Middlesbrough’s man of steel feels the town’s pain

The closure of the steelworks is not an abstract here. Gone are 2,200 jobs, but there are also 1,000 contractors and, according to Andy McDonald, Middlesbrough’s Labour MP and a long-time associate of Gibson’s, “something like 6,000 in the direct supply chain”. Two friends of Stewart Downing, the club’s England winger, are unemployed. Gibson’s father and brother were steelworkers.

“Every third person you meet here has some connection to the steelworks,” Gibson says. “We ship our steel through the ports, put it on the trains, hauliers haul it. All of a sudden, millions of pounds are taken out of our economy. How does that affect the shopkeeper, the pub landlord, the cleaners, the people who want to buy houses? It goes on and on.”

“A lot of people are very frightened,” Rob Nichols, editor of Fly Me to the Moon, the fanzine, says. “Industry and the football club bind this community and one is being severely tested. It feels like we’ve been cut off and left to wither.”

“The ramifications are colossal,” says McDonald. But hasn’t this region always rebounded? “We bounce back a little, but we’re in danger of dying from a thousand cuts,” Gibson says. “We have some appalling statistics; our cancer rates are too high, infant mortality, suicides amongst our young men. It’s getting better, but we shouldn’t tolerate it.”

McDonald had taken down his “Save Our Steel” posters that morning — “Opposition stinks,” he says — but banners drape over red seats at the Riverside and they were still up in the windows of the Beacon Hotel in Redcar’s Station Road. Along the beach, towards the steelworks, there is a marrow-freezing wind. Roxy, a Rottweiler, charges towards walkers, but her tail is thrashing. Crows pick through crab shells.

A few hours later, Gibson is sitting forward in his seat in the directors’ box. McDonald is on one side, Neil Bausor, the club’s chief executive, on the other. As the game against Fulham begins, “THANK YOU FROM THE STEELMAKERS OF TEESSIDE” is displayed on the perimeter hoardings. The language from this point is all football: come on, stand up, make a challenge, how’s that not a booking?

It is 29 years since Middlesbrough called in the liquidators and the gates to Ayresome Park were padlocked, when they rose from the ashes with Gibson at the vanguard. It is 20 since they moved to the Riverside and signed Juninho, when Gibson, by then the club’s owner, would discuss club affairs with Bryan Robson, his manager, over a beer and a kickabout. Fans still sing his name, acclaim him as, “one of our own”, which may be unique.

After winning the League Cup and reaching the Uefa Cup final — gilded days and the best in their existence — Middlesbrough were relegated from the Barclays Premier League in 2009. There has been streamlining and realignment since then, but they reached the play-off final under Aitor Karanka in May and after their goalless draw with Fulham are third in the Sky Bet Championship.

In the directors’ suite afterwards, the highlights are played on a giant television screen. “Highlights?” Gibson questions. The team’s performance was flat, but sullenness was understandable. “Nobody is here — in the town, the stadium — other than because of iron and steel,” McDonald says. “The origin of the club is Ironopolis. The fortunes of the town and the club are utterly interlinked.”

It is an inadequate moment to discuss anniversaries, but Gibson is a gentlemen; he tries. What keeps him involved? “I ask myself that,” he says. “I must be mad.” Not that, but in this time of oligarchs and hedge funds, precious; local and rooted. “Our club is essential to the town,” he says. “I get warmth from the crowd and the area and I’ve got good people around me. We feed off each other. It becomes a way of life.”

McDonald speaks for others. “He’s made an incredible contribution,” he says. “I can’t think of any chairman in football who has shown such terrific commitment to a town. He’s got a very strong sense of place. He’s absolutely of Middlesbrough.”

It is now the anger swells. Gibson does not make money from football. He is a businessman benefactor, the owner of Bulkhaul, an international transportation company and he knows what steel has meant. The industry has not ceased because of inefficiency or a lack of demand, but because, as McDonald said, “the Chinese have put 300 million tonnes of steel on the world market at below cost”.

So where is George Osborne’s “Northern Powerhouse”, the notion of making things? Gibson is contemptuous. “What the town is surprised about is the lack of action from government, their inability to protect a strategic industry,” he said. “We’ve simply surrendered to the Chinese, pulled up the white flag. Where are we going to get our steel from in the future?

“Where was the government? We have a local MP, James Wharton, who is supposed to be responsible for the Northern Powerhouse — he’s come across as an absolute clown. A joke. And he will become accountable at the next election. There are a lot of steelworkers in his constituency and all he’s done is pay lip service to it. I wished him well when he got elected, but if he doesn’t improve, I’ll look to bury him, the town will look to bury him.

“We’re seeing the knock-on effects now. Redundancies at the ports. People who have run good businesses with no hope of getting paid. Our first company going into receivership. There’s a lot of anger. We’re not stupid. We understand if something is not viable, but this is. The country hasn’t helped us. The Italians and French have subsidised their steel industries, but our energy costs are significantly higher and we’ve got environmental taxes.

“What’s unbelievable is that the clean-up is going to cost the taxpayer well in excess of £1 billion. The loss of taxes is going to cost hundreds of millions. Welfare and benefits, the same. Where is the intellect to work this out in government?

“The other clown is Sajid Javid [the Secretary of State for Business]. Where’s he been? Or are we so unimportant that sat down there in their big fancy offices, Teesside doesn’t come into it? This region — Gladstone’s ‘infant Hercules’ — could be so much more than it is, with a bit of help, with a vision. Get your a*** out of Westminster and look at the talent we’ve got.”

The government has announced an £80 million support package, but unemployment in Middlesbrough is already high. The process has been brutal. It feels important that football brings uplift, but need takes on different forms. “The income we get this year from television and central distribution will be about £4.8 million,” Gibson says. “Getting promotion takes it north of £103 million. That would be a lot of money coming into our town. We’re aware of our responsibility.”

Outside the ground, near the old Ayresome gates, Gibson signs autographs. Another Saturday is done. “It’s spooky how quickly the time has gone,” he says of his long association with the club. He is a reluctant speaker — “there’s too much bulls***,” he said before we talked — but now, more than ever, Middlesbrough needs this man of steel, this man of iron, his strong and partial voice.

A daft question is put to him. Unlikely, granted, but if you were abducted by an alien, how would you describe the town that built the world? “I’m from Teesside,” Gibson said. His eyes are a furnace. “I’d kill the alien.”

Joys from Brazil

The moment when Juninho arrived on Teesside in October 1995 was the moment Middlesbrough startled football. The Brazilian, who had already been capped by his country, signed from São Paulo for £4.75 million to the sound of a samba rhythm.

“We still keep in touch,” Steve Gibson, the Middlesbrough chairman then and now, said. “He was at our play-off final against Norwich City last season and we have a great relationship. That was such a special time — Bryan Robson, Viv Anderson, Gordon McQueen. It feels like yesterday.”

Gibson’s ownership is about more than memories. Under his watch, Middlesbrough have relocated to the Riverside Stadium, built a palatial training ground and invested in a fine academy. Beyond that, their tendrils spread out in an area of deprivation. “We want to be the flagship for the community,” Gibson said. “We can’t give up on our youngsters.”