so we got there in the end despite what could have been a turd dangling end of season fixture a brief summary of 2008-09 PRE SEASON - Brian's will he wont he saga continues to rumble on, Davey goes into hospital for most of pre-season with back problem, after an ambitous period chasing a few big profile players including Kevin Phillips we sign Rigters, El Haimour, Moore, Colace for next to nowt but a hefty £1.2M on Iain Hume restores some confidence, John Smith AKA some czech winger comes on trial but fails to impress at York's Kit Kat Crescent and some did leave including the ever popular Stan Ferenczi who returned to his homeland to notch 800 goals in 5 matches or somehting AUGUST & SEPTEMBER - a disaster start to the season, 5 defeats out of the first 6 against QPR, Coventry, Brum, Cardiff and an Adam Hammil inspired Blackpool and the "hindsight pundits" have us dead and buried, our once heroe Brian chooses Blunts over Bristol City, Colace finally recieves international clearance from FIFA after finding our paperwork filed under "who cares". With just one win in our first ten Davey fears the axe going into our trip to Ipswich, enter 15 year old Reuben Noble Lazarus, promptly becoming the youngest player in the football league when subbed on in the 3-0 drubbing which also included 2 catastrophic howlers from Heinz Muller which would later make it into Mullers "top 10 gaffes of the season" DVD OCTOBER & NOVEMBER The game against Donny was swiftly dubbed a "win or go" for Davey. 1-0 down and reduced to 10 the reds somehow fought back to win comfortably 4-1 with JCR notching a goal of the season contender. A well balanced team took apart Wednesday 2-1 at home in a run of form which included 4 wins and a draw in 6 games going into our home game with Sheff U. Blackwell had clearly instilled his brand of shitstained dross upon his thuggerish men, Anderson and Ehigogu sent off, Hume taken off and a controversial penalty couldn't be turned around despite KO's rare goal. Later it was confirmed Iain Hume would be out till at least the end of the season. A solid and rousing show of support from the fans and the club helped unite the crowd down at Oakwell and eased the pressure on Davey. We would spend a short time in 13th our highest league placing this term. DECEMBER & JANUARY Norwich striker Jamie Cureton arrived on loan and notched 2 quality goals against Preston and Burnley, our late conceding was coming to the fore with a 90+4 peach at Swansea. An FA cup tie at West Ham with a crap team out had us unable to repeat last years heroics but did have West ham fans demanding zola snap up Diego Leon for £1.5M on various forums. A 4-0 thumping at Norwich got Brian Gunn a job. Daniel Bogdanovic, Hammill, Andranik and Mifsud all signed in the window as we lost 5 from 5 in January. FEBRUARY & MARCH another JCR inspired display at Swillsbrough gave us the first double over them since 1666. A home draw against Charlton would see us take up a run of 8 draws in our last 14 games. The usual bogus tactics 4-5-1s strikers on the wing et al were dominating the forum. APRIL & MAY A big crowd and cheerleaders got the game against the scabs underway, a missed pen and a Muller howler cost us again. A multi-ball system at Sheff U, last gasp equaliser at Watford and forces above lead us into a 3-1 thumping at home to Swansea, Ryan Kidd was present for the post match interview. A decent point at reading was followed with a trip to Coventry where a win would have seen us comfortable in the run in, a late late penalty held us in the half empty ricoh. A draw with tarn legend Mick Mccarthy's men saw chavs, kids, and horsehit bestow the Oakwell turf leaving us with a lot to do...Reading and Charlton did much of that "lot to do" for us and a win ourselves kept us up by in the end 6 points. SUMMARY Generally dull throughout, some sunny intervals but most importantly of all Daveys 100% record of avoiding relegation keeps us in the Champ for what promises to be an exciting season next time with Newcastle & Middlesbrough coming down