Derby were on the slide.
The long time favourites had the worst form in the top six.
The top two strikers had been injured. They had lost at relegation battlers Brighton and Fulham then took a real kick in the teeth as close rivals Norwich snatched a last gasp equaliser after a fumbled own goal.
Yet for the next game - Boro - the atmosphere was like a cup final: not only was it sold out but the excitement and intensity of the crowd was electrifying long before kick-off, with passionate songs and chanting drowning out the PA pap and for the first 20 minutes you couldn’t hear yourself think.
Just imagine the stifling, bleak emotional landscape if that had been Boro: the build up to such a game would have been dominated cyberspace pitchforks would be waving as vigilantes prowled the virtual streets looking for scapegoats and ra-ras to berate for this historical betrayal, shouting down any signs of as foam handed delusion.
There would be squabbling and recriminations and pre-emptive point-scoring and predictions of terminal implosion before a ball was kicked.
The prospect of failure would be welcomed by some as validation, evidence of prescience.
The atmosphere at the next match would be toxic with the early cheers poisoned by the sound of sighing at every set-back.
And should Boro dare to go behind (or not be winning at half-time) there would be a tangible wave of groaning disappointment that would take hold to be tetchy sniping by the end.
Even if they won it would not be well enough. And we all know that to be true.
Griffiths Photographers 
George Friend celebrates with Patrick Bamford at Derby
We have grown up with it. It is frustrating and self-defeating and out of sync with the natural state of most football fans - on Teesside other crowds are laughed at for being instinctively positive and loyal through advertise, the doyles - but it is part of our collective psyche.
It is not specific to football.
We are a fading former powerhouse that has never been recognised for our achievements, often over-looked for state investment and always the first to suffer when recession bites with unemployment taking a savage grip on families and communities with a harsh echo of historic poverty of the past.
Standards of living, quality of life - all the main social and economic indicators point in condemnation and we are unfairly smeared as a post-industrial hell-hole and chemical choked cultural wasteland.
We have long learned to stand and stir our simmering cauldron of grudges and disappointment.
And that is played out in the way we approach football.
The narrative is that the club have let us down so often that being kicked in the teeth is part of the package.
Fans have historically donned emotional armour to protect themselves from the inevitable pain of disappointment with layers of cynicism, scepticism and pessimism welded together by the laser intensity of the stony faced glare of our forefathers staring down any infant signs of optimism.
Any sense of people reacting positively to possibility or ambition is quickly stamped on by the cynics before it can threaten their own rigid mind-set.
And of course, Boro are not giant club with a bulging trophy cabinet so it is easy to predict defeat and disappointment.
It doesn’t make them seers. That is the balance of football history. Which makes it all the more important to enjoy the good times.
It is not the majority who insulate themselves with dismay but it is a big enough and loud enough minority to dominate the debates in pubs and clubs and workplaces.
And the modern world has given them an amplified voice to create the mood-music on moan-ins and message boards before the people at the match even get home.
Every flaw is magnified through a jaundice prism of impending doom and every positive undermined: it is a flash in the pan. It’s bound to go wrong. They’ll mess it up.
These are the people who moaned all the way through the Premier League years, all the way across Europe and on the coach to Cardiff, waiting for something to go wrong.
Boro fans in Steaua Bucharest 20th April 2006
That psychic balance of irreconcilable extremes makes a battlefield of everything at Boro: historical ups and downs, managerial nuances, signings, exits, ticket prices, the colour and manufacturer of the shirt all spark skirmishes are little to do with football and all to do with the internal dynamics of the individual and the need to tie trivia into a wider narrative.
I feel sorry for those who wear their institutional moaning proudly like a medal.
They always miss out on the full experience of the good times as they shield themselves from the full emotional intensity of the experience.
The club has been rewired in the past two decades. There are people who grew up with the Riverside and signing world famous stars and cup finals and Europe and winning.
That became the norm: a healthy club playing at the top level and reshaping expectations and for a while most people let their guard down briefly and dared to dream.
For many of us they were dream times that inspire us.
But many are still brooding in the shadow of those glory years, measuring everything against that freak spell and failing to live in the present. And the present isn’t a bad place to be.
That is the culture shock that frustrated Aitor Karanka seems to be struggling with.
He has delivered and doesn’t understand why the atmosphere isn’t buzzing, he is puzzled by the sullen shroud.
It is not just about gates. They are nudging gradually up.
It is not even completely about atmosphere. Boro fans have been brilliant away all season and at plenty of home games there has been a real roar and tangible tingle.
But he can sense the aura of cynical caution, of restraint, of pessimists storing up despair ready to unload a container load of told-you-sos.
You can understand he feels a sense of frustration.
He was brought in to engineer a promotion campaign and here we are: It hasn’t always gone smoothly and we are not 12 points clear but we are in the mix and in with a shout with five games left, three at home.
He has built a side that just a few weeks ago was being lauded by fans and pundits alike as the best balanced in the division, with a rock solid defence, a tenacious midfield and lots of options up front.
Albert Adomah celebrates scoring against Ipswich
He has shaped a side that has a steely squad spirit of fierce unity and has forged sincere links with the crowd who have at times started to share that sense of collective strength.
And he has guided them into the summit shake-up.
This has been a fantastic season and we should be revelling in it: this is exactly what we wanted, to be in an exciting finale with something at stake, to be energised by every game.
Boro are having their best season since relegation, they are making a genuine promotion push, they have won more home games and taken more points since 1998; they have won more than they lost, they are really giving it a go.
Boro may not go up automatically. They may not win the play-offs. Nothing in football is guaranteed. When you make that emotional investment you don’t get a gift receipt.
Fans need to enjoy those times when possibility rises.
They need to be brave and dare to dream of success.
And they need to get behind the team in the ground when the prize is withing grasp, especially when times are hard.
If Boro fall short then there is plenty of time for point-scoring and recriminations later. That’s what the summer is for.
