Middlesbrough 4 Cardiff City 1
January 11, 1958

TONY MOWBRAY has been putting his faith in Middlesbrough’s homegrown talent since replacing Gordon Strachan, and this weekend’s home game with Cardiff City will have older supporters remembering the day when another native Teessider announced his arrival in style.

Alan Peacock was an 18- year-old apprentice steelworker at the start of the 1957-58 season, but with Boro boss Bob Dennison desperately needing to locate a strike partner for Brian Clough, the teenager quickly found himself promoted to the first team.

He appeared in a goalless draw with Bristol City in December and grabbed a welltaken double in a 5-0 FA Cup win over Derby County in early January.

He played alongside Clough again when Cardiff visited Ayresome Park on January 11, and the following 90 minutes would see him overshadow one of the greatest strikers in North-East football.

Peacock opened the scoring for mid-table Middlesbrough in the 16th minute, taking advantage of a mistake by the Cardiff goalkeeper to convert William Day’s free-kick.

His second goal came midway through the second half, as he took advantage of another goalkeeping mistake from a Edwin Holliday corner to prod home from close range.

And Peacock duly completed his hat-trick late on, rising powerfully to head home another Day set-piece.

Mandale, the Northern Echo reporter on duty at Ayresome Park, said: “Alan, a steelworks apprentice who is only a part-time footballer, has scored five goals in the last two games and his first hat-trick in senior football also gave Borough [sic] their first double of the season.

“Young Peacock, Mr Dennison told me after the match, may never become a brilliant craftsman but he certainly knows where the goal lies.

“His performance against Cardiff proves the wisdom, indeed the urgent necessity, of the Dennison double centre- forward plan. Borough could not afford to go on allowing opposing defences to think that all they had to do was to put a ring around Brian Clough and the risk of conceding a goal dropped by more than 75 per cent.

“So Peacock now wears a No. 10 shirt, although it has been evident for some time now that if he is going to make his mark at all it is going to be as a centreforward or in his present equivalent role which gives him a chance to satisfy his thirst for goals.

“Clough is doing his part well without the reward of the crop of goals he was getting earlier in the season.”

Buoyed by their win over Cardiff, Boro went on to record back-to-back Division Two wins over Liverpool and Barnsley, and Peacock would score eight more goals in the second half of the campaign.

Boro finished the season in seventh.

The following season witnessed a memorable game when Peacock and Clough both scored hat-tricks against Scunthorpe United, but their partnership was broken when Clough made a £45,000 move to Sunderland in July 1961.

Peacock scored 24 goals in 34 games after Clough’s departure, and won a place in the England squad for the 1962 World Cup in Chile.

He won four international caps as a Boro player, but left Teesside in 1964 to join Leeds United in a £55,000 move.

He won a Second Division title at Elland Road, and enjoyed a brief spell with Plymouth Argyle before injury curtailed his career in 1968.