Quote Originally Posted by Eric the Half a Bee View Post
Sludge, I would say it's all about expectations.

After our promotion immediately after World War 2, we have spent 53 of the 73 seasons inside the top 2 tiers of English football. Between 85/86 and 02/03, we did spend 18 seasons in the bottom two divisions. Since then we've spent 18 seasons above that level. At the end of this season, we'll have spend as long above the bottom two tiers as we spent inside it during those woeful years.

During those 18 seasons we've only been threatened with relegation once, in our second season back in 2004/05. Even then, we were never in the bottom 3 after October. As bad as we started under Trollope, I can't imagine that we were really relegation candidates and I believed that we'd always pull through.

We've not finished in the bottom half of the Championship in our last 10 seasons there, during which time we've won 2 automatic promotions and finished in the playoffs on another 4 occasions. There's also the infamous collapse of the 2008/09 season. 7 of our last 10 Championship seasons have seen a promotion bid. Slade's side finished 8th as well, even though it never really looked like getting in to the top 6 and we've had 2 other top half finishes.

Since that 2003 promotion, only 19 other sides have remained inside the top 2 divisions. We haven't joined the likes of Bolton, Blackpool, Charlton, Sunderland, Wigan, Hull and Bradford, who have dropped out of the top 2 divisions despite playing in the Premier League.

The 18 years we spent in the bottom two divisions, while never to be forgotten, should be about as relevant to fans' current expectation levels as the colour of my pants.
In the 'modern era' of football, ie since TV money and rich owners dominated the game in the top 2 divisions, it's been easier but much more competitive, to achieve a decent level of success. It's enabled clubs like Bournemouth, Watford, Swansea, etc., to have significant spells in the PL with crowds barely touching 20k. This season has been frustrating, especially as it's obvious there's not a lot of football know-how within the club, but pretty much 20 out of the 24 Championship sides can have aspirations of reaching the play offs, so I'd concur. What's a sad indictment of the Club since 1962 however is that we've had just 2 seasons in the top flight out of 58 - a poor return for a City of Cardiff's status.