Quote Originally Posted by William Treseder View Post
Your dislike of Jones has always been very clear Eric. You're not really suggesting that the quality of this seasons championship is anywhere as near as good as back then are you?
My dislike of Jones? Really? I've only met him the once so it's a bit difficult to dislike someone you don't really know.

If, by dislike of Jones, you mean a dislike for him as Cardiff City manager, you'd again be wrong. Only a couple of months ago I wrote a few posts about my favourite moments/games. Many of my favourite memories as a City fan of over 25 years were games where he was manager. When we played well, we were as good as anything in the division and I believe we could have held our own in the Premier League.

However, Jones is also responsible for some of my worst moments as a City fan. Many believe he got the cup final team wrong. I would have sacked him in 2009 when we missed out on the playoffs from an almost uncatchable position - it had been the third time we'd folded as the season drew to a close. Lessons not learned. When we finally got to a playoff final, we blew it in the main due to his lack of plan B. It was no surprise that we failed again in 2011. There were so many big moments where we froze and didn't deliver.

Jones should have got us promoted. I don't know many City fans who disagree with that. TOBW, I think, was the first to use the phrase 'flat track bullies' to describe us - devastating when we were on form and wanted it, and we did hand out some fantastic beatings, yet when the going got tough, we often went hiding and, as Hilts said, we'd spend the game whacking it aimlessly long in hope. We never found a way to make our C game good enough. Somehow, some rewrite history and make it sound like we were always this fantastic footballing team under Jones. We could be at times. We weren't often enough. We could be as dreadful as anything we've seen under Mackay, Solskjaer, Slade, Trollope, Warnock or Harris since. There's also that opinion that Jones kept finding bargains that he turned into millions. That wasn't entirely true, either.

I was relieved when he was finally sacked. I was in New Look in Glasgow when I read it on my phone. Mrs HaB was looking for some clothes. I gave quite a loud fist pump and had a few strange looks. It wasn't that I disliked Jones, but I felt that, for all the good he did, he made too many mistakes, got things wrong and I believe he cost us promotion more than once. For all the great games and memories, he should be judged on not getting us to the Premier League when we were good enough.