There was a comparison made earlier this week in a local newspaper between the entertaining Joe Royle team of 2003/04 and the current members of Mick McCarthy’s ever-improving first choice XI.

Some were fair comparisons, others I felt were perhaps a little biased towards the current crop. Personally I don’t think we’re anywhere near as good as we were back in the day but the improvement made since Mick’s arrival is not up for question.

The comparison I would like to draw people’s attention to is not of the playing style or technical abilities of each team, but of the fans’ love for each and how it differs. For me, it’s worlds apart. In the current line-up I would argue that we fans only feel endeared to three, possibly four players of the 18 named each week.

Luke Chambers, Aaron Cresswell and David McGoldrick are elevated to the heights of being labelled fans' favourites, whilst some would argue that Tommy Smith (surprisingly after his early years were nothing less than catastrophic) could also be added to that list.

I think if we’re honest we’d be hard pushed to name many more at this present moment in time. It’s not to say we don’t think they’re worthy of a place in the team or that we’d rather have somebody else, it’s just that they’ve arguably not played their way into our hearts just yet.

If I was a young boy again I wouldn’t be looking past these four when deciding which name/number to have added to my shirt, and in fact my seven-year-old son doesn’t look beyond Smith or Chambers.

So how does that compare to 2003/2004? Well, significantly in my opinion. Kelvin Davis, Fabian Wilnis, Tommy Miller, Ian Westlake, Darren Bent, Shefki Kuqi, Jason De Vos and Richard Naylor were all fans' favourites who we turned up each week excited to watch, fully supporting and shouting their names loudly.

So why don’t we feel that way about the current crop? It’s easy to point at the fact that our current team is nowhere near as entertaining and despite our playing style being effective (and I’ll happily take effective but dull over ineffective, relegation form) we aren’t treated to much 'edge of your seat' stuff.

For me though, the damage over the past few years has left us all feeling a little wounded and perhaps more hesitant to open our hearts just yet. An endless amount of loan deals and temporary contracts means we’ve witnessed an unprecedented number of players come and go in the years since Big Fat Joe left us.

If you analyse the playing squad we started with in the 2011/12 season you’ll clearly see that only five players have survived and remain with us today. In my humble opinion that’s left us all feeling very non-committal towards the players in place at the moment, unfairly so perhaps but it’s very difficult to feel any love towards a player who’s only been with us five minutes or who we suspect won’t be with us in the summer.

It’s the equivalent of jumping from one relationship to another, waking up with a different 'bird' in your bed every week. Sure, it has its benefits and everybody needs a bosom for a pillow, but when the time comes to settle down it’s only human nature to have reservations.

The current incumbents have a little way to go yet before we all feel we can throw ourselves in with both feet and have no regrets loving them. There are signs that Big Mick is building a settled squad which will see less comings and goings and give us a foundation to build on and mount a serious promotion challenge.

Perhaps when that happens, the love we felt for our side in 2003/04 can be replicated and the atmosphere everybody longs for at Portman Road will return to the level we enjoyed a decade ago.

In the meantime, let’s enjoy what we have for now – a settled relationship for the first time in many years. No bickering, nobody flirting with others looking to 'court' what we already have and no unnecessary dramas. For the first time in a long time we can feel satisfied that our future together looks exciting.

COYB.

cromwellblue added 14:45 - Dec 20 It's not just about the attitude to the individual players in the team. At the risk of being slated the attitude of the fans has changed significantly over the past few years. The arrival of Marcus Evan and his money changed us from being a club trying to do it's best to a club with massive expectation. No longer do the fans (and I use that term in it broadest terms) embrace the old ways of this club Being in the North Stand these day is much less a supporting crowd much more a whinging and abusive group. When we are doing OK it is greeted with silence, when thing go bad the complaints start MM is finally putting together the building blocks of a team and some hope for the future. We just need the supporter to bring back to old days and SUPPORT our team and spend less time abusing the opposition

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Lightningboy added 16:41 - Dec 20 Couldn't really have put any of that much better myself prickettboy3. Been so many comings and goings over the last 4 or 5 years that it's been difficult to feel as much "love" for the team as I used to in the Sir Bobby ,Lyall ,Burley & Royle years. Thankfully Mick know's how to put a "team" together and those feelings will hopefully start to return soon. Awwwww.
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danger_matt added 17:02 - Dec 20 Overall I would agree with your conclusions, although it seems a bit unfair not to give some love to Carlos here. He's been a consistent and loyal servant for a while now, even when most of his time here he's been played out of position. Credit where it's due.
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Bonus added 17:38 - Dec 20 I was having the exact same chat with someone today about this and everything you have said is right there have just been too many changes over the past few years that we never have time to relate to the players and in turn they don't have time to get really committed to the club as say Holland, Stockwell etc. My son has this years Calander and nearly every player no longer plays for us. I think at last we have another manager who is building a great team and one that should have a future together with only a few tweeks here and there. Hopefully we will have more players we can fully "love" again.

