of the relegation battle and have hopes of putting together a good run of results to move them up the table.

No doubt the Blues will be looking to their last match-up for inspiration ahead of the trip to the Riverside Stadium.

The picture was much more bleak for Middlesbrough going into the trip to St. Andrew's in October.

How well do you remember these former Middlesbrough strikers? Let's find out!

 

The Teessiders had won just two matches all season before taking on the Blues, and Jonathan Woodgate's side were starting to sit perilously close to an unexpected relegation battle.

It had all the makings of a relegation six-pointer, and by the time the final whistle blew their was a stunned silence in the away end as Middlesbrough's fans started to face the fact that this season's aspirations were a lot less glamorous than in previous campaigns.

A first half effort from Fran Villalby looked like it had been cancelled out by Daniel Ayala, who's effort sent the travelling fans into raptures as they looked set to avoid another unexpected defeat.

However a sucker-punch from Blues' youngster Odin Bailey just two minutes later brought the Teessiders crashing back down to earth and asking serious questions about the man in charge.

Jonathan Woodgate may be seen as the future of Middlesbrough Football Club right now, but at the time there was plenty of supporters calling for his head with suggestions that the fresh-faced manager was unfortunately out of his depth.

An eerie silence in the away end of St. Andrew's was followed by a vocal group of supporters on social media who all shared the same idea of how to get Middlesbrough out of their sticky situation...