'The Making of Mozza' Part 1.

Cometh the moment, cometh the man.

No doubt, at this pivotal period in The Albion’s future, where the catastrophic drop off and the risk of potential relegation precipitous, at the last minute we turned to someone who knows...

The club.

The players.

The tradition.

Someone steeped in instant respect, such as is earned from an unbroken spell with the club that will reach twenty years in sixteen months time.

That’s over half his life..

Commitment to a club cannot be more clearly recognized and indeed loyalty is something close to Mozza’s heart.

In essence, in this period of ease of transfer, of many careers steeped in short termism, the kissing of the badge an exercise in tokenism, Mozza has only ever worn three club shirts in over thirty years.

Darlington All Stars.

Middlesbrough. 

West Brom.

Mozza’s tale is unique, one of bonds made and seldom broken, and only adds caveat to the emotion and gravitas of taking over the reigns, if temporarily, at The Albion and hopefully guiding us to relative safety and another season in The Championship.

James Clark Morrison was born on May 25th 1986, in the proud Teesside town of Darlington, Durham.

Mozza’s birth coincided with a low point in Albion history, just three weeks prior, a 3-2 home defeat to West Ham, the final Division One game to be played at The Hawthorns for over sixteen years, a grim inevitability of a nadir of a season, with just four wins in forty two league games.

Mozza was also playing not for Scotland, but England Under 17’s, by the time West Brom were back in the highest level of English football, under 'Sir' Gary Megson.

Darlington is also notable for being the birthplace of the manager who Albion defeated in the 1968 FA Cup Final, the legendary Everton boss, Harry Catterick, who won Division 1 twice with Everton in 1962/63 and 1969/70.

As a lad, Mozza played football with his friends until the age of eight when he first went to  a local team formed three years previously, Darlington All Stars.

It wasn’t a case of talent spotting rather than one of his mates thinking it might be a good idea.

“One of my mates played, so I just went along.”

Darlington All Stars Coach at the time, Dave Hardisty, reflected, took very little time to realize he had a special talent joining the club,

“It simply took five minutes of seeing James play, you could see he had something special”

For Mozza it was to be a situation of broadening friendship groups, most of his new team mates were from, 

“..the other end of the town”

Obviously, parental involvement was vital, but it was a family steeped in football history.

Mozza’s grandad, George Morrison, [pivotal in Mozza’s decision to play for Scotland], moved down to Teesside from Ayrshire, and was a contemporary of Man Utd's Gordon McQueen.

James also spent his formative years watching his dad, Charlie play for Crook Town in the Northern League, after being rejected as an apprentice at Chelsea when he was eighteen years old, although Charlie Morrison's name is mentioned in a 1960's WBA v Chelsea Match Programme, but it was always and forever family first,

“My family took me because they could see I wasn’t too bad at football.”

For the young Mozza, it wasn’t just the playing but the ‘small financial bonuses’ he received from doing well, funded by the esteemed George Morrison.

“I used to play as a striker, and I used to have a bet with my grandad, he’d give me One Pound for each goal I scored!

I was fast and I could finish!”

But more importantly, as many professional players reflect, it was the ‘pure’ love of the game, without pressure’ that looking back made for some of the happiest days of Mozza’s life.

For Mozza, playing competitive football for Darlington All Stars, made such a difference, shining in 5 and 6 aside tournaments at Manchester or at Keele University, and winning several trophies that are at the family home, in the atypical, droll Teesside accent,

“My Mam has still got them in a box at home.”

Mozza spent five seasons at Darlington All Stars, he even got a boxed framed No.7 shirt,(for his hero, Eric Cantona), until the call came from the professional club just 16 miles away, Middlesbrough.

The Boro interest came through two scouts, Ron Bone and Keith Noble, and Mozza’s first training experiences with the club came when he was just ten years old.

The early teenage years were to be a real challenge for Mozza, with the rule of not being allowed to play Sunday League football with Darlington All Stars enforced, as all Academy players could only play for one team by the age of thirteen.

But physically, it was to be an even more trying experience, being a late physical developer at this pivotal life stage and suffering as many young teens do, of the painful and restricting, Osgood-Schlatter's disease.

From age 13 to 15, Mozza struggled as his body grew quicker than his bones, with particular issues and pain with his knees.

“It wasn’t until my final year at school that I really kicked on.”

And kick on did Mozza do, when body, talent and mind all come together.

Ironically, the player Baggies always associate with Mozza, fellow 300 appearance stalwart and club legend, Chris Brunt, would at the same time, soon leave the Middlesbrough Academy, playing in the older age group, but it was Morrison’s team that was the one thriving, making their way to the 2003 FA Youth Cup Final, where they were beaten by ‘a more physically developed’, Man Utd team.

The best player in the final and in Mozza’s words, who ‘ran the show’ was Kieran Richardson who was obviously the crucial loan signing for The Albion in our ‘Great Escape’ season, two years from this Man Utd FA Youth Cup win, his experience of nine first team appearances was crucial in allowing  him to dominate Boro's midfield that day.  

