Aye, but you do actually have to get to a final to have the opportunity to win one if that ain't too difficult to get your head round.

I travelled down on my own for the '85 final just shy of my 16th b/day, very memorable, deeply dissapointed despite the spectacle and the incredible atmosphere.

However that era was tinged with frustration to say the least, yes we won all our 26 Div2 games - yes we went onto being a force within the game for 5 years but with the spending that we did, bringing in name after name after name and with a massive squad we underperformed far too often.
Lost the 81/82 championship because we couldn't beat a micturate poor third rate Whitehaven side early in the season as an example (That finished bottom by miles), lost a CC final if not three (not just down to Sammy's boot); wrong attitude against Fev, coaching mistakes in the '85 final. We lost a fair few finals due to Bunting's failings IMHO.

I was going to mention about Bunting and what he was like in the dressing room (direct from a family member whom knew all the players at the time) but I won't, but I think it was part of why we didn't win as much silverware as we should have.

We splashed out massively and fell at the final hurdle too often, three Yorky cups, a JPT, a CC win & one Championship was by comparsion to the previous 25 years an incredible transformation BUT I think it was a poor return. We didn't really develop/allow our promising colts/youth system to flourish and I think that was part of the reason we fell by the wayside after '85.

A Roy Francis at the helm would have seen us dominate the game for years

i remember it well.traveled down from edinburgh with my lad.remember it most of all,because on the way home ,the bloody train broke down in the middle of nowhere,and it was freezing.had to wrap my lad in my parka till we got going again and the heat started to come through.

hindsight is a wonderful thing. At the time all I remember was how great it was. Derby matches were proper affairs between the two best sides in the country. Every cup campaign saw us expecting to do well. Yes we had some lows. 83 being the biggest but I don't recall any doom and gloom.

It appears that I am exactly the same age as you and I'd say your comments above are simple said in hindsight and not how you were feeling at the time. At the time it was simply great to follow a top side with wonderful players week in week out. It was era of professional pay, but amateur standards. Drinking cultures and basic training, but a love and desire to do well in the shirt they wore.
Yes we bought some quality, but Bunting also blended in some great journey men Dean, Harkin, Birdsall, Walters to name a few. They were not all big money star signings.

Anyway they were all happy days as a teenager supporting the best club in the world, which only in hindsight can we say we underachieved.

Tend to agree with this too.

Hindsight has lent a slightly more harded headed sense to the Bunting era. A feeling that despite the trophies won, too many others slipped through our fingers. Looking back it seems as if for every Cup won there was always a price to pay. Beating rovers in the Floodlit Final was counterbalanced by "that game" a few months later. We did win the Challenge Cup two years later but blew the Championship when we had one hand on it by losing to Fulham. The following year we rectified that in grand style only then to freeze (again) at Wembley. The season also always seemed to end in defeat in the Premiership Final in those days, or it certainly felt that way.

I agree with you though that this has become a retrospective view. At the time it was exciting to watch us competing in every Cup available, and being one of the teams that the rest of the league feared. Some of the greatest players ever to wear the B&W shirt come from this era and we had some fantastic afternoons & nights in those years.

This was pre Wigan dominance and the idea of one team sweeping all before them for a period of time didn't really enter anyone's thoughts. Whatever the Cups won & lost, I will always cherish some very special memories from that time as I suspect you will too.

i think we certainly should have won the championship more than once in that era, and i remember a desperatley disappointing performance away at barrow in the john player trophy one year (QF?) when we somehow contrived to lost our grip on another trophy