I was there that day. Bewildered by us playing in our new away shirts instead of our home kit, convinced it would put a curse on us. Hoping against hope that we could beat one of our bogey teams from that era. David James up front. Absolutely devastated as a 10-year-old, watching on as Robbie Fowler missed that last minute penalty that would have sent us to Europe.
But here's the thing. Did it save us from relegation the next year? After that game, the Pearce bubble well and truly burst. We had a good start but as the season dragged on it was obvious he wasn't the man to lead us forward. We dropped from 8th (on 52 points) to 15th (on 43 points). We lost Shauny Wright to Chelsea and with it went our spark. 1 win in our last 10 games, 9 defeats.
So I do sometimes wonder, would we have gone down at the end of the 05-06 season if we'd had to juggle a UEFA Cup campaign with trying to stay in the Premier League with the likes of Samaras expected to save us? There was probably just enough talent in the spine of the squad to keep us afloat (James, Dunne, Distin, Barton, Cole, Vassell) but balancing it across two competitions might have been a step too far.
We finished just 9 points above the drop after Cole's injury fucked us. Luckily we already had points on the board and were 10th as late as March, but I'd argue the UEFA Cup would have knocked 5-8 points off our total across the season, and suddenly we'd have been drifting into a relegation fight in the last weeks of the season with our hopes resting on Samaras after Cole and Vassell's partnership was prematurely ended.
And if you look at Boro's fortunes - they had a stronger squad than we did and made it all the way to the UEFA Cup final, but dropped from 7th to 14th as a result and were relegated by 2009. It was another eight years before they came back to the Premier League, and even then it couldn't be sustained for more than a season. Can't help wondering if we'd have fallen to a similar fate if Fowler had scored that penalty.
But here's the thing. Did it save us from relegation the next year? After that game, the Pearce bubble well and truly burst. We had a good start but as the season dragged on it was obvious he wasn't the man to lead us forward. We dropped from 8th (on 52 points) to 15th (on 43 points). We lost Shauny Wright to Chelsea and with it went our spark. 1 win in our last 10 games, 9 defeats.
So I do sometimes wonder, would we have gone down at the end of the 05-06 season if we'd had to juggle a UEFA Cup campaign with trying to stay in the Premier League with the likes of Samaras expected to save us? There was probably just enough talent in the spine of the squad to keep us afloat (James, Dunne, Distin, Barton, Cole, Vassell) but balancing it across two competitions might have been a step too far.
We finished just 9 points above the drop after Cole's injury fucked us. Luckily we already had points on the board and were 10th as late as March, but I'd argue the UEFA Cup would have knocked 5-8 points off our total across the season, and suddenly we'd have been drifting into a relegation fight in the last weeks of the season with our hopes resting on Samaras after Cole and Vassell's partnership was prematurely ended.
And if you look at Boro's fortunes - they had a stronger squad than we did and made it all the way to the UEFA Cup final, but dropped from 7th to 14th as a result and were relegated by 2009. It was another eight years before they came back to the Premier League, and even then it couldn't be sustained for more than a season. Can't help wondering if we'd have fallen to a similar fate if Fowler had scored that penalty.