Mick McCarthy believes keeping Town in the Championship this season is up there with any of his other achievements in football management. The Blues were bottom of the table with seven points from 13 games when he took over on November 1st.
McCarthy, who took Town to 14th and 60 points by the end of the campaign, rates beating the drop alongside his previous successes: "It’s as good as any — winning the Championship twice, last 16 of the World Cup.
"I took a chance in taking a team which was bottom of the league. I didn’t want to get relegated out of the Championship.
"When you get a job where they’re bottom of the league you don’t come in and find a team that’s buoyant and buzzing and full of confidence and everybody’s feeling good about themselves.
"It’s quite the opposite and your job is to turn that around. Why ever [the previous manager] loses it is not my point, generally that’s the feeling and it’s the new manager’s job to turn that around and make sure you get some good feeling back.
"We all have a different way of doing that and I’m just delighted that I managed to do it and [we were] safe with a game to play.”
McCarthy says it’s only ever your most recent success that people talk about: "Nobody ever says to me when it’s going badly and you’ve lost a couple, ‘You did well getting to the World Cup finals, didn’t you?’ or ‘Weren’t you really good at Sunderland winning the Championship?’, ‘Didn’t you do well at Wolves?’.
"Nobody’s bothered about them, they’re just consigned to the history books, the record books. Your current achievement for me is always the best one.
"And I think it’s a particularly good one anyway. If you remember when it was lashing down with rain on the Thursday before our first game against Birmingham, there wasn’t too much confidence around the place, was there?”