There was however a collective belief that the same core group of players being a year older, would fuel an even better Cup run and the following season, Boro went one stage further, to win the FA Youth Cup in 2003, aided hugely by a 3-0 first leg win away to Aston Villa, with Mozza scoring twice.

Mozza, through illness, almost missed the triumphant second leg, but the glory and elation of that win are not lost on Morrison two decades later,

“Winning a trophy with your mates, players you grew up with, there’s no better feeling.

It was a great time, it was special.”

Boro’s Youth Team Manager, ex midfielder Mark Proctor, reflecting decades later on the teenage Mozza, described him as, 

“Very quiet, but not introverted, he just got on with things”,

Those traits haven’t really moved too far from the present.

Prior to the FA Youth Cup win, Mozza had made his first team debut, in the traditional baptism of young players, a 3rd Round FA Cup home tie v Notts County.

Mozza, as all young players tend to do on debut, was amazed at the pace of the game, 

“It was a bit of a whirlwind, the game played at 100mph.”

The experience simply made Mozza hungry for more, making his Boro’ full league debut at just seventeen years old, a few weeks later in a 4-1 home defeat v Portsmouth.

For four seasons, Mozza also played age group football for England, gaining seventeen caps, and had Albion connections within the Three Lions squad, joining him in midfield was the industrious Richard Chaplow, supplying chances, for the future, the less than industrious, Luke Moore… 

The following season was to be 18 year old James Morrison’s breakout season at Boro’, starting with a UEFA Cup debut away to the Czech club, Banik Ostrava, in a remarkable European campaign for Mozza who’d finish joint top scorer for the club.

Mozza’s Euro debut came about due to an injury to Boro’s mercurial Spanish midfielder, Gaizka Mendieta and also in Morrison’s words, a reward for,

“Coming on as sub and doing quite well away to Chelsea”, four days before.

Boro were defending a 3-0 home first leg lead, but after Banik scored early, the pressure was on, until Mozza scored his first ever Boro goal, rounding the keeper and coolly slotting home,

“It’s impossible to describe how I felt when I scored that goal.. The emotions sort of take over..”

And take over, Mozza clearly did.

Three days later, in front of 68,000 fans, away to a Rooney and Ronaldo led Man United, he made his full league debut, confidence coursing through his teenage veins, leaving Gabriel Heinze flailing on the floor to deliver the perfect cross for Stewart Downing to open the lead for Boro in an eventual 1-1 draw.

[The same Stewart Downing, whose ability and potential effectively closed the door on Chris Brunt's fledgling Boro career].

Cristiano Ronaldo was to later, notoriously, cross paths with Mozza again.

The reward for Morrison's excellent form was a new four year contract, which highlighted his development under Boro boss, Steve McLaren, and the signing of his immediate future being for a local lad and ex Boro ballboy,

"a dream come true".

In a very successful first Premier League for Mozza, Boro finished a very creditable 6th place, with Morrison starting thirteen matches, his main impact however was in the UEFA Cup, adding to his Banik goal by also scoring against Partizan Belgrade and Grazer AK, before Boro got knocked out in the last 16 by Sporting Lisbon.

In symmetry with the FA Youth Cup team of the previous two seasons this UEFA Cup run was a prelude for the following campaign.

In the 2005/6 season, Mozza was to almost double his Premier League appearance tally to twenty four, but it was also had a moment of similar fearful overtones to future Albion boss, Ryan Mason, just a decade later, with a very serious head injury.

For Mozza, it was against Spurs at the end of a tumultuous 3-3 draw, when a goal mouth scramble in the Boro penalty area led to an errant kick in the head from Robbie Keane, resulting in an obviously unconscious Morrison hitting the turf.

Players from both teams rushed over to the clearly comatose Morrison, and only due to the prompt medical work of Boro club medics did a more long term, serious injury not occur.

Watching at home on TV was Charlie Morrison, who similar to the scenario of Ryan Mason's parents, witnessing their son with a serious head injury, Mozza's dad reflected how, "shocking it was to see James so badly hurt".

After a neck brace was applied, Morrison was taken off the pitch, still unconscious and things seemed to have gotten worse when in the dressing room, James vomited, but fortunately he recovered consciousness a few minutes later, and as the Boro team and manager Steve McLaren returned to the changing room, Mozza met them with a broad smile, sporting a black eye.

Such are the fine lines in sport.

It could have been a whole lot worse.

It was to be a season of huge highs and lows for Mozza and The Boro, the lowest point being a 7-0 shellacking v Arsenal, where James commented about playing against the likes of Thierry Henry and Patrick Viera, “ It was a real eye opener, not getting a kick and chasing shadows all day!"

But it was the type of learning curve you’d commonly associate with a VERY young team, and Steve McLaren maintaining huge faith, the final game of the Boro season, he chose ten of the players who had actually originated from the Middlesbrough Academy, to play some part in a Division One game against Fulham.

Hopefully, Mozza can instill a similar long term role for the lifeblood of the Albion, the so called 'homegrowns', who emerge from West Brom’s esteemed Academy, this example of McLaren's long term vision, may increasingly be part of The Baggies future.

