WHEN Steve Gibson rose to his feet at last May’s post-Wembley get together in a London hotel, with the pain of play-off final defeat all-too-evident in his crackling voice, he made a pledge to the players, backroom staff and supporters who were with him in the room.

“This isn’t the end of this,” promised the Middlesbrough chairman. “I’m going to go away from here and do everything I can to make sure you’ve all got the best possible chance of finishing the job next season.” Almost 12 months on, and redemption is finally at hand.

As ever, Gibson has been as good as his word, and if Middlesbrough complete the task of winning promotion to the Premier League by gaining the point they need from tomorrow’s final-day decider with Brighton, their success will represent yet another triumph for their greatest custodian.

Not Gibson’s greatest triumph perhaps – helping salvage the club from the wreckage of liquidation in 1986 will always be his defining intervention – but a hugely notable achievement nevertheless, and given the financial implications and pain endured over seven long seasons in the Championship, certainly commensurate with the Carling Cup victory or UEFA Cup final appearance.

Gibson could have reined things in last summer, mindful of the already-burgeoning wage bill as well as the traditionally poor record of clubs trying to bounce back from losing in the final of the play-offs.

Instead, he ploughed on, splashing out £5.5m on Stewart Downing, £2.6m on Carlos de Pena, £2.5m on Cristhian Stuani and £2m on David Nugent. At least two of those deals have hefty promotion clauses that could see their fees increase significantly next week. Come January, he was at it again, giving the go-ahead for the £9m purchase of Jordan Rhodes, another deal that contained a significant price hike in the event of promotion.

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Aitor Karanka might bridle at suggestions Boro have bought their way to the brink of the Premier League, but the facts are there in black and white. Yes, others have spent too, most notably Burnley on the £6m purchase of Andre Gray. But at a time when it would have been easy to say, ‘Enough is enough’, Gibson ensured Boro would remain one of the biggest spenders in the Football League. He will be serenaded if things go right tomorrow, and deservedly so.

Yet spending the money is only part of the promotion picture, and for all that Boro’s summer and January arrivals have had an impact, it is the collective performance of the players that trudged from the Wembley turf so disconsolately 12 months ago that has enabled the club to mount a second successive promotion push.

Dimi Konstantopoulos, George Friend, Daniel Ayala, Ben Gibson, Grant Leadbitter, Adam Clayton, Albert Adomah – all were an integral part of last season’s efforts; all have been every bit as crucial this time around.

They remain the core of the Boro team, and their performances tomorrow will go a long way towards determining the Teessiders’ fate. They deserve a huge amount of credit, first for picking themselves up so successfully in the early weeks of the season, when Boro were quickly established as leading promotion contenders, and then for regrouping so effectively when things threatened to implode at the start of March.

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The turbulence of that period has been somewhat ignored in recent weeks, but in the wake of events at Charlton, there was a very real risk of Boro’s season collapsing. It took a fair amount of resolve to ensure that did not happen, and Boro’s senior players were at the heart of the stabilisation process.

They presided over a series of heart-to-heart discussions that fostered the collective sense of responsibility that has powered Boro along the eight-match unbeaten run that leaves them heading into tomorrow’s game needing just a point to finish in the top two. In an era when footballers supposedly do not care, this is a group that are fully aware of what promotion would mean to those who support them.

And what of Karanka in all of this? The Spaniard’s March meltdown was almost fatal to Boro’s promotion hopes, and for all the talk of errant officiating at Birmingham last week, it is the back-to-back defeats at Rotherham and Charlton, when Karanka was at his most unhinged, that mean promotion was not secured long before the final game.

Yet having been offered the opportunity to remain in his position at a pivotal London meeting with Gibson, Karanka has been pitch-perfect in the last two months. He has regained his authority without reopening some of the wounds that led to the initial crisis and has successfully adopted a much more level-headed tone in his dealings with his players, the media and the Middlesbrough fans.

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For someone who clearly values the importance of authority, that cannot have been easy, but Karanka has performed a delicate balancing act adroitly in the last few weeks. Having learned some valuable lessons from what went wrong at Wembley 12 months ago, his preparations for tomorrow’s game sound like they have been spot on.

And so it all comes down to the final 90 minutes of the season. Will Boro succeed? They should do. Their home form has been, almost without exception, excellent. With George Friend set to be passed fit to line up at left-back, they boast a fully-fit squad, and while Brighton have been on a fantastic run in the last couple of months, Chris Hughton’s side do not have anything like the experience or pedigree of the majority of the players they will be lining up against.

Boro will keep it tight in the early stages, but with the support of a sold-out Riverside crowd roaring them on, this should be a markedly different experience to the play-off final, when Karanka’s side were clearly caught cold.

Twelve months ago, the big-match experience of the Norwich players proved crucial. This time around, it is Boro with the considerable advantage on that score.

Wembley hurt, but wounds eventually heal. This reparation has been 12 months in the making, but provided things go to plan tomorrow, it will feel all the sweeter because of the enforced wait.