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Edmunds5 added 09:17 - Dec 21 I think sometimes people have to understand where the club is, the club has made mistakes over the past few years by trying to do things too quickly instead of building a squad which ended up with Mick taking over a squad bereft of confidence and bottom of the League. Things change in football and I'm sure there are many clubs in the football league who would say something very similar to the thoughts in this blog, Sheff Utd, Wolves, Coventry, Bristol City for example who are in various positions in League 1. Then I look at us and where we are and we're on the even of the play-offs. Yes we're not as entertaining but we're starting to look like a proper football club again and other teams are aware of our progress, they don't want to play us at the moment.

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MrDiddle added 12:19 - Dec 21 Agree with danger_matt there. As well as being consistent, there were 2 particular games late on last season where Carlos scored and won us the game - and kept us up! I think Mick adding the experience this year will only do us good in the long run. We've had a good nucleus to the team for a while now, just think these extra additions (Hunt and SEB) will give us the extra class we've all been crying out for.

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loudnproud added 08:23 - Dec 26 Interesting notes regarding the support of the NSL...In my opinion i believe This club of ours has suffered poor leadership mainly off the field and we the fans have had to suffer this week in week out for seasons on end,continuing to dip into our pockets. Yes MM has bought some stability which in turn will ease the suspicious minds from the faithful whom after all have endured total dross for several seasons. Another more "youthful" generation are now making their voices known on the terraces. Each with their own brand of wit and humor. Some of these young ones have not yet witnessed a full PR in full voice, European away nites and of course Wembley days out. Give it some time and im sure they will. We all support the club in different ways, If you want to sing ya hearts out, I say do so with pride in your voice, If you want to sit their and be critical of what you are seeing,I say, do so but be constructive with it.......enjoy the season

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JWM added 18:16 - Dec 27 If Mick reaches the play-offs this year whilst only spending 20k in the Summer then he deserves the freedom of the Town! It will be a momentous achievement and should be compared with anything that Bobby or even Alf achieved. Given the bloody big mess that Mick walked into achieving even a play-off spot this year with a team that spent most of last season fighting off relegation will be a marvellous achievement and we should all respect Mick and the team for finally bringing back some pride to this football club!

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Bergholtblue added 19:57 - Jan 2 There are a lot of factors involved here, but the main one is the mood of the fans. Cromwellblue hit upon it that with the arrival of ME, the club went from being one with a proud history, to one believing we could regain former glories. Frustration has set in because rather than moving on, we have gone backwards. Over the years I have also noticed that the mood of the crowd changes with the relative fortunes of the budgies up the road. It galls to see them competing in the Premier League whilst we languish in the Championship. If they had remained in League 1 all this time, the mood at PR would be a whole lot better. So in these times we need our heroes. Town fans respect players who give their all week in week out even if they are not the most exciting of player sin the squad e.g. Micky Stockwell. Do the current crop of players show the same level of effort week in week out? Probably Cresswell, Smith and Skuse do. But everyone else has up and down games. What about being loyal servants? Well, none of the current crop have been here long enough for that accolade. So then we look for the characters. Just look at how we took Jimmy Bullard to our hearts we he first turned up on loan. Who have we got in the side who is a character? The only one that comes to mind is Chambers with his fist pumping at the and of the match. Perhaps that is why we are tolerating him at right back. I am sure like performances from less liked players would not have been so accepted. I come to think of the players whose names have echoed from the terraces in recent years. Pablo, Finidi, Sereni, Bontcho come to mind. Not the greatest players to ever put on a blue shirt, but were guaranteed to get a song. So that's the answer we need players whose names go well in a terrace chant! At the end of the day, we have got who we have got. I wonder at the fickleness of the Town support when one week "Lukey Hyam, he's one of our own" can be heard ringing out; then he gets booed off the pitch at the next home game. Anyone who wears the blue and white shirt on match day deserve our utmost support.

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