Ask any Boro fan about the following season, and all memories will go back to a glorious run to the final of the UEFA Cup, a game Morrison started in, at just nineteen years old.

Mozza was very surprised McLaren had kept faith with him to be selected in the final, as he didn't play in either semi final and was selected over the clearly more experienced options such as England international Ray Parlour.

It had been a truly amazing UEFA Cup run, Boro defeating the likes of Stuttgart, Roma and overcoming a three goal deficit in the Semi Final Second Leg v Steaua, to win 4-3.

The prize was a UEFA Cup Final in Eindhoven against La Liga giants, Sevilla.

Mozza mentions how surreal it was seeing such “a sea of red flags pre game”, and rued he wished he had been “an older more experienced player”, to have gained more from the game, but with ex Albion midfield maestro running the show for Sevilla in Enzo Maresca, who scored twice in a very comfortable 4-0 win for the Spaniards, Mozza, understandably overawed, only played the first half.

There is no doubt about the strong bond and faith Steve McLaren had in Mozza, and maybe ominously this was to be the last ever game he coached at Middlesbrough, leaving the club, join England a few weeks later.

Oddly enough, this wasn’t the only time Mozza would lose a club boss, who had such explicit faith in his midfield ability before being recruited to The Three Lions, with Roy Hodgson leaving West Brom for England duties, six years later.

Mozza’s final season with Boro involved a new manager, his former team mate Gareth Southgate, and no doubt the faith McLaren had in Morrison was not exactly replicated by Southgate, with almost half of his appearances coming as a substitute, clearly setting the seeds of doubt for James' Teesside future.

Perhaps the deciding factor for Mozza’s, through Southgate’s eyes, was a tempestuous 6th Round FA Cup tie at Old Trafford.

To reach the last eight, Boro had beaten Tony Mowbray’s Baggies on penalties at The Hawthorns in a 5th Round Replay, with Mozza coming on as a half time substitute for Lee Catermole.

Albion lost on spot kicks after the distinctly limited Dutch striker, Sherjil McDonald, [23 appearances and zero goals], predictably failed with the 6th spot kick, but it was a player who poles apart from Sherjil, who may well have been part of the reason Mozza became a Baggie?

The 18 yr old, Utd phenom, Ronaldo.

This 6th FA Cup replay was turned on Man U’s, third ‘dodgy penalty’ in Southgate’s viewpoint, in the three games the teams had met that season, (however in my opinion, this 75th Minute decision was clearly a foul on Ronaldo, an absolute stonewall penalty.)

Ronaldo dutifully put the penalty he earned away, and the minutes afterwards, atypically showboating on the left wing, or in Mozza's words, 'taking the mick', enticed Mozza seeing the red mist, and resorting to a wild hack, and an inevitable red card.

Maybe the writing was on the wall for Mozza’s Boro future was framed by Southgate’s post match comments,

“We certainly lost our discipline, James Morrison is a young kid, and has a lot to learn”.

Ronaldo gave a clear hint of his undoubted ‘immodesty’, suggesting,

"Maybe some people don’t like me. Maybe I’m too good…”

As Mozza reflected fifteen years later, that red card was learning the ‘hard way’,

“I was young and stupid, and got fined three weeks wages.” 

[Ironically, the ‘original’ Ronaldo, the brilliant Brazilian centre forward had an opposite reaction to Mozza, reflecting on watching him as an 11 year old in the 1998 World Cup and being bewitched by the Samba maestro].

As the season fizzled out, in Mozza’s words, he was, “a young, frustrated player who was continually being left out”, it seemed Mozza’s future under Southgate, (who clearly lacking confidence in his twenty year old prodigy), a change of scenery looked the only foreseeable future.

The potential transfer of Mozza was further fueled by the need for Middlesbrough to urgently raise the 15 Million Pounds funds needed to sign Jonathan Woodgate from Real Madrid and also the Egyptian centre forward, Mido from Spurs.

Few managers however have ever rated Mozza more than the then Baggies boss and fellow Teessider, Tony Mowbray, whose mutual bond and trust led Mozza referring to Mogga and labeled by his future team mates, “his dad!'

When you have been with your local club for over half of your life, the breaking of that bond is further magnified, not least by the fact Mozza reflected “he was a mummy’s boy!”

On August 7th 2007, Albion actually signed two players, with varying degrees of success, who are both ironically, just under two decades later, now in the role of first team managers.

Carl Hoefkens was signed from Stoke City for 750,000 Pounds, and is currently the boss of NAC Breda in the Eredivisie, and of course Mozza arrived for one of the biggest Baggies bargains in recent decades, a brilliant deal, at just 1.5Million Pounds, plus an appearance clause, adding another 750K.

I'm sure what Middlesbrough truly banked the transfer on, was a potential 15% sell on fee, (Boro are still waiting on that..)

As Mozza reflected, he was very excited to join the Albion, primarily to prove, “I’m a good player.

I’ll show people”.

And proving people, of course, Mozza gloriously did..

This will be fully explored in Part Two of ‘The Making of Mozza’,