Middlesbrough may well be the 12th-oldest club in English football, but silverware has been hard to come by on Teesside.
The club will celebrate their 150th birthday later this year, yet their trophy cabinet contains just a single major honour, the 2004 League Cup.
It’s therefore no surprise that the victory over Bolton Wanderers at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium remains one of the most cherished moments in club history.
Bolo Zenden on Boro’s League Cup victory
Bolo Zenden’s seventh-minute penalty would prove to be the decisive goal that afternoon and more than two decades on, the former Netherlands midfielder recalls the occasion with pride.
“First let me say, that was a very special day,” the ex-Liverpool and Chelsea man tells FourFourTwo. “How often do you get the chance to win a club’s first-ever trophy?
“I can remember giving a talk beforehand telling the boys we could write history, and we did!”
Zenden’s penalty, which saw Boro go 2-0 up early doors, had a whiff of controversy about it, as he appeared to slip and hit the ball twice.
“The penalty? Look in the record books, that tells you it counted,” he recalls before taking a more philosophical view of the incident.
“I’ll be honest, I did slip as I hit the ball and there’s room for discussion,” he admits. “But I can give you another 10 examples of how VAR might have changed history, such as Frank Lampard’s shot that crossed the line in England’s World Cup defeat to Germany.”
With the introduction of VAR, moments like that Lampard goal - plus Zenden’s history-making strike for Boro - would now be challenged in real-time, but the Dutchman can remain happy with how it panned out.
“So don’t worry Boro fans, my penalty still counts!”
