I felt a certain kind of inevitability with relegation, city doom you may call it I guess. Plus had much more experience with that when younger, we used to be a right yo-yo club at times!
I actually quite liked the idea of playing all new teams and the hope that at least we'd be better in a group of less talented clubs. Which hardly ever worked out as planned. When City rolled into town suddenly every Mansfield, County and Town wanted their turn to kick you square in the nuts.
But I find the rivalries at the top, even if Liverpool fan and the media do fuel them desperately, the fact that it comes down to one or the other, year after year, means a title chase is more nerve wracking for me. I don't particularly like Stoke, or Luton or whoever, but Liverpool, and their fans, are largely unlikeable on another level. They look for conflict, desperate to create a narrative, always invalidating our successes, and the media have largely hopped on board with that too.
Maybe that's also partly the modern game, the constant pushing and goading, the anti city brigade who were never there during the relegation years. It was your mates down the pub, at work, in school, they'd laugh but life went on. Liverpool win and it's the greatest thing to benefit the world since two cavepeople first got their short and curlys entangled. In fact we used to get a nice pat on the head and a half loving 'see you soon lads' from some clubs.
That said, as we've not lost out in one yet maybe that's why my answer is what it is. Relegation is painful, losing out in a title race, if we've been in it until the end, isn't something we actually know about in recent history.
