Thanks for the memories Darren

Roeder's the boss and he's paid handsomely to make these decisions, so everyone just has to accept it. Whether it was the right one will partly depend on who he gets in to replace him.

Seems no sensible reason why people weren't told before the weekend, and it does seem that GR is a very strange bloke with some odd ideas about man management - not to mention team selections towards the end of the season.

I can understand why GR would want to start the season with a clean slate - the Hucks situation would always hang over him if he wasn't selected. It's just a shame that the two didn't hit it off as he and Worthy did because Hucks showed after he got fit from his injury (which he did) that he is still the one player in the squad that other teams were scared of - still doubling up on him, still moving their best players to mark him (Hassell of Barnsley) and still backing off him when he had the ball. Even in these past few weeks he has been the one player you'd really look forward to seeing on a Saturday afternoon, mainly because there are very few quality dribblers left in the game at this level.

Darren could have left for more money and possible glory at Celtic and Liverpool (plus some European clubs) but chose to stick it out in the Championship for the one club he had felt truly at home at. In an era of greedy players he will have our undying respect for that. When Darren's signing was in the balance that Christmas his family were in tears that it had fallen through - how many footballers and their families feel that strongly about a club they have no birth ties to? Very, very few. And how many players have pledged never to play against a club they only graced for four full seasons? Not Michael Owen, not Robbie Fowler, not Alan Shearer. I'd be surprised if there are any.

We loved him so much partly because he loved us so much. It's true that football managers can't afford to be overly sentimental, but from a fan's point of view football's an emotional game and it's a hard-hearted manager who denies a player who so deeply cares for his club the chance to say goodbye to the fans who hailed him as a genuine legend.

For us it's not exactly the end of the world - we won a lot of games mid season without Hucks, and hopefully GR can get Chadders fit for the whole season and get in half a dozen decent players. Personally I'd play Drury and Bertrand down the left (assuming we get him back).

Very sad that there'll be no more Hucks, even sadder about the way it was handled. But he'll always have his title-winners medal and we'll always have our memories.

Cheers Hucks, and good luck.

Posted By: duke of york, May 6, 22:36:35