Today’s game against Wolves was designated as Boro’s official 150th anniversary match, with a banner display prior to kick-off celebrating the club’s history and the home side’s players wearing a special commemorative blue kit as a throwback to the first shirts that were worn a century-and-a-half ago.
Off the pitch, the occasion could not have gone much better, and on it, Boro’s players made sure things did not fall flat as Will Lankshear’s second-half header secured the 1-0 win that lifted the Teessiders into the automatic-promotion positions for the first time this season.
Hellberg was blown away by last weekend’s Legacy Game, which featured the return of the likes of Juninho and Fabrizio Ravanelli, and wanted to make sure he took a second or two to soak in today’s emotions.
“It was amazing,” said the Boro boss. “I’ve said this in previous interviews in terms of feeling very, very privileged to be coaching this club. It’s important to sometimes to take that in because, in this business, you always try to be in games, games, games.
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“I tried to take that in just before the game. I’m so proud of everyone around the football club for the work they do, supporters, everyone around it: staff, players, to make this day.
“But also how they work every day. I think the togetherness and the noise inside here has just grown higher and higher and higher, and I love that. I’m very proud of everyone’s performance.”
Wolves started the season being hotly-tipped for automatic promotion, and the visitors would have gone above Boro in the table had they triumphed this afternoon.
Instead, they were second best throughout thanks to a dominant Boro display that also saw substitute Kyle Joseph rattle the crossbar with a header in the closing stages.
“It feels like a good win against a very good side, one of the favourites to win the division,” said Hellberg. “Over 90 minutes, I thought it was a fair result. I think we were the better team, and I thought before the goal we were absolutely brilliant in everything, except maybe we could have got some more chances from the quality we had.
“Transitions, playing through them, playing high, winning balls, it was absolutely brilliant. I can’t really remember a chance they had.
“Then after the goal, we showed as good as you can ever do when you are 1-0 up – defending while still having some transitions. You always want to kill the game off, but that is never easy. We defended really well.”