Such is the drama and intrigue surrounding Middlesbrough Football Club, a rumour has been circulating around Teesside this week that a major Hollywood studio is interested in documenting the club's rise and fall and rise and fall.

It is to be a tale of tears, smiles, drinking and money and it is alleged Meryl Streep has been lined up to play alongside Paul Gascoigne. One working title is said to be Boro Babylon although if a Scandinavian minimalist director can be recruited then Deconstructing Middlesbrough is favourite.

No one from Middlesbrough, as they say, was available to comment last night but the latter title certainly fits the national perception of a club with more characters than Great Expectations, all of whom appear to share one ambition - they want to leave.

Paul "I want to manage the club one day" Merson became the latest multi-million pound departure this week and after the experience of Fabrizio Ravanelli and Emerson, once again uncomfortable questions are being asked of the manager Bryan Robson, the club and the region.

Left looking unprofessional and unwanted again, it was therefore something of a pleasant surprise yesterday to find a player, indeed a foreign player, who not only likes Middlesbrough but who is also prepared to contradict national assumptions of jokes and soap operas.

Step forward Mark Schwarzer, the Australian goalkeeper who joined from Bradford 18 months ago and is the author of a diary about last season as seen from inside the dressing-room. Hollywood scriptwriters starting to salivate should calm down, though: Schwarzer may have the inside story but unlike a recent former colleague he is "not out to make money for himself at the expense of others".

While Schwarzer refused to reveal the players' explanation for Merson's sharp exit, "because I'll get carried away if I go into it too much", he did say: "There are a lot of reasons behind it. Paul Merson knows what the real reasons are and for him to blame other people shows what kind of a character he is. He'll get what he deserves."

This is not an isolated view, the bitterness among the Middlesbrough players at the manner of Merson's leaving is tangible. For the club as a whole, though, the episode was an embarrassment. Another one.

They seem to have been a nonstop feature of Middlesbrough since Robson took over four years ago and the club has suffered as a result. While the public impression of the club is that it cannot control its employees, that it is split internally, the other side of Middlesbrough's story remains hidden.

Only four seasons ago just over 6,000 people turned up at Ayresome Park to see Middlesbrough play Barnsley; today they have 31,000 season-ticket holders and only the Uniteds of Manchester and Newcastle can beat that.

Moreover, in filling the £16 million Riverside Stadium every week Robson has spent almost £50 million on players. Robson has recouped £38 million in that time, making more than £8 million in profit on Emerson, Juninho, Merson and Nick Barmby. There has been relegation but there have been three cup finals and two promotions, too.

Planning permission is likely to be granted to take the Riverside to a 42,000 capacity, a £7.5 million youth academy is up and running and yesterday Schwarzer sat in the club's soon-to-be-finished new training ground. If anything this paints a picture of growth rather than decline yet still Middlesbrough have a major image problem.

The heavy drinking label will not go away, even if Schwarzer called it a "total myth", and as long as expensive celebrity personnel continue to come and go, Middlesbrough's credibility difficulty will remain. At least Schwarzer thinks he knows why this is the case.

"The biggest problem is, or has been, that Middlesbrough is a big, very professional club but hasn't as yet got the respect or prestige of, say, Arsenal or Chelsea. Big names come to the club and think they are bigger than it. That's happened previously and now it's happened again. It is time players stopped coming here and taking advantage."

Why they are allowed to do so is what outsiders want to know. On Tuesday Robson spoke of his policy of creating a "relaxed" environment at training by letting wives and children come along and of the freedom of movement he gave Ravanelli and Merson. In theory it is commendable but in Schwarzer's opinion both of them abused it. "Ravanelli used everyone," he says.