However, there was a suspicion that they would do well to do that this time around because, if anything, they had been harder hit by player departures than City with Kelvin Davies, Tommy Miller and Darren Bent all leaving for Premiership clubs in million pound plus deals and Shefqi Kuqi joining Blackburn on a Bosman.
City competed well at Portman Road, but were undone by a second half goal from new signing Nicky Forster who exploited Neil Alexander's hesitancy at a free kick to score from no more than a couple of yards out. Chances were at a premium for either side all afternoon, but City would have come home with a point if young Welsh keeper Lewis Price had not produced a great save to deny sub Alan Lee in the closing minutes.
A defeat then but certainly no disaster as City prepared for a very attractive first home match against Leeds United three days later. Leeds had been able to spend more money than previously in the transfer market during the summer and seemed to have bought well in bringing players like Robbie Blake, Eddie Lewis and Dan Harding to the club (Richard Cresswell would join shortly from Preston as well). Leeds were generally expected to be right up there challenging for the next nine months, but something seems to happen to them when they pitch up at Ninian Park and for the third successive time they found themselves being outplayed by City!
City went in with the same starting line up as at Ipswich and generally gave as good as they got in a first half in which Willie Boland wasted their best chance from a close range header. However it was Leeds who went in with the lead when City's offside trap broke down midway through the half and David Healy was able to present Robbie Blake with a tap in from close range.
The early minutes of the second half saw a change in things as City players began to edge slightly ahead in their personal battles with their Leeds counterparts. Although this didn't result in a host of chances being created, the crowd were quick to realise that their team were getting the better of things and responded by producing the best atmosphere I had encountered at a home game since the epic Cup game between the two teams three and a half years earlier. This time around there weren't the violent overtones of the previous meeting, but, just as on that day in January 2002, Leeds were wilting as the Ninian Park crowd played the part of a twelfth player for their side - the question was though, did City possess the cutting edge to cash in on their dominance?
After all, almost two and a half hours of football so far had failed to produce a goal and with a lack of balance up front, City didn't look that well equipped in the art of sticking the ball in the opponents net - you couldn't help feeling that someone would have to come up with something special to get us on terms. However, the difference between City that night and at Ipswich was that they had the player who made a habit of producing “something special” throughout the season on the bench this time around!
I'm perfectly prepared to admit that I originally thought signing Jason Koumas was a risk not worth taking. I had been taken in by all that I had read and heard about him about his falling out with Bryan Robson at West Brom and his seemingly dodgy attitude towards playing for his country. There was no doubting Koumas' quality (I thought that, after Darren Huckerby, he was the best player in the Championship in the 2003/04 campaign and rated him the best player of his type in the division), but I couldn't help thinking it was all going to end in tears. As it turned out, I couldn't have been more wrong. From the outside anyway, Koumas didn't seem to cause any problems and as the season fizzled out with defeat after defeat in April, it was Koumas who was trying as hard as any other City player. Hopefully, he will end up signing for us, but if he doesn't, I am sure that when City fans come to discuss the 2005/06 campaign in a few years time, it will be remembered as “the Jason Koumas season”!
Anyway, back to the Leeds match! A groin injury that troubled him on and off during the first few weeks of the season had kept Koumas out at Ipswich and with him not having had a proper pre season at West Brom due to the complete breakdown in his relationship with his manager, he was a long way short of match fitness at this time, but Dave Jones decided to introduce him for Boland after fifty six minutes and within another four Koumas had introduced himself to the Ninian Park faithful with what I rated as our goal of the season! Picking up a pass just inside the Leeds half, Koumas ran at speed at a defence (apart from Cameron Jerome, we had no one else capable of doing that this season) that backed off and allowed him to drill a left footed shot from about twenty five yards past Sullivan and into the net. The ground went wild as Koumas ran to the Grange End to milk the applause as the penny dropped with supporters that maybe the season wasn‘t going to be as bad as we had thought it was!
City had all the momentum behind them now and, to be honest, Leeds would have done well to cling on to a draw from here. However within six minutes, they cracked again as substitute Kilgallon, under pressure from Neil Cox, handled a quickly taken Ardley free kick and captain Darren Purse confidently beat Sullivan with resultant spot kick (how many felt, like I did, distinctly uneasy at the sight of our centre half taking penalties?).
