City's season runs out of steam

All looked shiny, spot-on, slick when the moment was initially being captured.

But back in the clammy hand of expectation the exposed evidence offered little more than being misled up the garden path.

Progress over the past nine months was similarly wayward. Initial fluency was replaced by a stumbling and stuttering that leant the lie to a genuine belief that a campaign of substance would follow two of lean times.

To baldly look at that eventual finish of 16th place is to discern a considerable improvement on the previous two terms when City jingle-jangled one spot above the fall zone.

But that does not capture the nuances of the season, nor the numbing sensation of 'what might/could/should have been' - City fans, delete where applicable.

Finishing 16th after being in the top six no less than five times in the first four months; occupying eighth position at the turn of the year; even hovering a mere four points adrift of the play-off places as late as mid-March, more accurately, and acutely, encapsulate the bitter frustration.

Fans, players, management, directors - all must be nursing the crushing conviction that there but for the scrape of draws City would have gone boldly into an extension of the season.

At times City were outrageously good. High-calibre performances at Millwall, Grimsby, Watford and Northampton spring immediately and encouragingly to mind.

And initially at home City were gutsy and gallant, their gusto enough to bring in the required results and turn Bootham Crescent into an arena where teams no longer contemplated afternoons of schlock and stroll.

But never mind a game, if ever there was a season of two halves, this was it.

Match 23 and midway was the trip to Southend United. After a 4-4 draw City were sixth from top. Christmas '97 was a far more joyous, and potentially prosperous, occasion than those of the previous two Yuletides.

So what went wrong?

First, it must be said that the surge to December was as much foundered on a defensive solidity guaranteed by the goalkeeping excellence of Mark Samways as by attacking abandon. Samways was not man of the match on a regular basis simply for putting his gloves on the correct hands.

Yet for all his defiance there was a swagger too about the team, characterised most by the prompting and passing of Mark Tinkler, the poaching and pressing of Rodney Rowe, the power and passion of Alan Pouton, the panache and placement of Paul Stephenson.

But pssssssss. Just like a bright balloon inflated at Christmas, but silent-plight deflating into the New Year, City started to decline.

At home alone, the season suffered an irrecoverable slump.

Their first 11 outings at the Crescent collected 24 points out of a possible 33, the next dozen just ten points with one win out of 12 outings. Promotion form became demotion form.

Smack-bang in that sequence was the double whammy of Watford and Bristol City.

In the space of four days City welcomed the top two, subsequently to cement automatic promotion by season's end. Yet despite dominating both games City profited to the tune of one point.

Morale, especially in front of their own support, became as fragile as an egg under an elephant's foot after that.

Perversely, City improved immeasurably on the road in the second-half of the season. One lone win in 16 attempts was followed by four triumphs in seven away games, the last two hinting at a new-look for next season.

But the deadest hand of all '96-97 was that placed on the red-shirted shoulders by draws, draws, more draws. No fewer than 17 games ended all-square.

The roots of City's season 'evil' go back to that Roots Hall share-all against Southend just before Christmas. Checked by the Shrimpers City scrimped throughout 1998, that 4-4 equality kicking in the most painful run of parity.

Five successive League draws, followed by two defeats, were eked out at a time when City should have been maximising their solid first half to the season.

The result? Stall, then nothing, the emptiness exacerbated by the scant return from the Bootham Crescent brace against Watford and Bristol City. Yet those draws need not have been so frequent and so fatal. Time after time City allowed potential victory to slide from their butter-fingered clutches.

And a striking feature of such carelessness was the feebleness of the front-line.

Even Rodney Rowe, who in his first full campaign sprang from the bench in the day's opener to go and score 16 goals, was not exempt from blame. All but three of those goals were fired in the '97 half of the season as 'outside influences' - namely a court appearance - rebounded on the robust Rowe.

It was as if from start to woeful finish, from Rush to Gabbiadini, the City attack was jinxed.

Before a ball was kicked a fully-fit David Rush was viewed as the catalyst for a torrent of goals. Two months into the season Rush was gone, sacked and decreed by the club to be a fomenter of unrest.

Two months from the end of the season the arrival of prodigal striker Marco Gabbiadini was again hailed as lighting City's red-touch paper. Spark, crash, fizzle.

In between Neil Tolson spent most of the season in the treatment room, and though Gary Bull continued to be 'Mr Assist' his own barren plight persisted.

Manchester United-bound Jonathan Greening was mainly confined to a substitutes' brief, while Richard Cresswell flared only when Greening headed to Old Trafford.

As if to underscore the shortcomings, skipper Tony Barras was City's second-highest marksman with seven goals, supplemented by four penalties, as City only twice enjoyed back-to-back victories.

Inevitably the pressure descended upon manager Alan Little. From mid-season when his team were feted, by March when his reign extended beyond five years as the club's third longest-serving boss, he and Minstermen were being slated.

It was an understandable reaction from the terraces.

Positions of rich promise were squandered. Opportunity came knocking, but was unanswered. A clear picture became fuzzy.

What develops over the close season has to ensure City are in the frame by this time 1999.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.