Middlesbrough seemingly forgot dementia awareness promise

Over the years, there have been a lot of team Twitter/X account moves to highlight particular causes. Sometimes that includes posting about a particular issue instead of providing game updates or lineup notes to raise awareness for that issue. English Football League Championship soccer team Middlesbrough F.C. was set to be the latest team to use its platform for a cause ahead of their FA Cup match against Blackburn Rovers on Saturday.

This FA Cup weekend, we’re removing names from our starting XI to highlight memory loss as a key symptom of dementia.

Support those close to you by understanding which common dementia symptoms to look out for: https://t.co/p09zYkwvAs@alzheimerssoc #SupportTheSupporters pic.twitter.com/Ej7Ms3qcIp

— Middlesbrough FC (@Boro) January 11, 2025

But, rather than following through on their promise to remove names to highlight memory loss as a key dementia symptom, Boro’s eventual lineup post looked as normal as usual.

Your FA Cup Boro 🙌@unibet | #UTB pic.twitter.com/fzNdbvZA9r

— Middlesbrough FC (@Boro) January 11, 2025

And that drew a lot of response.

The absolute irony in the fact they forgot to do it https://t.co/75hml1bdo5 pic.twitter.com/Uy1LR4nmUt

— tatty (@oli_tatty) January 11, 2025

Forgot to not put the names on the lineup lads?

— Marcus Gordon (@MarcusG70721260) January 11, 2025

Where is Difficulty Concentrating ?

— davina (@davinamarieb) January 11, 2025

You’ve defeated the purpose of your previous post.

— GXM113 (@gxm113) January 12, 2025

Of course, if the idea was to promote dementia awareness, this post received a lot more attention than simply following through on the announced plan would have. So maybe this was all a clever strategy. Or maybe the social media team did, indeed, forget what they had planned to do.

In any case, it made for an unusual entry into the annals of team account posts for a cause.