The corridors of Brockhall are filled with celebratory scenes of years gone by, most recently the League One promotion campaign.

Only a handful of that 2017/18 squad remain, with the new side built by Tony Mowbray looking to become the club’s next set of heroes.

Ryan Nyambe, Darragh Lenihan and Lewis Travis played a part in the League One promotion and until the summer, Charlie Mulgrew, Elliott Bennett and Corry Evans remained on the club’s books.

The core of the current starting XI are homegrown, Scott Wharton and John Buckley joining Nyambe, Lenihan and Travis as the cornerstone of Mowbray’s plans and part of the next generation.

The manager himself knows just how much success can forge connections and friendships, still remaining in touch with the Middlesbrough sides of the early 1980s that enjoyed great success on Teesside.

He hopes similar lies ahead for this group of young players, adding: “This is a new team.

“The corridors are full of players who got us out of League One and out of those players there are only a few left. It’s a totally new team.

“They will define their own futures. Who’s to say the team, like that of 1986, 1987 and 1988 at Middlesbrough when I was playing 21, 22-year-old, I would be sat having a coffee with Garry Pallister talking about the good old days and Lenny Lawrence comes along and we talk football for an hour or two.

“The point I’m making is that you make mates for life because of success at football clubs, young men together being successful.

“Who’s to say that Travis and Buckley aren’t friends until they’re 80. Or they don’t remember much from that early time at Blackburn Rovers because not much happened.

“It’s an opportunity for the team, the club, to grab and they’re giving themselves a chance.”

Rovers head into the second half of the season in third spot and with plenty to be excited about, despite the manager’s urge for caution not to get ahead of themselves.

Whereas last season he tried to raise the stakes for his side in a bid to reach the top six, only to fall well short, it’s been a different message this time around.

“I tried to build the expectation last year, we had some good players and tried to play a certain brand that was right for the team yet I do think defensively we carried too many injures. We didn’t have enough consistency,” he added.

“Our attacking stats last season were first and second in the division, but goals against column was nowhere near good enough. It’s about finding a balance.”

Find a balance they have, five successive wins all with clean sheets, with captain Lenihan a key figure in that run.

He says the turnaround from the 7-0 defeat at Fulham has been beyond anyone could have imagined, but says that level of determination within the squad has always been there.

Lenihan said: “All credit has to go to the lads and the staff because we’ve really shown a lot of character to come back from that.

“That Fulham game, it made us all realise that we had to get so much better defensively.

“As a whole, we’ve come through it well, we’ve been working for each other and have been putting each other first rather than ourselves.

“You can see that on the pitch, we’re working for one another and it’s paying off.

“The standards have been set and we want to keep this form going.”