Although the transfer window for permanent deals had closed at the end of January, clubs in the Football League had still been allowed to borrow players until transfer deadline day. As far as the City were concerned, there were vague rumours about them trying to bring in Charlton's Jason Euell only for the deal to flounder because they could not afford to pay a proportion of the player's wages, but, whether there was any truth in it or not I don't know. What I do know is that in the early years of Sam Hammam's time with the club, we would have found a way to bring in a new player at this time if the manager wanted one (given what he was always saying about the size of our squad, I'm sure Dave Jones would have welcomed the chance to bring in a loan player), but it shows how much times have changed at Ninian Park that, firstly, all financial decisions have to be taken with the new ground scheme in mind and secondly, I would have thought that very few supporters actually expected the club to bring in the loan signing which could, conceivably, have made all the difference for us in our quest to make the Play Offs.
Throughout the season there had been criticism of the club for not doing enough to entice the missing supporters back to Ninian Park. To a degree, this was unfair because they had offered price discounts for the Luton match in October and then introduced cheaper prices for students and pay on the day turnstiles for the Bob Bank standing enclosure about halfway through the season. Now for the upcoming game against QPR they offered free entry to Under 9s if accompanied by an adult and cheaper prices for older children.
A crowd of 14,271 meant that the club's experiment could be termed no more than a partial success - the gate was about two and a half thousand up on the seasons average for the visit of a team that hardly qualified as one of big names of the division, but, we were now entering the last month of the season and a place in the Premiership was still up for grabs. The optimist in me feels that the relatively disappointing gate showed that significant numbers who were attending games a couple of years earlier still needed more persuasion before they would return - maybe building starting on the new ground starting might do the trick, but the pessimist in me wonders if they will ever return while the club is under it's current ownership?
Anyway, it could be argued that it was a good thing that the number of youngsters attending what was, perhaps, their first City game, didn't meet the club's expectations beforehand, because it means that there are still plenty out there who were not frightened away from Ninian Park for life by what they had to endure that afternoon! It really was an appalling game as two poor sides on the day cancelled each other to such an extent that the number of serious goal attempts by both teams in the ninety minutes could be counted on the fingers of one hand. If ever a match deserved a 0-0 scoreline this was it, but, in the end, City were grateful to accept the point because, if Marc Nygaard had not made such a mess of the sitter he was presented with in the second half, then they wouldn't even have got that.
Amazingly, despite their inept display, other results meant that City were still right in there with a Play Off chance - Preston's stuttering run continued with a 0-0 home draw with Plymouth, whilst Wolves came a real cropper in a 3-1 home defeat by Sheffield Wednesday, but you couldn‘t helped thinking that a draw against a team who actually finished the season more poorly than we did represented two points dropped rather than one gained. On the following Tuesday, this suspicion was confirmed as Preston ground out a 1-0 home win over struggling Crewe and the City's chances took a decisive turn for the worse - apparently, Preston were unconvincing on the night and a bit lucky to win, but they never looked back after that and only dropped another two points until the end of the regular season.
City's trip to Southampton had the look of a last chance for the team - anything but a win, would see us consigned to another season in the Championship, but, with Ndumbu-Nsungu a very disappointing replacement for the injured Thompson, the team were unable to deliver the goods as they went down by 3-2. Southampton were winless in five matches and the owners of a mediocre home record, but they proved too good for City that afternoon - they scored first just after the break Klaus Lundekvan scored only his second goal for the club in something like three hundred and seventy appearances (the other had come against a Dave Jones managed team as well!), only for Jerome to equalise after an incredible scramble following a corner. Southampton took a decisive grip on proceedings when Ricardo Fuller took advantage of poor defending to score twice in five minutes, all of which rendered Darren Purse's late goal from another corner meaningless.
This time results went against City - although Wolves could also kiss their Play Off hopes goodbye after a 2-0 loss at Plymouth, Preston's excellent 1-0 win at Coventry more or less ensured that they would join Watford, Leeds and Palace in the end of season dogfight for a place in the Premiership.
Whilst entertainment may have been in short supply in 2006 at Ninian Park, so had opposition goals - Millwall's equaliser on 31 January was the only goal City had conceded at home since the turn of the year and it was an incredible five and a half months since they the opposition had scored at the Grange End! However, the visit of a Reading team that had clinched the Championship the previous week provided plenty of entertainment and, unfortunately, plenty of goals in the City net!
Darren Purse had been something of a defensive rock for the City throughout the season, but he had what his manager described as a “nightmare” that day. Purse's horror show started in the ninth minute when he lost possession to Kitson on the touchline and the striker's cross was scuffed in by former City loan player James Harper to end the run of not conceding at the Grange End. Half an hour later, Kitson was given all the time he wanted to make it 2-0 from about six yards out and, when early in the second half when the same player lobbed over Alexander there seemed little danger until Loovens headed into his own net.
