Reading arrived at Ninian Park occupying the last of the play off positions and seemed to pose a formidable hurdle to City’s hopes of climbing the table. However, in the event, it turned out to be one of the easier wins of the season for a City side that approached the game in exactly the right manner. Unlike so many other home matches during Lennie Lawrence’s time in charge, City seemed up for this game from the start and got their reward in twelve minutes when the visitor’s offside trap went all wrong and Peter Thorne was given time and space to chest down Neal Ardley’s free kick and smash the ball home from about fifteen yards for his first goal that non penalty goal since the win over Forest on 3 January.
There could have been other goals as well with Thorne coming closest to adding to our lead when his effort was headed off the line by Shorey after half an hour, but it only proved to be a temporary reprieve for Reading as Keown headed the resultant corner from Ardley straight to Jerome who poked the ball in from the corner of the six yard box.
All season long City had been good at holding on to leads in home games (their problem was getting in the lead in the first place!) and this game proved to be no exception. City dominated the remaining hour of the match, but were, understandably, not too concerned about adding to their lead - the second half saw Thorne hit the outside of the post and Gabbidon fire just wide from a free kick, but it was a more low key affair than the first period. Reading did wake up a bit towards the end with substitute Les Ferdinand heading on to the top of the bar and Alexander making a marvellous save from the previously anonymous Kitson, but they finished a well beaten team - people were quick to criticise Reading’s performance after this game, but I preferred to praise City’s, once again, they had showed the unity that had characterised their play since the turn of the year and, truth be told, there had been very few matches in which they had looked a relegation team since then.
Other results made what was already a good day into a great one. Crewe lost 2-0 at home to Stoke and, although Brighton snatched a last gasp equaliser to gain a 2-2 home draw with West Ham both teams were now three points behind us with a far inferior goal difference with two games to play which meant that neither side could afford to lose another game and as they both had to face third placed Ipswich yet, it was hard to see both teams remaining unbeaten. City’s win had lifted them up to 17th and they had reached the 50 point mark which traditionally ensures safety from relegation but, at the time, it appeared they weren‘t quite safe, although if they avoided defeat at Gillingham (themselves just a point clear of the bottom three) in their next match then that should be enough to ensure Championship football for 2005/06 (as it turned out, they had already done enough to survive).
The Player of the Year awards were presented that evening and the Reading win must have helped the atmosphere immensely - Sam Hammam was given a bit of a rough ride during his speech, but, given the sort of season it had been, things could have been much worse if we had lost in the afternoon! James Collins, Danny Gabbidon, Cameron Jerome and Joe Ledley were amongst those to pick up honours on the night, but the main award went to Chris Barker who, in my opinion, had been week in week out our most consistent player once he had returned from his loan spell at Stoke.
City now had a week to wait for the Gillingham match, but before that there was, some actual good news on the ground with this story appearing in the Echo (http://tinyurl.co.uk/jfon). However, if the normally reliable since62 is to be believed, even this so called good news story isn’t quite what it seems - according to since62 “Costco have agreed in principle to the lease but haven`t committed to a contract”. So seven months after David Temme announced that Costco “will be a fantastic anchor tenant because of the other companies that are also being attracted to the retail park”, it would appear that nothing definite has been agreed yet! As for “all of the other companies that are also being attracted to the retail park”, it would seem that, if any actually exist, it will require a change to the original planning permission granted for them to go ahead. It would appear therefore that, far from being “the most important day in the club’s history”, January 19 2005 was nothing more than just another false start - when Sam Hammam announced “let’s get started” after the various planning permissions were granted at that meeting, I’m sure he didn’t think he would, have to go through the same processes again in the summer! However, at the moment, even that would appear to be putting a positive interpretation on things because, with no new planning permission applications filed yet, and the Council due to go into recess in July, if you factor in the 90 day consultation period required after any new planning permission is granted, it is looking likely that yet another year will pass without work starting on the new stadium!
Anyway, that’s enough gloomy speculation, back to the football and some good news! Darren Williams returned to the starting line up for the first time since before Christmas when he replaced the injured Tony Vidmar at Gillingham. A combination of a very hot afternoon and a bobbly pitch made for a poor game, but any tension the team felt would surely have disappeared after about ten minutes if they had known that Crewe were already 2-0 down at Ipswich (they would eventually lose 5-1). As it was, we did come closest to scoring in the first half when home defender McEveley headed against his own crossbar, but in truth there was very little created by either team. After the break, the fact that Gillingham needed a win to ensure their safety became apparent as they pushed forward more and after 72 minutes substitute Jarvis scored with a shot which I thought Neil Alexander should have done better with. To City’s credit, they really went for it after falling behind as Lennie Lawrence amazingly switched to three at the back by bringing on Bullock for Williams!
