As we are into a new decade, every month I will be looking back at a season from the 00's, also I will be looking at two of the best players from a particular season and how they helped the club. Also I will be looking at a player from the same year who didn't deserve to wear the red and white of Swindon Town.

This month I will be looking at the 04/05 season, a season full of optimism after the previous season, Mooney turns his back on Town and Parkin continues his amazing goal scoring run.

As the previous season Town looked to bolster there squad with some fresh faces, but only managed to bring in a few players on a permanent contacts, Jerel Ifil joined the club for 70K from Watford and turned out to be one of the best signings of the decade, but the other two were easily forgettable, Steve Book brought in as a second choice goalkeeper and Lloyd Opara from signed on from non-league Grays and unfortunately for him he only played 1 game in his Town career, But we were a lot more successful in the loan market bringing in Darius Henderson, Mark Yeates and Lee Holmes who all made an impact during the season.

Also during the pre-season Tommy Mooney left the club to join local rivals Oxford Utd on a free transfer to the amazement of all the fans, the reason being that Mooney had said he wasn’t offered the deal he was promised earlier in the season so he left the club after only one year in Wiltshire.

Unfortunately Town couldn’t reproduce the form they had shown the previous season and it never really looked likely that we would be challenging for a playoff spot again in the re-branded League One, The season can really be summed up in the clubs F.A Cup run where we had to beat League Two's Notts County in the second round to get a big third round draw against Premiership side Middlesbrough but with the Sky camera's watching Town put in a awful display and Notts County go on to win 2-0.

Best players of the season...

Even though his best seasons were still to come Jerel Ifil has to be one of the best 3 singings made in the 00's. Playing over 200 games for Town in a 7 year period he was a rock at the back. After signing on loan for Town 3 times during 03/04 Town finally brought Jerel to the club for 70K from Watford in July 2004, he played a huge part in the club gaining promotion back to League One in 2007, and scoring a very rare goal on the last game of the season to secure Town's promotion. At the beginning of this season after 1 sub appearance on the opening day he left to join Scottish Premier League team Aberdeen on a free transfer and thus far has played 30 games for the club this season.

Even though he was only at Town for 2 seasons Brian Howard made his mark on Town's history, mainly in the previous season were himself and Sammy Igoe were one of the main reasons Town made the playoffs, in this season his form was a little bit more up and down but still had a good season overall, unfortunately Brian decided to leave Town on a free transfer in 2005 to Barnsley, the main highlight of his Barnsley career came at Anfield where he scored a 90th Minute winner to dump Liverpool out of the F.A Cup. He now plays up the M4 at the Madejski Stadium for Reading.

And the worst...

Again there are a few names that come to mind when thinking about a player who failed to make an impact at the County Ground, Jamie Slabber, Jamie McMaster and Steve Book to name a few but for me Lloyd Opara just gets the nod, As I have already mentioned Lloyd was brought in from non-league football in June 2004 and unfortunately must have still thought he was at that level, all this criticism might be a little harsh seeing that he only played 1 game for Town and that was a league cup game, but his failure to break through into the first team shows he wasn’t up for the job and he decided to leave in September 2004 saying he couldn’t settle in the area, and that theme has continued on in his career, since leaving Town Lloyd has played for 17 clubs and now plays for Haringey Borough where he seems to have settled scoring 16 goals in 39 starts.