The Cult: Fabrizio Ravanelli

When Fabrizio Ravanelli swooshed into Middlesbrough, swirling and twirling on a Turinese wind, English football was buffeted by what looked to be the transfer of the year. Even in an era before rolling news, social media and competent text messaging, supporters knew that Ravanelli was special. He was 'The White Feather', and he had somehow fluttered his way from Piedmont to the second most successful club in the north-east.

Ravanelli's nickname stemmed from his shock of prematurely white hair, and certainly not from his approach to the game. While his fellow Italians could tickle and tease a football, Ravanelli was more heat-seeking missile than feather. He flew forward, bounded into the box, hit the ball with incredible force and, more often than not, saw it hurtle into the back of the net. He was a striker with incredible momentum, intimidating strength and an internal engine fuelled on personal rage. He would go on to be an individual powerhouse at Middlesbrough; unfortunately, they would still lose two cup finals, and be relegated come May.

This was the peculiar paradox of Ravanelli's time with Boro. He scored 31 goals in 48 appearances during his one and only full season, and the club still failed to escape the drop. This was an era of huge spending for the team, with Ravanelli reportedly on the highest wages in the league at the time. The squad also included Emerson, Gianluca Festa and, of course, the beloved Juninho. They started the season as contenders for silverware, and somehow contrived to finish 19th.

When it comes to the main protagonists in the team, Juninho provides perhaps the greatest contrast with Ravanelli. While the little Brazilian was a humble, unassuming character, a man who would forever be beloved at Middlesbrough and who seemed to love the club in turn, Ravanelli was angry and bombastic, and never quite came to terms with his new home. The fans appreciated Ravanelli for his all-action performances, but he would never be adored in the manner of Juninho. He made it difficult for supporters to love him, even when they were cheering his goals.

Ravanelli's trademark celebration was telling, in that it was both insular and somehow furious. With each strike, he would lift his shirt over his head, shutting out the rest of the world as he charged about the pitch with arms outstretched. That was Ravanelli in a nutshell: swashbuckling, flamboyant, proud and alone. Once the shirt had been pulled back down, he would scream into the nearest camera, or throw wild air punches at the fans. He was a man who harboured an inner anger, which came rushing out each and every time he put the ball in the back of the net.

That anger drove him to do great things in a Middlesbrough shirt, and his whirlwind showings were the driving force behind their two cup finals. The fact that Boro missed out on the League Cup in a replay against Leicester, then went down to Chelsea in the FA Cup a month later, meant that he never found a healthy form of release. With the league season a disaster and Middlesbrough faltering, Ravanelli's rage was turned back on the club. There were reports of training ground scraps and strops after matches, while Ravanelli was never afraid of criticising Boro. "The English have tonnes of money, but they lack the organisation of Italian soccer," he said, towards the end of an atrocious two-month winless streak. "The training facilities are not adequate. The stadiums are nice, but the rest is just not there."

With comments like these, Ravanelli showed another side to his 'White Feather' moniker. Though he never stopped scoring for the club, there was a sense in which, psychologically, he gave up on Bryan Robson's team. There was an air of defeatism, fatalism even, in many of Ravanelli's remarks to the press, and he soon admitted his expectation that the club would be relegated. He had come to Middlesbrough, seen their inferior training practises and infrastructure, and gone into a right old sulk about the situation. He would score goals for them, sure, but he had surrendered all hope of surviving in the Premier League.

Ravanelli was far too strong-willed to allow a drop in his performances. That said, his moodiness on the training ground cannot have helped his beleaguered teammates in their plight. It's for that reason, amongst others, that Ravanelli left a strange and contradictory legacy on Teesside. He banged in the goals, he played like a demon and yet, despite all that, he left with a relegation to his name. He had what it took to become a Middlesbrough legend, and instead he left the club profoundly admired but ultimately unloved.

In looking back at Ravanelli's move to Middlesbrough, it's easy to forget just what a coup it really was. The fact that he had spent four years at Juventus was impressive enough, but he was anything but a cameo player there. He had scored 68 goals in 160 appearances in Turin, playing alongside Gianluca Vialli, Roberto Baggio, Antonio Conte and Alessandro Del Piero. He had won a league and cup treble in 1995, and his last act before departing for England was to win the Champions League.

Taking all that into account, it's no surprise he was underwhelmed by the collective talents of Derek Whyte, Steve Vickers, Clayton Blackmore and Nigel Pearson. The culture shock of moving to England must have been immense, and the facilities at Middlesbrough less than illustrious. That said, Ravanelli handled that change with little grace and even less patience. Those virtues were simply not in his nature, and unfortunately Juninho didn't have quite enough for the both of them.

If Ravanelli's initial disappointment became resignation as the season went on, it didn't show on his Middlesbrough debut. Regardless of all the sulkiness to come, he kicked things off by inspiring sheer delight. Three goals in Boro's opener against Liverpool left supporters dreaming big, even if the game ended in a 3-3 draw. Ravanelli's third goal was archetypal, in that it bounced and bobbled and got away from him, and still he forced it stylishly home.

Things were never better for Boro than on that very first day of the campaign. Before long, Ravanelli would be voicing his frustrations, and ruing the day he left Turin. He was a footballer who epitomised the scattergun excess of the late nineties, in that he was both a virtuoso performer and a man spectacularly unsuited to life in England. He embodied an era of wealth, drama and, at times, magnificent entertainment at Middlesbrough, and he left behind a handful of happy memories. Indeed, he was probably never happier than on that glorious opening day.

"I can't even get angry any more. We have few chances of achieving safety and they give us three days off from training. I went to the training ground, but everything was locked up. The situation, I am very sorry to say, is truly tragic."

Fabrizio Ravanelli, speaking about the mid-season plight of Middlesbrough and, more importantly, himself.