But alas there was one bit when my eyes opened just a little wider. It was the bit where Mr B mentioned that we finished 8th last season and “in reality this was a very respectable position for a club undergoing a period of change.”

     I wondered if the majority of supporters agreed that 8th was a very respectable position especially when one recalls the utterly tame end to the season; a season at the beginning of which we’d had such high hopes and the party line was that top six was the target.
 
     As an ‘average’ fan I’d fumed that we had only finished 8th and saw it as a direct result of the folly of the Laws appointment and then the need for the mid-stream replacement, a replacement that some Board members wanted sooner. It was a season when there was still a good bunch of players and the first slices of the not inconsiderable parachute money. So I remember it as an utterly disappointing and frustrating period; the end product being predictable long before the season finished. I remember it as a wasted opportunity. I belong to the group that thinks not finishing in the top six was a failure, bearing in mind the players we had and the jar on the mantelpiece was certainly not empty. Ten years from now if someone has all the facts and writes the history of this period in an objective, dispassionate way, from when Coyle left until now, I doubt it will make happy reading.
   
    

The Peterborough game was the first away game for some time for me and Mrs T – unless you count Garforth.  The coach from Turf Moor set off at 10. We’d left Leeds at 8.15. Somebody asked why we didn’t just do the journey from Leeds by car direct. Answer: we felt like a coach trip and a bit of company and it saved having to mess about parking in a strange place. Plus which we hadn’t seen our chums that we usually see on the coach since we’d been to Bristol for the weekend last season.  I love to listen to all the moans and groans and the craic on the journey about how well/badly we’re playing and about this player and that and where’s all the money gone?  Coyle’s name usually comes up and Laws and what are the directors playing at? Plus which, Joyce makes such good coffee and soup, and I always enjoy listening to Stefan’s rants. Mrs T says he’s worse than me................

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