@LAST!
This has been a long time coming!
(Promotion to the Premier League and a post on LAST!)
Its crazy to think there’s a whole generation of City fans who have never seen us in the Premier League, something many of us of a certain age took for granted for a long time. That older generation of City fans, a few 1000 of who stood at Villa Park being waved bye-bye by the Holte End in May 2001 have been waiting and waiting, at times thinking that the club might not even exist soon, let alone be back in the Premier League.
SISU, Northampton, St. Andrews, directors in the dugout, ideas of fans picking substitutes by text, never ending court cases, relegations, manager after manager. The list of low points seems endless.
Then slowly but surely some green, or rather Sky Blue shoots appeared. A relegation to League 2 and a win at Wembley in the same year with a certain Mark Robins at the helm. A year later and we finally make a play offs and get back to League 2 after a Wembley win. 2 seasons later and its back to the Championship as Champions. The first 2 years we stabilised and Doug King takes over, eventually renuniting the club and the CBS for whom it was built. Next season sees heart breaking play off final loss on penalties but looking back maybe we weren’t ready. The next season sees another heart breaking defeat in the FA Cup semi final but the momentum for this club has finally changed. Frank Lampard arrives, followed by a play off semi final defeat in the last second.
And then Season 2025/2026 happened.
If you had told me in May 2001 when I was writing about relegation on LAST that we wouldn’t get back to the Premier League for 25 years, I’d never have believed you. A lot has happened around the world in 25 years, too numerable to mention. Personally since then I’ve had 2 children (one about to graduate from Univesity!), moved house 4 times, moved countries and flown 28000 miles to watch 2 play off finals, I’m sure you have all got life stories too. We’ve sadly lost some loved City fans and happily gained new ones and many of us are still going to the City with the people we did at the start of the millenium.
What a season its been though. A huge well done and thank you to Doug King, Frank Lampard, all the staff and all the players for getting City back to where we’ve waited for so long and in such style.
Thank you as well to all the staff and players as well that have taken us from the depths of League 2 with no ground and back to the Premier League. I’m thinking of the likes of Mark Robins (obviously), Adi Viveash, Michael Doyle, Liam Kelly, Callum O’Hare, Gus Hamer, Matty Godden, Jordan Shipley, Marc McNulty, Ben Sheaf, Viktor Gyokores and the many, many people I’ve missed out.
So as the long, long wait finally comes to a end, watch the Match Of The Day tribute from 2001 as a reminder of what great years our last run in the top flight was. There’s a much younger Gary Lineker saying we were coming to the end of an era.
Hopefully this is the start of a brand new one. Enjoy everyone!
And hi to all the old LASTers out there!
Jonny
#PUSB
April 2026
Response
-
Test
Leave a Reply