With Alan Lee and Paul Parry (making his return after his injury picked up against Forest back in January) on for McAnuff and Jerome, City began to take charge - Parry missed a great chance to equalise, but made amends shortly after with a fine header from Ardley’s cross to give us yet another 1-1 draw at a relegation rivals ground.
City were now safe and it was time to acknowledge the big part Neal Ardley had played in achieving that, besides his priceless goal at Leicester, Ardley had played some part in four out of the six goals scored by other players since he had arrived. Whilst he wasn’t a flying winger in the McAnuff mould, the quality of his crossing from open and dead ball play more than made up for that - add in a good work ethic and the fact that he would seem to be a good influence in the dressing room (he was very impressive in his appearance on GTFM’s phone in programme) and you could see why most City fans would have been delighted to learn that he recently signed a contract to keep him at the club for the next two years.
Instead of being the nail biter it promised to be, the teams last game, at home to QPR, became irrelevant - there was some talk of the visitors being out to avenge their play off final defeat from two years ago, but it turned out to be a pretty quiet affair. Having said that, we did manage to score what I think was our goal of the season during a first half which we dominated - the hugely promising Cameron Jerome completely fooled Santos on the halfway line with an outrageous dummy, then skinned Shittu as he ran down the right hand touch line before a delivering a cross which was deflected away from Peter Thorne it’s intended target to Jobi McAnuff who scored the winner in what turned out to be his last game with us with a first time shot from the edge of the box.
Rangers had the better of the second half and when you consider that Gallen missed a sitter and they hit the post twice, then it’s fair to say that they probably deserved a point, but it wasn’t to be as the game and the season ended quietly with the only other features worth mentioning being Tony Vidmar’s last appearance for us having accepted on offer to rejoin NAC Breda in the summer and a post match press conference by the mad but always entertaining QPR manager Ian Holloway which drew a round of applause from the assembled hacks!
Other results saw Gillingham accompany Rotherham and Forest into the first division - Crewe came from behind to beat Coventry and Brighton drew with Ipswich which meant that Gillingham’s draw at Forest wasn’t enough to keep them up.
City finished the season in 16th place with the following record;-
Home P 23 W 10 D 4 L 9 F 24 A 19 Pts 34
Away P 23 W 3 D 11 L9 F 24 A 32 Pts 20
Overall P 46 W 13 D 15 L 18 F 48 A 51 Pts 54
Looking at those figures, it’s obvious that we never found another way of scoring the goals that Earnie would have got us if he had stayed. Our home record wasn‘t good enough, but then it never was under Lennie Lawrence and that didn’t stop us succeeding in previous seasons. Away from home another characteristic of Lennie Lawrence’s time with us was maintained as we were difficult to beat, but the difference this time (and I believe one on the main factors as to why we struggled) was that we won just the three games, a figure way down on previous Lawrence seasons.
I should just finish by mentioning the recent changes. To my surprise, the club did what it would seem a majority of supporters wanted by getting rid of Lennie Lawrence - for myself, I thought our manager had a poor season and reckoned the time was ripe for a change, but I firmly expected to see Lennie still in charge next season. The appointment of Dave Jones looks an encouraging one as he doesn’t seem to come into the category of being a typical Sam Hammam appointment - I would say that Wolves last season was the only time that I can remember a Dave Jones managed team under performing and his record is a good one, time will tell if he can maintain that record with us.
Peter Ridsdale has arrived on a full time basis and has been put in charge of the day to day running of the club. What happened at Leeds will follow Ridsdale around for the rest of his life, but surely he should have learned valuable lessons from his experiences there? Again, time will tell.
David Temme is now solely employed on the new stadium and Sam Hammam is talking about getting more involved on the football side - at last weeks press conference Sam Hammam maintained we would not be selling our good young players unless we really have to and within a day or two, Jobi McAnuff was off to Palace! The club still has enormous problems and the new ground scheme so vital to it’s future seems to have stalled, but all we can do is hope that the new regime (which still includes those responsible for our financial problems) can deliver - supporters seem to have done their bit with better than expected season ticket sales up to now, can Hammam, Temme, Ridsdale and Jones do theirs?