Why Middlesbrough away fans are set for a very unusual experience for the rest of the season | OneFootball

Travelling Boro supporters will have an unusual end to their 2025-26 season thanks to the EFL's fixture schedulers, and things could get odder yet.

Travelling Middlesbrough fans will have an unusual final third to their Championship season, and the odds are that things could yet become odder still.

Excitement is starting to build on Teesside.

Middlesbrough have now drawn level on points with Coventry City at the top of the Championship, and a return to the Premier League at the end of 2025-26 could well be on the cards.

Considering the disruption caused by the sudden and unexpected departure of Rob Edwards in November, coupled with the fact that Boro aren't one of the clubs being given a financial leg-up by parachute payments this season, it's quite an achievement.

But Boro home and away fans will find that their trips around the country to see their team on their travels are more difficult than they would have expected, on account of decisions made by broadcasters and the EFL.

Boro's travelling fans may not have many more Saturday 3pm games left this season

Posting to the social media platform X on Thursday afternoon, Dominic Shaw of the Northern Echo raised quite an important point about Middlesbrough's remaining away matches this season, confirming that, "QPR vs #Boro fixture change (now Sunday, March 8 at 4.30pm) means Boro only have two Saturday 3pm away games between now & end of the season."

And Shaw added that changes to their fixture schedule might not even end there. As he also mentioned, "And one of those is Ipswich, which feels very likely candidate to be selected and moved."

Middlesbrough are currently slated to be playing Ipswich at Portman Road on the 18th April, though as Shaw points out, with the two teams jostling for an automatic promotion place come the end of the season, the likelihood of this match not being moved for TV would seem to be very slim.

Should this happen, it would mean that their sole remaining away Saturday 3pm kick-off of the season would be their trip to Ewood Park to play Blackburn Rovers. If both of these games are moved for the purposes of being televised live, it would mean that, having already been eliminated from the FA Cup, Boro supporters have already completed their traditional Saturday away trips for the season.

The 3pm blackout has an ironic effect on Championship club away supports

The 3pm away day trip is one of English football's great traditions, and it's likely that there will be unhappiness among Middlesbrough's travelling faithful that they're unable to make many more of these journeys.

Although a lot of matches are moved for TV these days on account of the 3pm blackout, it remains a reflex reaction for fans to work to the principle that most of their League matches throughout the season will kick off at this particular time on this particular day of the week. And the matter is more accentuated for fans of a club like Middlesbrough, for whom many of their away trips require a long journey.

Yet despite this, Boro have one of the biggest away supports in the Championship. Research from Football Ground Guide found that, for the 2024-25 season, their away following was the third-highest in the division, with an average of just over 3,000 making the trip to see their team play away.

But there is certainly an irony to all of this. The 3pm blackout on showing matches live means that broadcasters can only show matches outside this time slot, and given that the EFL's current contract with Sky means that 1,000 matches are either broadcast on television or streamed each season, a lot of EFL club fans themselves don't get to see their teams play at this particular time of the week.

The case for this arrangement is very obvious. Clubs need the money, and this is the only way in which the EFL can persuade Sky to pay a whopping £935 million for the rights to show matches from their three divisions. But the moving of matches for the benefit of broadcasters has long been an annoyance to those who make these journeys, so it's a difficult balancing act for the League to achieve.

This will be an irritation to many travelling fans, but there is an optimistic way of viewing it. Middlesbrough are attracting this level of interest from the broadcasters precisely because they've been so successful on the pitch this season.

Boro fans may wish to reflect that their fixtures being moved for TV is a reflection of the progress that they've made this season, although whether they're really feeling this when they're trying to negotiate their way out of work early to get to their next two away matches, both of which kick off at 8pm on a Monday evening, remains an open question.