I thought the sacking of Porterfield was very harsh at the time. Ok, the team played poorly occasionally and we didn't have any fight or aggression that we later had under Bassett, but he did get us promoted twice and into the top half of the old second division (championship). He was sacked after losing 5-2 at home to Norwich who pissed the league that year and this only a few months after we'd been on a great run, memorably beating Oldham away 5-1, Bradford 4-1 and Portsmouth 3-0.
He made some good signings including Glenn Cockerill who hasn't been mentioned and he'd wanted to sign Ray Houghton (who I think was at Fulham at the time) and Peter Nicholas from Palace (who I think ended up at Arsenal) - so not a bad judge of a player. I seem to recall Brealey wouldn't allow us to spend £200k on Houghton!!! I think after that he basically went F*** you and ended up signing the likes of Thompson, Withe, McNaught and Mortimer. Mortimer was good and McNaught was ok too. I didn't like Withe but he did score a few. Thompson was useless (but then I thought he was at Liverpool too). Cockerill, as usual was sold as soon as someone came in with a few quid.
We ended up with Billy McEwan who promptly fell out with and sold Edwards and we were basically crap until Bassett came along and changed everything.
I think it shows once again to be careful what you wish for.
