I think any review of the 2004/05 season needs to start as far back as summer 2003. Then we had just been promoted and Sam Hammam had proclaimed on the pitch after our Play Off win at the Millennium Stadium that big money would be released for new signings once approval for the ground was given. Much of the following close season was taken up with City fans speculating on how many millions worth of new players would be in the team which started life in the new division that August - as I remember there was hardly any of that sort of speculation last summer because there was a growing realisation that the money was beginning to run out at Ninian Park.
My own view was that we could only expect Bosman or free transfer signings and I am pretty sure I wasn’t alone. I wanted to believe that the “dream” was still alive (and part of me still did), but there were clues aplenty that things were changing. The failure to sign Julian Gray permanently at a time when automatic promotion let alone through the Play Offs was a possibility, Sam Hammam’s “wasted season” remarks, the way Mark Bonner left the club, the cancellation of a planned pre-season tour of Scandinavia and Sam Hammam’s attempt to get Gary Croft left out of the team so as not to get a bonus he would have been due all hinted at a club reining in their outgoings.
Gary Croft got his bonus because, apparently, Lennie Lawrence dug his heels and insisted that he played, but Gareth Whalley wasn’t so lucky. I am always banging on about “Whalleygate” so I won’t say too much about it here except to ask the question, can anyone imagine it happening during Sam Hammam’s first three years with the club?
Under different circumstances, the fact that season tickets were going on sale in May as opposed to June and that the new shirts for the upcoming season were on sale about three months earlier than normal would be taken as signs that the club were getting it’s off field act together at last, but instead there was the suspicion that it had been done because there was a need for the revenue generated sooner rather than later because they were struggling financially.
Underscoring all of this of course was the endless speculation about Robert Earnshaw’s future. Since Earnie scored his hat trick against Scotland back in February, there had been speculation as to his future and the fact that his performances in a City shirt following that match hadn’t matched his early season efforts had some thinking that his heart wasn’t with the club any more. I don’t know whether that was true or not, but what seemed like daily stories in the Western Mail and/or Echo stating that this this club or that club were going to sign the player in the summer did not help the situation - I don’t buy into the theory that these two papers deliberately set out to harm Cardiff City, but their continual publishing of the sort of transfer tittle tattle we often read on this message board did the club, their supporters and the player involved no favours whatsoever.
All of these factors combined to create a situation where, despite a very satisfactory first season back in the old Second Division, there was a pretty downbeat mood amongst supporters and as June dragged on with no new arrivals and the soon to be out of contract Gary Croft and Martyn Margetson still waiting to be offered new deals it seemed that they may have had good reason to feel that way.
Lennie Lawrence had been insisting that he did have some money so spend on new players - in May Jason De Vos had chosen Ipswich over us because, apparently, they offered him a longer deal than us (we had offered better wages) and he had begun a summer long pursuit of Sean Gregan the captain of promoted West Bromwich Albion, but, even when some money was spent, it sent out a signal of a club watching the pennies.
Lennie Lawrence had said at the end of the season that he wanted to turn Lee Bullock’s loan into a permanent transfer, but weeks passed without any apparent progress and it took a claim by York that City were trying to renegotiate an already arranged deal to kick-start negotiations again - eventually Bullock signed for a deal of around £100,000.
The signing of a player who had been with the club for months already and who seemed destined to be no more than a squad player was hardly going to set the pulses racing, but finally on Friday 2 July came a day which seemed to restore supporters faith as four players penned deals with the club! Sheffield United’s centre half and captain Robert Page had been made available for transfer by Neil Warnock and there had been speculation for a while that City were interested - this was confirmed when Page, who was a City supporter, arrived on a free transfer. Shortly after that deal was confirmed Millwall keeper Tony Warner, who would have signed for then Premiership team Wolves six months earlier but for injury, arrived on a Bosman. Warner’s signing was more of a surprise than Page’s and looked to be a real declaration of intent - it had seemed the keeper was on his way to Stoke, but their boss Tony Pulis was left saying the wages offered by us blew Stoke’s offer “out of the water” - City fans revelled in this at the time, but, now it just looks like another example of the sort of financial mismanagement that brought us to our knees.
As well as two new players Gary Croft and Martyn Margetson were finally offered new deals and duly signed up for them (although City had to increase their original one year off to Margetson to two to fend off interest from Swansea).
Perhaps things weren‘t as bad as they seemed after all? However, a dreadful pre-season soon blew such feelings away! With no trip to Scandinavia, the City embarked on a series of hastily arranged friendlies at basement clubs and Scottish Premier side Hibs - not one of them was won, but, worse than that, the performances were, apparently, very ordinary with defending in particular a cause for concern.
Most supporters got their first look at the team the week before the season started with a couple of matches against Racing Santander of La Liga and Lazio of Serie A. The Lazio game should have been seen as a great coup, but as it was arranged at very short notice and played just five days before the big kick off you wondered whether there were financial reasons behind it (that was the problem, once the seeds of suspicion that the club were in financial trouble had been planted, every decision they took began to be looked at in a different way!).
Although looking back, the City played some of the best quality football seen at Ninian Park all season in the first half against Lazio, both games were lost and so a miserable pre-season ended with a record of two draws and four defeats from six matches. My own view was that as long as the City hit the ground running in the league, poor pre-season results would soon be forgotten, however, the fact had to be faced that they would become much more significant if we got off to a stuttering start once the real action started.
It was also undeniable that Page and Warner had not made the best of starts - City had looked vulnerable from set pieces in all of their matches so far and Lazio had sealed their 3-2 win with a long range shot that Warner should definitely have saved. Indeed, the City travelled to Crewe on 7 August for their first league game with Martyn Margetson between the sticks while the keeper described by Sam Hammam as the best outside the Premiership was left on the bench - dreadful pre-season results, mutterings on message boards about sacking the manager and the new keeper on mega bucks wages (allegedly!) already dropped, some were maintaining that City were a club in crisis before a ball had been kicked in a competitive match!