For a while after the 2004/05 campaign ended it appeared as if it would be business as usual as Lennie Lawrence negotiated a two year deal with Neil Ardley that made his loan stay into a permanent one and on 12 May the Western Mail was reporting that Sam Hammam had decided against a change of manager for the new season. The manager was also offering new contracts to four City players and talking of his interest in Yeovil's Phil Jevons and Wrexham's Juan Ugarte and yet within another 12 days he was gone!
The writing was on the wall for Lennie Lawrence when details began to emerge of a meeting in a London hotel between Sam Hammam, Peter Ridsdale and ex Stockport, Southampton and Wolves boss Dave Jones. This meeting was held while Lennie Lawrence was away in Scandinavia on a coaching course and when he returned on 23 May he was informed that his services were no longer required by the club.
My own feeling about Lennie Lawrence's sacking is that, just like this year, the club were in need of a good news story at a time when they were trying get supporters to purchase season tickets and with memories of the near financial meltdown of March still fresh in the memory and the promise that several of the team's best players would be leaving in the summer, the club reckoned the best way of getting some sort of feelgood factor back at Ninian Park was to boot out a manager who was never that popular with supporters!
All of this meant that it was hardly a surprise when Dave Jones was formally announced as our new manager at a press conference on 25 May. However, our manager has said during the course of the season that he had told Messrs Hammam and Ridsdale to do what they had to to secure the club's future, that he would take his holidays and then return to get on with the job of managing the club - because of this, as far as I was concerned, Dave Jones was something of a figure in the background for the next six weeks or so.
It was what Messrs Hammam and Ridsdale (newly appointed as Executive Deputy Chairman - whatever that means!) said that seemed more important at the time as they set out what they hoped to see during the close season. Sam Hammam's credibility was at an all time low at that time with many supporters (myself included), but, for me at least, he did regain some of that lost credibility that day as he spoke with an honesty that had not always been apparent in his dealings with the media and supporters. Our owner confirmed that the club had to sell players in the summer to pay off a short term debt (to the Inland Revenue) of around £2.5 million, but did say that there would be some money made available (how depended on the number of season tickets sold and transfer income received) to our new manager for new players.
Of course, dominating everything at Ninian Park as it has done for years, was the new ground scheme which has developed into a more long running and boring saga than Last of the Summer Wine! I will try to mention the new ground as little as possible during this review, but as it is the main reason behind virtually every decision the club has taken for the last few years, I'm not sure I will be able to keep to that promise! However, there shouldn't be any reason to mention the bloody thing again for a while because the impression I got during that summer and the early months of the new season was that it was somewhat becalmed with not much progress being made either way.
Whilst all this was going on, City supporters got a preview of what was to come when it was announced that Jobi McAnuff had signed for a Crystal Palace side newly relegated from the Premiership. According to the club the fee was £600,000 which, if true, represented good business as it was more than double what we had paid for the player nine months earlier. McAnuff was a crowd pleasing type of player who, in my view, under achieved in terms of end product while he was with us, but his goals return with Palace and the prominent part he played in getting them to the Play Offs suggests that City fans never really saw the best of him.
Most of June was taken up with speculation concerning what was now assumed to be the inevitable transfer of Danny Gabbidon and who else would be accompanying him through the out door at Ninian Park, so it was a bit of a surprise that, when there finally was some transfer activity it came in the form of City buying a player rather than selling one!
Dave Jones' first signing was the Northern Ireland International Jeff Whitley who had been released by Sunderland at the end of the previous season. Whitley was a ball winning midfielder who may not have been the most naturally skilled player, but he had been a regular in Championship winning Manchester City and Sunderland teams, something which suggested that he should be able to do a good job for City.
Whitley's arrival was the prelude to the anticipated mass departure of players. Early July saw the departure of Danny Gabbidon, James Collins and Peter Thorne added to McAnuffs and those such as Darren Williams, Tony Vidmar, Lee Bullock and Gary Croft who had not been retained by the club. Whilst Gabbidon and Thorne's departures were no surprise because of the club's need to reduce the wage bill, Collins' was because our owner had said that, whilst there had to be departures, the club would do all it could to hang on to it's younger talent like Ledley, Jerome and Collins.
