Woodgate: Middlesbrough move dream come true

Jonathan Woodgate admits playing for hometown club Middlesbrough is a dream come true.
 
"I've always wanted to play for my hometown team, always been an ambition," Woodgate told the Guardian. "My father's a fan, my family are fans, my friends are fans and I'm a fan. Ask Alan Shearer, ask Jamie Carragher, Steven Gerrard - he didn't go to Chelsea - ask them about playing for your hometown team. I'm no different."

"I went to every game at Ayresome Park until I joined Leeds as a schoolboy. I had to be ballboy and stuff at Leeds, so it stopped. But I then had a season ticket at the Riverside, went to the first match there - Liverpool, 3-3, Ravanelli hat-trick."

"I used to love it, went to every single home game. I'd go to Ayresome Park with my dad and my uncle, used to go all the time. I'll always remember the atmosphere, the Holgate. My granddad lived round the corner from Ayresome Park, on Brompton Street, my Dad was born on Brompton Street and grew up there. It's in the blood, I'm a Boro fan, I love Middlesbrough and the dream has always been to play for Middlesbrough. I first went when I was six, and I was at the game at Hartlepool, that game. Twenty years on, I'm here."