The stupid thing was that City were playing as well as they done in weeks going forward - a point emphasised by a shots tally of 16-12 in their favour over the ninety minutes and for the next half an hour the team got their supporters believing they could pull off an incredible comeback. Koumas crossed for Jerome to bundle in a goal and when sub Paul Parry, making his first appearance since picking up a knee injury on New Years Eve, scored with a near post header with ten minutes to go, the Champions were certainly on the ropes. However, the hapless Purse again took a hand with three minutes to go when he passed straight to an opponent and the resulting cross was easily headed in by Doyle. A second goal for Harper in stoppage time consigned City to a heavy defeat that they didn't really deserve, but Reading had been more assured and precise in their finishing and had also taken full advantage of City's defensive blunders.
City now entertained the other team that gained automatic promotion when they faced Sheffield United on Good Friday in a game shown live on Sky. The contrast in quality between the two promoted sides was amazing as a City team who didn't play that well dominated the first two thirds of the game without punishing a poor visiting team. United did show some of their quality in the last half hour when they began to get on top, but whether they would have won without Jerome's perfect through pass to Webber with fourteen minutes to go is certainly debatable. However, once our striker's blunder had given him his chance, Webber went on to score a goal that's quality was entirely out of keeping with the rest of the game as he precisely steered the ball past Alexander and into the corner of the to seal a win that virtually confirmed his team's promotion (Leeds draw with Reading the following day did confirm that the Blades would go up).
A season that had turned out to be so much better than many had thought it would was ending in miserable anti climax, but, at least Dave Jones was able to give some of the club's most promising youngsters a taste of first team action in the last three matches.
Seventeen year old utility player Darcy Blake had only broken into the reserve team in the last couple of months, but he had made such an impact at that level that he was rewarded with a place on the bench for the Easter Monday trip to Crewe. Blake got a few minutes of action as well as he replaced Jeff Whitley in the closing stages of an entertaining 1-1 draw which featured fine goals from a couple of Welsh Internationals - David Vaughan putting his team in front with a powerful left shot from thirty yards on 58 minutes only for Jason Koumas to confirm the home sides relegation when he cut in and curled a twenty five yard shot past Turnbull with fourteen minutes to go.
Another Welsh International got the decisive goal in City's last home match of the season against Norwich. This was a typical end of season match which only really had two items of interest as far as I was concerned - one was the comparison between Cameron Jerome and the returning Robert Earnshaw and the other was the first team debut of young left back Joe Jacobson who came on for the last ten minutes or so in place of
Chris Barker.
Earnie was a clear winner in the contest with Jerome - although he only had the one real chance, he buried it with aplomb in the sixteenth minute and his all round game looked better than I remember it being with us. In contrast Jerome was way below his best and at times appeared disinterested - eventually he walked off the pitch with an injury after 72 minutes at a time when some within the crowd were giving him stick. Jerome missed the last match at Coventry with injury, so the Norwich game could well turn out to be his last for the club, if it does turn out that way, then it was a very sad way for a player who has done so well for us to finish. As for Jacobson, he did pretty well when he came on and was able to give one or two hints of his skills going forward - if he ever does get an extended run in the first team in the future, I would be willing to bet that we would see far more goals scored in which our left back was involved than we have seen in recent seasons.
The final game was played at Coventry's brand new Ricoh Arena and most attention focused on the farcical ticketing policy dreamt up by the West Midlands Police in the light of crowd problems they had done a great deal to cause themselves when City visited Wolves a few weeks earlier as all City fans going to the game was forced to go to a motorway service station a few miles from the ground to pick up their tickets an hour or so before kick off
The match itself ended, predictably, in another defeat - this time the score was 3-1 with Stern John's early opener being cancelled out by Steve Thompson only for the home team to ensure they finished above us in the table through second half goals by Adebola and Wise. Eighteen year old Curtis McDonald was the City youngster to be given a chance this time as the left sided midfield player replaced Ndumbu-Nsungu for the last twenty eight minutes and their may also have been a first team opportunity for striker Jamal Easter if he had not been injured in training during the week.
So ended a season that saw us finish in eleventh position with sixty points and it is a reflection on how the team did that, in the end, our finishing position and points tally should be considered a disappointment. For about 85% of the campaign, we looked like finishing at least three places higher - perhaps, our eventual finishing position was an accurate one when you consider the level of ability in the team, but their spirit and work ethic before they ran out of steam tells me that they should have finished a few places higher.