THERE can be few Boro fans sorry to see the back of Ninian Park.

It was the scene of the club's first relegation in 1924, after 22 years at the top, and 42 years later the unthinkable - the drop into the third division. And with just three wins from 22 visits over 90 years, it's up there with Goodison Park and Maine Road in the Graveyard Ground lists.

The first relegation wasn't unexpected. Boro had been in the bottom three all season, and they'd already gone through an arguably worse humiliation - they'd been as good as relegated two weeks before when they lost at, of all places, Sunderland, who went top.

They could only survive by winning, and hoping Arsenal lost their last seven games. But they battled hard and only lost 1-0 to a Cardiff team who could have won the title that day.

If Boro had conceded a second goal it would have given Cardiff the title on goal average (dividing goals scored by goals against). Instead, Huddersfield won it by 0.024 of a goal - the narrowest margin ever.

Middlesbrough won just once after Boxing Day, which was the only time they got out of the bottom two, only for Cardiff to win at Ayresome Park and put them back there. They'd just sold top scorer Andy Wilson to Chelsea, who went down with them. Wilson finished top scorer for both clubs.

But it was much, much worse four decades later. The last match of the season on a Tuesday night in May 1966 is the most notorious in the club's history. Boro were third bottom of the second division, with Cardiff a point below them, so it was win or nothing and hope other results went their way.

The score, 5-3, tells you it was a far from normal match. The detail tells you a bit more - Dicky Rooks scored all three Boro goals, there were two penalties and flurry of late goals. But what the figures don't even begin to explain is how events unfolded.

Rooks, who started the game at centre-half and ended it up front, put Boro ahead after only eight minutes, Cardiff equalised, Rooks scored again, then Cardiff scored from a penalty for handball, described by one report as "unbelievably stupid.".

The second half consisted almost exclusively of Boro giving the ball away time and time again, to the fury of manager Stan Anderson, above, and some of the players. Cardiff scored twice more, then Rooks pulled one back from the spot, only for another bad pass to set up Cardiff's fifth almost straight away.

Press reports called it "a pantomime" and "stupid" and were at a loss as to why Boro "gave away pass after pass, gifting Cardiff chance after chance."

The real reason became clear only recently when Anderson said there were players there who simply didn't want to play for the club. Few looked to have the heart for the battle, he said, and some actually refused to play when he picked them!

Some also knew that if Boro went down they'd be allowed to leave. At least one had another club already lined up. So it was no surprise that Anderson got rid of 16 players before the year was out.

Rooks certainly wasn't one of them. He said some of them couldn't care less and he was so annoyed after the game that he allegedly grabbed one by the throat and hung him by his collar on a peg in the dressing room.

At least there was no seven-hour coach or train journey home. The game was so important that the team actually flew there and back. And Cardiff only survived because of that game - they lost their last away game 9-0. The following day's Evening Gazette featured its most memorable front page ever - pictures of all the directors under the huge headline, "The Guilty Men."

The season before Boro had lost 6-1, and then came one of those records Boro are famous for. In September 1968 they went to Ninian Park and with Frank Spraggon injured they gave a debut to Brian Myton, a left-back from York, just two weeks short of his 18th birthday. He spent it kicking his heels as a result of kicking someone else's, suspended after becoming the first player ever to be sent off on his league debut.

He only played a dozen games and did well to have a career at all - the Ayresome Park crowd then were nothing like as patient as today's Riverside, and they just did not take to Myton, or two other youngsters, Alan Moody and Michael Allen.

If their names were announced there would be an audible groan. Myton was only on the winning side there once - ironically against Cardiff.

The first win at Ninian Park didn't come until 1957, thanks to two goals from Brian Clough. It's the only time Boro have kept a clean sheet there in 23 league and cup visits. They won again in 1962 with two goals from Arthur Kaye, above, and in 1970, in a game almost as incredible as the 1966 one.

John Hickton put Boro ahead, but Cardiff scored three times, two of them complete freaks - one from a dipping, swerving volley near the corner flag. It still exists in the BBC Wales TV archives, and it's still impossible to believe.

Equally as impossible is that this was the third time in four games Boro came from two goals behind to win. It started with the McIlmoyle match against QPR the week before, and continued as McIlmoyle and Joe Laidlaw scored twice in four minutes, and Willie Maddren hit a late winner.

Normal service was resumed the following New Year's Day (thanks again, computer) and Boro have lost all five games there since. Even Jack Charlton's promotion side were beaten there - only their third defeat of the season, with just four games to go, with both promotion and the title already won.

Cardiff were facing relegation, and again farce played its part. The Boro players stopped when they heard a whistle, but it came from the crowd. Cardiff played on and scored. They won 3-2, which kept them up.

The last two visits saw Boro trying to stay up, and in 1984 the debut of Gary Gill, above, now the BBC Tees summariser, then the Boro sub. He doesn't remember it. "Did I get on?" he said. Well yes he did, for five minutes.

Boro lost 2-1 after taking an early lead. He first started at Swansea a few weeks later, where Boro lost 2-1 after taking an early lead. So he's the ideal man if it's the usual Cardiff result.

And if it is, it's going to be hard - not only is it three years almost to the day since the FA Cup disaster against Cardiff at the Riverside, but this the first time Middlesbrough have been to Cardiff since this very week in 2004, and to get to the ground from the city centre you have to pass the Millennium Stadium.

That glorious, Carling Cup final day in 2004 apart, Boro's trips to this part of South Wales have generally been forgettable.

But they only have themselves to blame - 100 years ago this season they played a friendly against non-league and non-ground Cardiff, to test local support for a professional team and permanent ground. Cardiff won 2-1, and as a direct result they built Ninian Park. On a rubbish tip.