Now before I start don't get me wrong. Like the rest of you at one time I would have let Jimmy shag my wife. Such was my admiration for the man I'd have probably have joined him in a threesome!

The cheeky chap joined us on loan, ran the Championship ragged and nearly all of us joined in the weekly chorus of 'sign him up'.

Some people opposed. Many were sceptical of his injury record. Some his age and reported high wages. We can't deny there were warning signs. His dismissal at Hull a big one. But somehow I honestly think most of us, naively somewhat believing still in happy endings despite what football has told us before, believed it would work.

It was a beautiful fit in some ways. Paul Jewell was the man who had got the best out of the one-time England squad member. We were a decent family club that liked to play football the right way, even if previous managers were oblivious to that.

The fact was for £15k or £20k a week a match fit Bullard was a match winner of the highest order. A Premier League player whose baggage has weighed him down a whole division. But in Jewell we had the antidote to that self destructive streak and now had that player of real quality all promotion hopefuls seem to have.

But as much as we all dreamed it would be a marriage made in heaven Bullard has only served to prove how much the game has changed. He isn't a Matt Holland that will clap the fans all day long. He isn't a Mick Stockwell that will make hundreds of appearances for the club. He was a lovable rogue that could do things Championship players shouldn't be able to do.

There are mercenaries in our game. Players that happen to be bloody good at football and can command a fair whack, that probably don't really care where they work or who they work for. Then there are players like Stevie G that would die for their clubs and whom would never really do any wrong in the eyes of their supporters if they played for 100 years.

But Bullard wasn't sold as your modern day footballer. Like Rooney and Stevie G he was supposedly in love with the game. The kind of bloke who'd join you in the street for a kickabout. The money and the fame and all the trimmings were no doubt well received. But it was football that Jimmy loved first and foremost. It was in his blood, we were told.

After a couple of years of doing nothing at Hull he came to this once great club where we were crying out for a hero. Years of Championship fare served up with little chance of a promotion pudding at the end of it. Here we had our hero. Adored with every free kick. Mobbed at every corner kick.

We loved Jimmy. But Jimmy didn't really love us. It seems sad that a man apparently so in love with the game can enter the twilight of what could have been a great career and be satisfied to let it just fade and die.

He has the rest of his life to party, to prance about and to live the vida loca. This should have been the time when the man that loved to do what he was paid well to do went out in a blaze of glory and did it while he still could.

If justice prevails he will simply fizzle out. Any player who has left two clubs under a cloud in quick succession should find work hard to come by but as we all know there's always another manager somewhere who sees an opportunity, when for me what Bullard really deserves now is to be forgotten about and for the flame that could have shone brightly for just a few more years to disappear altogether.

Not all modern footballers are the same. But many now are stereotyped and many of those deservedly so. For all his reported problems though deep down we wanted to believe that Bullard was one of the good guys. There's little doubt at one time he loved the beautiful game. So what a sad state it is when it just becomes a job to even those that we wanted to believe were truly different.

Jimmy Bullard thank you for the brief flicker of hope. You may not feel you've let yourself down. You may not care. But in your shoes I could have been a hero one last time. As someone who loves football that for me would have been worth more than anything else I could have gained in my final years.

Jimmy Bullard - the hero we never really had.

Sindre94 added 14:41 - Aug 9 Nice words. COJB
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itfcjames added 15:07 - Aug 9 Brilliant blog. Believe it sums up how the majority of fans feel. Very sad to see such a cult hero depreciate in such a short time.
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lilcornishblue added 15:21 - Aug 9 This is a good blog to read thy has a very positive impact on jimmy (excluding the weird and slightly gay starting bit)but yeah this was a dry good read and I will be dissappointed when he leave but he is starting to be a huge cost just for him to score 1 goal last season hopefully with this money we might be able to get Davis and a central defender my choice would be the great Titus Brambel on loan!!!

