With this being the last season before this one that we've tried to avoid relegation on the final day, and it being some time before I became a fan, I was wondering what people's thoughts and feelings were going into the final day vs Leicester? Although most of us gave us no hope on Sunday, that season on paper we had a tougher task - we were 23rd going into the final game and had to beat a Leicester side who needed to win to get in the play-offs, while Millwall lost and Portsmouth failed to win. On the other hand, we had home advantage and God at the helm, team spirit was clearly better and the other two teams had tougher fixtures than Villa did. Was anyone confident we'd pull it off, or were you just amazed that we'd taken it to the final day after accepting relegation months ago and anything else was a bonus?
Reminder I was at a scout camp so wasn't at the game . I think in the end even had we won we would have gone down. Still finished about Luton! @Filbert might remember it well. Devon White set up Muzzy Izzet.
The only thing that stuck in my mind from that final game was how delighted Leicester fans were when they sent us down. They didn't seem to care about getting into the playoffs, all their chants were towards Watford's demise. I felt sorry for their players, as the Leicester fans didn't want to celebrate their achievement, only wanted to revel in our misery. It was all very weird. We did have this gung-ho final run of games. That was great. We had a 4-4 draw at West Brom, beat Port Vale 5-2, Reading 4-2, Grimsby 6-3. I went to the Norwich away game which we won 2-1 with a long range stunner from Porter. The Norwich fans clapped us as we walked out of the stadium. It was a bonkers end of season, but that ended in heroic failure.
That 4-4 at West Brom was mad, I think we were 3-0 down after half an hour and people were leaving. But the final game was sad enough as it was the first time in my supporting years that we dropped to the 3rd tier (I started going in 1983), the 1995/6 season was my second year at university and I'd chosen not to go to too many games but I did travel for that one. What was worse was that I went back up to Loughborough that evening on a train with Leicester fans. I was probably sat opposite a smirking @Filbert
If it was the weekend then I was probably at my nanna’s at the end of Market Street eating cakes and watching Thomas the Tank Engine.
After the previous game, the win at Norwich, hopes were still very high but a few results went against us in the following midweek and survival on the last day looked unlikely. We could only win and hope. The other thing I remember was that Millwall thought they only needed a draw to stay up, which they got at Ipswich(?) only to find other results conspired to send them down.
Sorry to say, there was a huge gulf in class between us and Leicester, we weren't expecting to escape that afternoon and didn't!
I remember one of the blokes I went with giving the berk in front of us some dreadful abuse - after he'd turned round to excitedly announce 'United are winning!' when we were 1-0 down. Happy days!
I remember this very well sadly. The previous week we had won at Norwich with Gary Porter scoring from just outside Colchester. All the results went our way and the stadium announcer gave out the scum one last which meant they were relegated. The Norwich fans clapped us as we were joining in the singing with the Norwich fans asking for their Chairman, Robert Chase, to resign. Great day Fast forward 7 days. We had a stonewall penalty turned down right in front of the Vicarage Road end and we ended up losing 1-0. I seem to remember Portsmouth had won as well so we would have gone down anyway. Leicester fans afterwards seemed delighted to rub our noses in it after the game for some reason. Both my parents were ill in hospital with heart problems and the following day I broke my wrist very badly playing cricket so top weekend all round
Seems like there was a lot more solidarity with other fans back then, not as much pointless 'needle' with other teams (Leicester aside!). If that happened these days, there'd probably be loads of jeering about the club going out of existence or something
Millwall were top at Christmas but managed to get relegated! Think Big Mick left mid season for the Ireland job.
I remember seeing him outside the ground before the first match I went to. We beat Reading 4-1 I think.
The 4 - 4 at WBA was unbelievable. It was a midweek game but losing 0 - 3 we sang "we're gonna' win 4 -3" and we very nearly did!
The only thing I remember about the match was some poor bloke near us on the far left of the Vic stand had a heart attack. Died later in hospital iirc.
Gt really had a crack at saving that season. I remember the first game back at the vic (ipswich?) we had Mooney (Maybe White?) wide left and played long balls up to him rushing in to win the header against the full back. Was clearly just a simple tactic they had practised on the training ground and it worked over and over again. I think we still lost the game but you could see in a matter of days that GT was putting some purpose into them. How we could have done with him coming in this season.
