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Hayden Hackney has seen the public display of affection. In other words, he has seen Bob Mortimer’s slew of social media posts. “YOU BEAUTY!!” the Middlesbrough-born comedian posted to his millions of followers in the minutes after the transfer deadline passed this month, accompanied by a picture of Hackney, who rejected a move to Championship rivals Ipswich earlier in the window. “One of my family told me so I looked at his profile and it was just a photo of me,” the 23-year-old says, laughing. “‘Oh my God. No way.’ It was funny.”
That came a few days after Mortimer, part of Boro’s under-16s in the 70s, stressed he could not contemplate a Boro team without Hackney. The midfielder, who joined Middlesbrough at eight years old after being spotted playing for his home town team Redcar Town, is central to the club’s hopes of returning to the Premier League after nine seasons away. He has racked up more minutes than any other Boro player last campaign and played all but seven minutes of this one. He is living his dream. “Everyone in my family supports Middlesbrough,” Hackney says. “My dad used to go to all the games when he was younger and I think back then his excuse to go to the games was to take me as well. I loved it.”
The first Boro game Hackney remembers attending was Manchester United’s visit in 2008, when Cristiano Ronaldo converted the former Boro manager Michael Carrick’s cross to open the scoring, and Wayne Rooney equalised after an Afonso Alves double. A 13-year-old Hackney was in the stands in 2015-16, the season Boro last celebrated promotion to the Premier League. “I really liked Gastón Ramírez. He was probably my favourite player at the time, because of the way he carried the ball. It was always [Adam] Clayton and [Grant] Leadbitter and then him in front.”
Hackney has heard the success stories of yesteryear and wants to experience his own. After an unbeaten start, Boro are top before hosting West Brom on Friday. “Promotion has always been the aim ever since I broke into the team,” he says. That was 2022-23, when Carrick’s Boro came unstuck against Coventry in the playoff semi-finals. “That year we were pretty close and ever since then it has been the focus to try and get back up.”
Things have snowballed since Hackney made his league debut at the start of that season, when the academy manager, Craig Liddle, and the then interim manager, Leo Percovich, who remains a coach, parachuted him into the team with the club in the relegation zone. “I was like: ‘Right, I need to make sure I impress because this is the chance. I was trying to contain my nerves and at the same time show what I can do. Sometimes I thought: ‘Is it going to happen? Will I have to go somewhere else and maybe go from there?’ I was really grateful to be given the opportunity and managed to take it.”
For the English Football League’s youth development week, he is a shining example, at a club where the captain, Dael Fry, and goalkeeper Sol Brynn also progressed via the academy. It has been a fruitful few months for Hackney given he was part of the England squad that retained the Under-21 European Championship in Slovakia in June; 19 of the 23 had experience of playing in the EFL, with nine representing clubs in the league last season. His winner’s medal, he says, has pride of place in his living room.
Six games across three weeks meant plenty of downtime. “We had a games room and everyone was always together in there. There was a golf simulator … we couldn’t use it too close to matches, but we had a good group: Charlie Cresswell, Archie Gray, Elliot Anderson. Cresswell thought he was Tiger Woods … he had a glove on and everything.”
It suddenly feels like a long time since a 19-year-old Hackney joined Scunthorpe on loan for 2021-22, where he tasted victory twice in 31 matches as they were relegated to non-league. Scunthorpe won four of 51 matches that season. What was the hardest thing about that period? “Well, apart from trying to get a result … I like to get the ball on the floor and make things happen and a lot of the time the ball was in the air so that side of my game really improved. I had to get on the second balls, because that, really, was the only time I had the ball at my feet. So if I could try and get on the second balls and create something from there, that was my chance.”
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For the first half of that season Hackney lived alone in Doncaster, before Tyrese Sinclair, now of York, joined him. “I learned everything during that loan … life. If you lose in the under-21s, it doesn’t mean that much, but winning and losing there meant something to everyone. It showed me that you don’t get anything given, you’ve got to work. I’m so glad that I did go on loan and that season was probably the most I’ve learned in my career.”
Aside from a new head coach in the former Luton manager Rob Edwards, plus a sprinkling of new faces, including the Manchester City loanee Sverre Nypan, what is different about this Boro incarnation? “We’re playing with five at the back, wing-backs, so we’ve got an extra body in defence. When we lose the ball, I think we’re a bit more secure on transitions. The manager’s main focus when he came in was getting things right off the ball. He constantly says: ‘When you get the ball, it’s your time to show what you can do.’”
Does their north-east rivals Sunderland and Newcastle, as well as Leeds, being in the Premier League drive him to return Boro to the top flight? Hackney pauses but cannot conceal his feelings. “Yeah, I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t; it does give you that extra motivation,” he says. Mortimer was not the only one delighted Hackney stayed put. “I’m here and I want to win,” he says. “We’ll see where that takes us and, hopefully, this is our year.”
