












So, much as I enjoyed watching our highly impressive, rousing start to the campaign, this, for me, is Adrian Boothroyd’s first landmark of genuine note. The nature of the man, it appears, is such that he wouldn’t greet it with more than a passing shrug and a sharp quip, but it is an achievement nevertheless. Because the consolidation is much more significant than the initial conquest: we might very easily have slipped back into mid-table by now, looking back upon those late summer days as a glorious, short-lived memory. Instead, we’re still here, claiming the right to consider ourselves contenders. That’s a bloody triumph, to my mind.