After that, Leeds came close on a couple of occasions, but it seemed as if they were fated to lose that night - it was one of those rare occasions when I felt confident watching the City defend a one goal lead in the closing minutes!
So, just like in their first home game of the previous season (against Coventry), City had come from 1-0 down at half time to win 2-1 as they attacked the Grange End in the second half. I hoped this was a sign that the 2005/06 side were capable of frequently turning defeat into victory, but, just as in 2004/05, we managed to do it just the once. Dave Jones' City side was much different from Lennie Lawrence's from the previous year in so many ways, but in their almost complete inability to turn things around after conceding the first goal in games, they were exactly the same as their predecessors
The similarities with 2004/05 continued the following Friday evening when we played a game televised live on Sky. A year earlier it was Plymouth who were the party poopers in a televised game which would have seen us go top of the league if we had won, this time it was a Watford team widely expected to struggle against the drop that inflicted a very deflating defeat on City.
Before the game itself though a word about attendances. The gate for the Leeds game was 15,231 which I thought was only okay given the opposition, but I certainly wasn't expecting anything like that for a televised match against what were far less attractive visitors. However, I was genuinely shocked to see how few people were present when I entered the ground about ten minutes before kick and I remember mentioning that we wouldn't be getting 10,000 for the game. Just 9,256 turned up three days after what was a great win, but this was a sign of things to come as supporters seemed to spend the first half of the season discussing our low crowds as much as the team's results!
All sorts of excuses were given for the poor gates, but, for me, one fact stands out above all others and that is that it is generally reckoned that we only had around half the number of season ticket holders that we did two years earlier. As far as I know, the club has never provided the exact number of season tickets sold for the 2005/06 season (that tells a tale in itself as far as I am concerned), but estimates by people close to the club put the figure at around 5,500 compared to nearly 10,000 in 2003/04. As for the reason for this decline, I don't think you have to look further than the changed attitude of many towards our owner - large numbers of City fans have fallen out of love with Sam Hammam and significant numbers have shown this by not renewing season tickets. Whether I am right or not in my opinion though, what I believe is worrying for the club is that our gates only rose marginally as we continued our quest for a play off place so the missing supporters were not tempted back by the prospect (albeit a very small one) of Premiership football the following season.
As for the game itself, City were second best throughout as Watford comfortably gained a 3-1 win. At the time I, like most City fans I suspect, put our defeat down to a woeful performance from a team that, incredibly, looked tired to me in just their third match of the season! As the weeks went by though, it became clear that to explain the result away solely in terms of how bad we were, was to do Watford a disservice. With the benefit of hindsight, what I had thought was tiredness on City's behalf, was probably more down to the fact that Watford with their abundance of young legs and mobility were the first team to expose a general lack of pace and movement in the City team that haunted them throughout the season . Watford were the sharper team all night and their faith in younger players was rewarded as the season went on culminating in a tremendous finishing position of third which made their manager Adie Boothroyd a real candidate for Championship Manager of the season.
That said, City were poor that night. Dave Jones resisted the temptation to start with Koumas despite an injury which kept Willie Boland out and instead picked Phil Mulryne for his only Championship start of the season. In a team full of poor performers, Mulryne was the worst for me as he struggled to cope with the pace of the game - at his best, Phil Mulryne would have been the passing midfielder we lacked this season, I'm afraid he never came remotely close to showing that quality in a City shirt.
Mulryne's struggles reflected the whole teams as, all over the park, City were second best - where Purse and Cox (later to be replaced by a debut making Loovens who fared no better) had dominated Leeds (Kevin Blackwell talked of his strikers being “bullied” out of the game), they were given a roasting by the Watford strike pairing of Marlon King who scored twice and Darius Henderson who got the other goal. Whilst their second and third goals were aided by deflections, there could be no denying that Watford were well worth their 3-0 lead midway through the second half - just as against Leeds, Dave Jones played the Koumas card with just over a half an hour to go, but this time to no affect and it was no more than a consolation when Cameron Jerome scored a good first goal of the season with ten minutes to go after being put in Neil Ardley.