hypochondriac

Imagine if we win tomorrow and Boro keep on training for ten days. Not only will we have robbed them of promotion but we'll rob them of a chunk of their summer holidays too! Mugs.

So many articles out now. So obvious they all emanate from the North and we have said nothing. Quite pathetic really.

Breaking news. The independent board were due to give us a slap on the wrist as early as today but someone has sent them the Boro fan petition and it looks like we could be in deep trouble.

We can all play that game and issue a load of fanciful things. Saints have made two demands to the EFL: 1) they let us off with a big fine and a public ticking off. 2) they let us drink discounted pints in our seats next season.

Boro making demands to the EFL now apparently. Again, it's wrongdoing that we have done and that will be determined by the independent body. Middlesbrough can make all the demands they like.

To any Boro fans reading this - just beat us on the field of play tomorrow and then we can shake your hands and have no complaints. Equally if you lose don't go on a big whiny sulk and demand you replace us in the final.

I'd love to know how long he was there for before being discovered? Could have been five minutes for all we know.

Look like a bit of reality might have started to penetrate slightly: "Hate to say it chaps... But I think we're in a bit of a bubble here. The general consensus I can gather from other fan forums, social media, talksport etc is that they're more on Southampton's side than ours. As in they're more like 'Bit naughty you got caught! Small fine it is' rather than thinking this is some massive cheating scandal. Only my observation and gut feel... But anyone thinking they'll be kicked out the play offs is away with the fairies. It's probably going to fire their players/fans up if anything."

You've got one calling for police raids of our board room and forensic investigations of all electronic devices. Absolutely barmy.

I thought Karl Turner seemed like a decent bloke and then they booted him out!

Christ is Blue Labour racist now as well? I can't keep up!

I think we may learn a lot about how confected or otherwise this is if we ever get any cctv footage or a picture of this professional recording equipment. If this does turn out to be a spotty student loitering in a bush with an iphone then we can safely assume that Boro have been playing the media to confect a lot of this and make it appear worse than it is. If however they manage to find the shots of the boom mic, 4K camera and a photo of all the coaching stuff in the command centre during the livestream with Tonda tweaking his tactics board in real time in response to Hellberg's instructions then some of that reporting might have some validity.

It could be like one of those MI5 missions where the agent is working for the big bosses but if anything goes wrong he's on his own, they deny all involvement and the mobile spontaneously combusts.

Win 4-0 then push for the punishment to be a retrospective 3-0 loss in the first leg...

I'd be annoyed about it but I'd be asking the club to use it as fuel to motivate the players to win on the pitch. The fact that many of their fans are so desperate to get us kicked out makes it seem like they don't believe they can beat us on Tuesday.

I can imagine that the same people twisting themselves in knots trying to slightly downplay the cheating would be the ones frothing at the mouth calling for Middlesborough to be expelled from the league if the shoe was on the other foot.

Right but this is a thread about SFC spying on the Middlesborough training ground. If you want to start a thread in the lounge about Steve Gibson and suggestions for how to improve his security at his training ground to prevent rogue actors from spying then go ahead. It's not relevant to this discussion.

And it's not like we took a picture because we liked the look of it. We took surveillance footage to then attempt to use that footage to gain an advantage that we shouldn't have. In other words cheating.

How is that a relevant strand? Just because spying is possibly easier to do at Middlesborough than other places has no relevance here other than the fact that we may have been in even more trouble had we tried to spy somewhere more secure.

If you think about it, Middlesborough should be bunging us a few quid for exposing some holes in their security system.

Interesting idea. Something like Peretz Bree THB Wood Manning Matsuki Jander Downes/Charles Scienza Archer Stewart

Nah. I'm sorry but no one who wasn't a fan of the accused team would be making that argument.

You could argue that the use of professional recording equipment- if that is what it is and not hyperbole- constitutes the same crime as breaking into the training ground. I agree though, if it's just an intern stood near the training ground with a mobile phone and clip on mic and that's the end of the matter then that's a different matter. It's not like Middlesborough is round the corner though, this will have had to have involved a fair bit of planning and logistic to pull off so it appears to be a bit more than being a touch opportunistic.

Indeed. If it was us, no one would be blaming the design of our training ground for making it easier to spy on. The only thing we can hope for is that there is sufficient mitigation or that the club and their lawyers can conjure up sufficient mitigation to restrict the punishment to a fine or a few points taken off next season at worst.

Use a more moderate example if you like. If we've sent someone to go and spy on their training then we are the ones at fault, not the victims who may have a more accessible training ground than others.