Boro, for their part, had narrowly avoided relegation and were going into the game knowing their Premier League status was assured for at least another year.

In many ways, it should have been a fairly routine, unremarkable afternoon – but it would be anything but.

The first 15 minutes passed without incident until a ball over the top to Tuncay Şanlı saw the Turkish forward race clear only to be caught in the box by what seemed an accidental ankle tap by the pursuing Richard Dunne.

In fairness, referee Phil Dowd had no option but to issue a red card the City skipper and award a penalty kick.

The dismissal was a double blow given the Blues’ Fair Play hopes and Stewart Downing made no mistake from the spot to put the hosts 1-0 up.

Starting up front was Benjani, our deadline day recruit from Portsmouth, and he remembers there was no Plan B as such that day.

"As far as we were concerned, Sven was going to be our manager going forward," he said.

"As players, we couldn’t listen to speculation or what was being said in the media  -we could only deal with facts.

"When Richard was sent off, everything went wrong. We were disjointed after that red card, because sometimes when a team goes down to 10 men, it’s a backs to the wall situation where everyone gets behind the ball, but we didn’t do that – we just played on as if we had 11 and that was our downfall that day. We hadn’t prepared as a team for that kind of eventuality and if you watch the highlights of the game, you can see we are all over the place and we were very open."

Watching on from the other end, was Boro keeper Mark Schwarzer.

“I remember Andreas Isaksson was making his first appearance that day, so I felt for him a bit,” said the former Australia international.

“Gareth Southgate just told us to go out and give our fans a performance and we were aware of Sven’s situation, so we intended to spoil the party – we didn’t think we’d ruin it!

“Obviously City losing Dunne so early set the tone, but I don’t think anyone could have imagined how the game would go.”

The Blues dug in for the next 20 minutes or so before Afonso Alves doubled Boro’s lead on 37 minutes, making a difficult task that much harder.

Still, 2-0 at the break was not insurmountable and Sven’s half-time words ensured that was still the scoreline until just before the hour-mark.

Then, the roof caved in.

Boro scored twice in two minutes through Downing and Alves to lead 4-0 with a good 30 minutes still to play.

The City players looked dazed and not a little confused, like a boxer punch-drunk on the ropes with no escape from the blows they were receiving.

Johnson added a fifth on 70 and if the City players’ heads had been down before that, it’s fair to say that if the Riverside Stadium pitch could have opened up and swallowed the team that resembled Manchester City FC at that point, none of our players would have complained.

Nor the 4,000 or so City fans watching their team fall apart, but of course, as they chanted Sven’s name – and had done through most of the game – things got even worse.

Fabio Rochemback and Jeremie Aliadiere scored another couple of goals on 80 and 85 before City sub Elano curled home a typically sublime shot from 20 yards – ironically the goal of the game – to give our travelling fans something to cheer about.

But, of course, the humiliation, chastising – call it what you will – wasn’t quite over as Alves completed his hat-trick just a couple of minutes later.

It had been a relentless pummelling, but the agony was finally over.

The final whistle mercifully brought this most painful 90 minutes to its conclusion; the scoreboard boasted: Middlesbrough 8-1 Manchester City.

“We’d had an OK season, but  that day, everything we hit seemed to go in,” recalled Boro keeper Schwarzer.

“The last day of the season can be difficult for some teams in terms of focus, but we were just trying to finish on a positive note, so for City to go down to 10 men so early, maybe there was an element of ‘this is going to be a long afternoon for us’ among some of the City players.

“It was my last game for Middlesbrough as well as a few other players who moved on that summer – my departure hadn’t been announced but I knew as I walked around at the end that it would be my last game in Middlesbrough shirt.

“I don’t think you could say City players effectively downed tools given the red card and Sven’s situation – for me, it was just everything we did clicked and fell into place, and we punished City time and time again.

“I remember afterwards feeling really sad for Isaksson and Sven as it was pretty obvious it was going to be his last game.”

For Sven-Goran Eriksson, it was the worst possible result. If there had been any doubts in Shinawatra’s mind about the future of his manager, they’d been blown away in 90 minutes on Teesside.

"It is difficult to take whenever you lose. But, when you lose like this, it is awful,” said  Sven after the game.

"To concede a penalty and have Richard Dunne sent off was a bad start but we were in the game until it was 3-0.

"After that, mentally we had nothing left. We were not even on the pitch - the team had totally gone, and it was embarrassing for everyone."

Gareth Southgate added: “The circumstances at City may have made things difficult for them and it was a massive uphill task once Dunne had been sent off.

"Dunne did not mean to bring Tuncay down, but I don't think the referee had a lot of choice but to send him off."

The travelling City supporters continued to serenade Sven-Goran Eriksson long after the final whistle and it would be almost a month before he was officially relieved of his duties.

For striker Benjani, it added to a collection of bizarre results in his career.

"We had no leaders that day.," said the Zimbabwean. "Everything was happening so quickly and in situations like that, you need your leadership because we should have been trying to make it really difficult for them. With leaders, you can organise yourself on the pitch and rally everyone together, but there was none of that and things went from bad to worse.

"It was one of the worst days of my career – I was involved in a game when I was at Blackburn when we lost 7-1 to Manchester United which was a record defeat, a 7-4 win when I was at Portsmouth against Reading which was the most Premier League goals in one game and the 8-1 loss for City at Middlesbrough, so a lot or record scores, but not all good!

"Sven was quiet after the game – he didn’t rant or rave and accepted the red card had changed everything."

That visit to the Riverside remained a stain on his fine managerial career and it’s a pity his City tenure couldn’t have ended in a manner more deserving.

The last thing any football fan wants is to see their team beaten by a scoreline so rare that the vidiprinter puts in brackets.

Middlesbrough 8 (Eight), Manchester City 1.

David Clayton