Collins and Gabbidon moved to West Ham for a joint fee of £3.2 million which could rise by around another £400,000 with various add ons. Apparently, West Ham would only do the deal if Collins was part of it and with no other team making a bid for Gabbidon, the club's line was that they had no alternative but to accept West Ham's offer. If it was true that no one else put in a bid for Gabbidon., then you really have to question the judgment of managers at Premiership clubs - Gabbidon was one of a pretty small number of players that I have seen at the club to whom the adjective “classy” could realistically be applied and is the best all round defender I have seen play for us, but, more important than what I think, is the fact that his performances at Premiership level have proved that Alan Pardew got it right in signing him. As for Collins, he has found it tougher at the top level, but has seized his chance when given the opportunity to play alongside his former City colleague towards the end of the season - with a bit of luck, Collins will be playing in an FA Cup Final soon and the best thing I can say about him is that he has achieved far more in the game than Gabbidon had when he was Collins' age, he could well develop into the better of the two players.
Peter Thorne left for another relegated club Norwich in a strange deal which saw no fee paid, but with us receiving £200,000 if Thorne's new club were promoted in the next two seasons. Whilst I think virtually all City fans would say Thorne wasn't worth the huge fee we paid for him, I will remember him best for the part he played in turning Earnie and Cameron Jerome into better players. However, by the end of his time with us, he was even more injury prone than he had been earlier in his career and it was no real surprise to me to see him making so little impact at his new club.
Shortly after these sales, Sam Hammam said that Dave Jones would be given £600,000 to spend on new players before the season kicked off and with the first pre season match to be played on 16 July, the pressure was now on Dave Jones to come up with some new players. The departure of Collins and Gabbidon left City with no centre backs with league experience, so obviously that position was the highest priority for new players and the signing of Dutch Under 21International Glenn Loovens on a season long loan from Feyenoord went some way to solving the problem. On the day before that first game (at Accrington Stanley), the club also announced the free transfer signings of ex Watford players Jermaine Darlington, who could play in either full back position and Neil Cox a vastly experienced utility back with plenty of Premiership experience who, at this stage of his career, was mostly used as a centre half.
There were also three other new faces in the team that played at Accrington - young Italian striker Anrdrea Ferretti who had been released by Parma and had been recommended to Dave Jones by Sir Alex Ferguson, and a couple of realists in Scotland Under 21 International right back Jamie McCunnie and another Northern Irish international midfielder in Phil Mulryne who had been released by Norwich.
However, the biggest news as far as possible new signings went was that West Brom central defender Darren Purse was watching the game. There had been some reports that City were after Purse, but I had dismissed them because I assumed we could not afford a player with his pedigree, but now it certainly looked as if there was something to these stories. On a similar theme, the Wales on Sunday had intermittently reported throughout the summer that we were winning a race with Wolves to bring West Brom's Jason Koumas in on a season long, but, again, I believed there was nothing to these stories!
If City's pre season in 2004/05 was a disaster, then 2005/06 was, particularly with the sort of circumstances Dave Jones had to work under, quite a success. In their first match they did what they couldn't do a year earlier and that was win a game! A 3-1 win at Accrington didn't look much at the time, but as they ended up winning the Conference, it was quite a result. The honour of scoring the City's first goal of the season went to Richard Langley with a tremendous shot from 35 yards, but this was to be his last contribution for the club as it was made clear to him (and others such as Andy Campbell) that he had no part in Dave Jones' future plans.
City's other goals came from Willie Boland (it did happen honest, I have seen the pictures!) and Cameron Jerome and the team now travelled to Scotland for three more games which went very well. Ferretti and Mulryne scored at Hamilton in a 2-1 win, Premiership team Kilmarnock were beaten 2-1 courtesy of a couple of Jerome goals and the same player scored in a 1-1 draw with another Premiership side Falkirk.
City now returned to Wales to finish off their pre season programme - Jamie McCunnie was released after the Scottish tour, but Muryne and Ferretti were offered contracts and (to my amazement!) both Purse and Koumas had both agreed to moves to Ninian Park. The latter two were not in a City team which was comfortably beaten 3-1 by a good Udinese side after Mulryne had put City ahead, but they did both appear against West Brom in a game that was arranged as part of Earnie's transfer to that club. City managed to keep their former striker quiet, but didn't play well and were deservedly beaten 2-0 as supporters were given something of a reality check after all the optimism that had built up with new signings and good results in Scotland.
There was one more new arrival before the league season kicked off with a game at Ipswich - Kevin Cooper who had played with Dave Jones at Stockport and was signed by Jones at Wolves joined from that club - Cooper was a winger with a good goalscoring record and, apart from Darren Purse who cost us a reported £750,000, was the only player for whom we paid a fee that summer, trouble is, nobody seems to know how much it was exactly, although something in the region of £100,000 is the figure I have seen quoted most often.