A BORO superfan will attend his 1,000th consecutive league match on Saturday.

Nick Waites hasn't missed a Middlesbrough FC league match, home or away, since 1992 and has circumnavigated the globe almost ten times in equivalent miles following his beloved football team.

He has followed Boro around the UK and Europe, clocking up almost 200,000 miles – not far off the distance to the moon at 235,000 miles.

He has also been to every competitive Boro game, league and cup, since 1997. He even defied medical advice and travelled to a game just three days after a hernia operation, when he admits he was in agony.

Despite his dedication, Mr Waites, an accountant from Thorpe Thewles, near Stockton, wants to stop – but can't.

The 54-year-old said: "I did say at one stage I would get to 1,000 consecutive games and then pack in.

"It is like a drug though. I would almost like to stop it. I would like someone to kidnap me – or maybe the men in white coats will come for me."

He said if something "semi-major" happened on a matchday he would be prepared to miss a game. However, that isn't stopping him missing part of a friend's wedding later this month.

"I'm going to a wedding and they said they don't mind if I go to the service, then head off to the Boro match for a few hours, then return to the evening do," he said.

"I would miss it if my children got married, but they would know not to set the date during the football season."

He had never had an accident during the hundreds of thousands of miles of travel, until a near-miss on the way back from a Derby County game last year, when his friend's car aquaplaned on the A1, hit the crash barrier and lost its windscreen.

Mr Waites, a trustee of the Finlay Cooper Trust, established by former Boro player Colin Cooper in memory of his son, said: "No-one was hurt. Thankfully it was on the way back from the game, or I would have only got up to 953 consecutive games."

He said the best matches he had attended were the final game at Ayresome Park, and the first game at The Riverside. The most exciting game he went to was Middlesbrough's 4-2 victory against Steaua Bucharest in the Uefa Cup semi-final in 2006, and his favourite player was Juninho.

The father-of-two started his epic quest with an away match at Coventry on August 15, 1992, when Boro were defeated 2-1. It was on the first day of the first season of the Premiership after it changed from being called Division One.