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irishtim added 15:25 - Aug 9 Well put mate.
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ketton_itfc added 16:11 - Aug 9 Nice blog mate :-)
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ChestnutSe added 18:37 - Aug 9 I used to have a wife like that!
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Daleyitfc added 18:49 - Aug 9 Well said, though his self-centred demise came as no surprise to those of us who have been around for a while, and really didn't want him here. I assume all the pillocks that voted for him, as a loan player, to be Player of the Year, now feel a bit foolish.
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AJblue added 18:58 - Aug 9 Very good blog. Wanted him to be a hero so much, so feel a little deflated today, I dont suppose anyone will ever really know quite what has happened behind closed doors, your summing up of the situation though is not too far from the truth.
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Guthrum added 19:11 - Aug 9 No, Daley, I don't feel foolish at having voted for him as Player of the Season in 2010-11, nor do I regret having done it. I feel his contribution while on loan did much to drag us up from the fringes of relegation where we were mired at the beginning of that January. My vote related purely to that season and had nothing to do with whether I thought he should have been re-signed subsequently or his largely ineffective presence at the club thereafter.

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Hiltzkooler added 19:39 - Aug 9 good blog, I'm in the same place - Daley, you were right, now douse yourself in the ignomy of being right.....
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iamipswich added 22:24 - Aug 9 Wonderful blog, beautifully written and exactly right. Practically brought to tears! Sums up exactly how we all felt throughout the rollercoaster that is and soon was Jimmy Bullard.
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michaeldownunder added 22:48 - Aug 9 Good blog Daley, maybe you should have a word with him as you always seem to be right NOT !!!!!!!!!! and do you realy need to insult fellow posters ?
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Michael11 added 23:33 - Aug 9 Very good blog mate totally agree! COYB
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TR11BLU added 08:43 - Aug 10 Very good blog and excellent post Daley. I too didnt want him here and couldnt fathom the logic of those who voted him PoTS on a handful of appearances. Would stop at the pillock tag but hey we all have our opinions.. Lets just hope some sucker takes him off our books, doubt it somehow. He will no doubt take us for every penny that remains on his contract.
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rosseden added 09:33 - Aug 10 excellent blog...... i was thinking about this the other day, short of a punditry career, where his booze on tour is paid for and his antics allowed, most likely with Sky, i do wonder if he'd end up going down the self destruct route after football. He might be worth a lot of cash now but as previous footballers can vouch, your lifestyle has to really change when the money stops rolling in........ and it doesnt seem like his would do...... broke by fourty something and struggling, or a reknowned pundit, doesnt seem theres any middle ground with JB, much like his playing career!

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Surco72 added 10:09 - Aug 10 I voted for Jimmy as player of the year because he was the only highlight in a very poor year and lokking back would vote for him again ,dont see why that makes me an idiot ? And Daley if you constantly moan about every decision being wrong once in a while even you will be proved right, very rare though isnt it
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Warkys_Tash added 13:13 - Aug 10 Nice blog, well written and nothing more I need to add as you have said exactly how I feel & probbaly many others.
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bluearmy4life added 23:39 - Aug 10 Daley...... Bullard deserved to be player of the year at the time. Perhaps you don't go to all the games which is why your comment is irrelavent. Anyway..... Good blog, JB could of become a hero. I was hoping when he signed for us that we would eventually play in the prem again and he would finish his career on a high note with us. It's a shame, maybe when JB writes a book we might know more. Just concerned with the lack of options and strength in depth.

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HethersettTractorboy added 12:32 - Aug 11 really enjoyed this Blog , I think it sums up how most of us are feeling about him. He now has so much money in the bank he doesn't give an Aylesbury duck! What a waste of talent....
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taylor15 added 13:12 - Aug 11 great blog. i just wish jimmy could be the man which we saw last season. all the best JB, someone brilliant to have about the changing rooms.
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blockb_steward added 08:24 - Aug 13 Great blog. We were all daring to dream after we finally signed him up. He could have been a Town great...what really happened Jimmy?
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