As Middlesbrough prepare to face Brighton in a Championship showdown for promotion, Paul Fraser has written this column for the club's match-day programme

HAVING reported on North-East football since the turn of the millennium, there have been a number of promotion parties to report on – but never one with Middlesbrough.

Here’s hoping that changes today. In terms of a fixture to finish the regular season, a straight contest between two teams competing for an automatic promotion spot doesn’t come any bigger.

A sell-out crowd, more than £100m at stake and the right to be considered as a Premier League club is what lies in wait for the players of Middlesbrough and Brighton this afternoon. What a climax to the season.

Reaching last year’s play-off final at Wembley wasn’t too bad either, but there’s an argument – like lifelong Boro fan Jonathan Bull pointed out on Twitter this week – that today’s game is even bigger.

That is because defeat today would leave Middlesbrough/Brighton staring at another three matches to negotiate in the lottery of the play-offs, which is why both sides are so desperate to forget about a day out at Wembley this month.

It’s been 18 years since Middlesbrough last went up. That was the year they finished second behind Nottingham Forest and Sunderland lost a play-off final to Charlton.

The other most recent occasion was when Bryan Robson led the charge in his first year in management in 1995, when Middlesbrough went up as champions.

Newcastle are the most recent North-East team to go up from the Championship. I was at Plymouth the day they clinched the title in 2010 after amassing 102 points.

Other than those three occasions, though, it has been Sunderland who have had the promotion parties to enjoy; mainly because they were the team to go up and down until their recent run of nine years in the top-flight.

Roy Keane was in charge when Sunderland last went up in 2007 and two years earlier they did the same with Wigan. Sunderland also clinched a place in the Premier League in 1999 and 1996.

Now it’s Middlesbrough’s turn to see if they can achieve the target that was set immediately after last May’s play-off final defeat to Norwich.

There have been twists and turns, highs and lows, but the finishing line is in sight.

More than 30,000 will be inside the Riverside today all nervous and excited at the prospect of what the 90 minutes has in store. Let’s hope that 2016 is remembered as the year when Middlesbrough reclaimed a place in the top tier of English football.