Boro’ came into the 2021-2 League Two campaign with a renewed sense of optimism under the leadership of manager Alex Revell; the second half of the previous season showing us – and the world – what we could be capable of. Naturally, football has a habit of building you up. But that doesn’t mean we couldn’t look forward to our latest season in the Football League. Not least as it was just 12 months after we didn’t know what level we’d be playing at.
After an encouraging start to the campaign (relatively speaking), Boro’ started to slide yet again. Eventually, the time came for Revell to depart his role. In his place came experienced boss Paul Tisdale, who found it hard to turn the ship around. Going into 2022, however, that started to be seen as we saw an uptick in form. Initial progress was fragile, but it was progress nonetheless – with work still to be done to safeguard our League Two status for another campaign.
The problem was that Tisdale couldn’t do it. In fact, the former Exeter gaffer had a torrid time in charge of us; not unlike Graham Westley’s ill-fated effort to reverse our fortunes in winter 2019-20. In the end, Phil Wallace bit the bullet and got rid of Tis. Our third permanent boss of the campaign would be a seasoned campaigner in the form of Steve Evans. And, over time, our course started to change. Survival wasn’t assured until the final few games, though. When it was, relief was one way of describing it.
The cups? Nothing much to speak of there, sadly.