FLIGHT BD7953 ferried Middlesbrough from Teesside airport to Eindhoven yesterday, the last leg of an epic 20-year journey that has encompassed relegation to the old third division, liquidation, an application to join the Gola League, a traumatic rebirth and glorious redemption.

Two decades after confronting their demise, the club are preparing for the most celebrated night in their history.

The record books show that Middlesbrough were formed in 1876, but their club crest relates an alternative reality. Middlesbrough Football Club 1986 — it would have been rebranded Sporting Club Middlesbrough if one director’s whims had been appeased — were founded from the ashes of inertia, debt and acrimony. It is a story to rival that of Wimbledon, Wigan Athletic and Gretna.

On August 23, 1986, the team drew 2-2 with Port Vale, a scoreline that disguises upheaval. With the gates of Ayresome Park padlocked by the receivers, Middlesbrough would have been ejected from the league had they failed to fulfil the fixture. They did so at Hartlepool United’s Victoria Ground, with 3,456 supporters in attendance, although, as Steve Gibson pointed out, “100,000 tell me they were there”.

Gibson, the chairman and benefactor who has built the Riverside Stadium, a palatial training ground, established the academy that allowed Steve McClaren to chose from 16 Englishman away to Fulham last weekend and inspired the club to a Carling Cup victory and stellar signings, had been on the board for two years. He remembers the period as “intense” and “horrendous”.

A fan from birth, Gibson had made a fortune with Bulkhaul, his chemical shipping business, and was invited to help the club. “I was quite young when I was asked to get involved and then I was up to my neck in it,” he said. “You never knew how bad the situation was. Every time you picked up a stone, something crawled out. I was told the debt was £1.3 million — the turnover of the club was only about £200,000 — but that became £1.5 million, £1.8 million and £2 million.

“The biggest amount of money that went out was to the old directors. You couldn’t lose sight of the fact that your role was to save the club, because in any other walk of life you would have picked up an axe and chopped people’s heads off. Because you were saving the club to give all this money to these individuals who had already killed the club.”

It was a cycle propelling Middlesbrough towards extinction. “You had third-generation shareholders, the greatgrandchildren of the original shareholders dating back to the 1870s,” Gibson, 48, said, “and some of these guys were on the board. You would go to a meeting and they would be talking about what they were having for lunch or dinner, but not about the debt.

“Middlesbrough had always just trundled on. I remember going in and saying that to sort this club out we needed clear lines of authorisation and that I wanted full executive powers to run the club. The cigars came out, they said it was impossible and I said I was off. Eventually they gave it to me. They asked me what I was going to do. I said, ‘None of your business, f*** off, you’re all sacked.’”

The Ayresome gates have now been relocated to the Riverside and while Gibson shuns the nostalgia — “I don’t get emotional about things like that; I’d have sold them for scrap” — it is unavoidable.

Middlesbrough’s Uefa Cup final against Seville this evening, which Gibson terms their “biggest ever game,” is a sharp reminder of their past.

The drama has not diminished. With relegation a possibility last winter, Gibson blocked the sale of Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, Mark Schwarzer and Ugo Ehiogu. “We have some great lads here and they had a feeling of responsibility towards the club,” he said. “I didn’t want to break that by shipping some of them out.” After the 4-0 defeat at home to Aston Villa in February, he appeased irate supporters in the stadium car park.

Other chairmen would have panicked; three months later, Middlesbrough are prospering again and Steve McClaren is the new England head coach. “Steve wasn’t under pressure from me,” Gibson said. “I remember saying to him after the Villa game that we have to take this on the chin, go home, think about it and come up with solutions.” It is the Boro way.