Monday 27 April 2015

The blame game

So that's it then.
There was no great escape, no reprieve, and we have got exactly what we deserved. Many of us have known deep down for weeks, even months, that it was coming - but that doesn't make it any less heartbreaking.
No team with five wins in 39 games and one clean sheet in seven months deserves to stay up, and it's not bad luck, injuries or referees who have relegated us, it is stunning ineptitude on and off the field.
So who is to blame? That's the question which many CTFC fans are asking, and they will all have different answers - the players, the board, the managers... the truth is it is a combination of things which have culminated in this devastating blow to our football club.
The players
Ultimately, the performances of the vast majority of the 41 players we have used this season have been well below the standard required to keep us in this division. Well below.
Managers can train them and fill them with as much information as they like, but once they cross the white line, they take the responsibility, and they have fallen well short.
Too often, they have lacked the mental strength and the will to go that extra mile, put their bodies on the line and just fight tooth and nail for 90 minutes every week for the shirt they are wearing.
That attitude was shown on Saturday after the final whistle. Only four players could be bothered to face the supporters - Joe Hanks, Trevor Carson, Matt Gould and Shaun Harrad. One of those hasn't played a game, one of the others is a loanee.
I don't tar the younger guys with this brush, players like Zack and Omari, and guys who were on the bench, but the more senior players amongst the squad should be ashamed of themselves.
They should have been told to get out there and face the music. Face the supporters they have let down time and time again.
There are some among this group that I never want to see again and I cannot wait for the day when our football club does not have to pay them a wage. They don't deserve to make a living from the hard-earned money our supporters pay for their season tickets.
Short-changed doesn't even begin to describe how much they have been let down, not just this season, but for the last two - and I have to admit I was not surprised that there were some angry scenes in the car park after the game.
I am not condoning those actions at all, I hate to see that sort of thing - but I can understand people who have spent a lot of money going up and down the country being frustrated at what they saw as some players trying to sneak out with no regard for those they have let down. Maybe they could have channelled it better.
But I feel that if the players had faced the music, bitten the bullet and been a bit humble after the game by facing the fans, those scenes may have been avoided.
Haring off down the tunnel (invading Shrewsbury fans or not - that's no excuse and some of them made it to the fans) only stoked up the frustration of many.
It only added to the impression that they don't care. I know some do (I saw Wes Burns in tears by the dugout) but some of them have just treated the supporters with utter disdain.
Not fit to wear the shirt? Most of them simply are not.
Player recruitment
Turn the clock back to January 28, 2012. On that day, we travelled to Moss Rose, Macclesfield, and won 3-1 to go top of League Two. The only thoughts that day would have been about a future in League One.
That's where we should have ended up, but unfortunately that was to be the pinnacle for us and it has been a slippery slope since then.
Our team that day? - It was Brown, Jombati, Garbutt, Lowe, Bennett, Pack, Smikle, McGlashan, Summerfield, Goulding, Mohamed. The bench was Hooman, Low, Spencer, Duffy and Penn. Steve Elliott was injured and was also in the squad.
It goes without saying that most of those players would walk into this team now - even the ones like Junior Smikle, Jeff Goulding and Josh Low who weren't universal crowd favourites would undoubtedly give more than some of those we have had to endure lately.
That seemed to be a squad going places. It should have been going to League One, but ultimately it has ended up in (amongst other places) Aberdeen, Wycombe, York (x3), Wimbledon, Bristol, Gillingham and India.
Good players allowed to drift away far too easily, and replaced with mediocrity or short-term loanees with no interest, no connection and nowhere near the same ability.
There were also leaders there, especially Alan Bennett and Russ Penn. That leadership went with them and was also never replicated and it is that midfield which sums it up.
For most of that season, we had the 'holy trinity' of Pack, Penn and Summerfield in midfield. Summers left after Wembley, Pack stayed (just) for one more season, then Penn was discarded after the Tamworth Cup defeat.
The replacements gradually got worse, as we went through Darren Carter to David Noble via Sam Deering (80-odd games, no goals for an 'attacking midfielder') and Jason Taylor, to end up with Matt Richards - who, along with Craig Braham-Barrett and Troy Brown were signed the summer after we had just finished fifth in the table.
That trio have been mainstays in the side over the past two seasons, and now we are in the Conference. I think that tells you all you need to know about their ability. Not good enough.
Look at left-back. We had Garbutt, who was a loanee and never a long-term option, but he had replaced Danny Andrew, a player who had a lovely left foot but was maybe not the best defender. See also Billy Jones. But there can't be many who would pick Braham-Barrett, who we have endured for 81 games over two seasons over either of those two - defensive deficiencies or dodgy knees and all.
I am simply stunned he has survived all four managers this season. The failure to at least try Paul Black in that role when he was signed was just disgraceful. Surely he can't have been any worse?
The loanees have been a source of huge frustration to me. Far, far too many and most of them of dubious quality and even fewer who actually have improved us. Money chucked away.
Mark Yates was the biggest culprit, stunting the development of our own young players with stop gap after stop gap, and the quality gradually got worse as time went on.
For example, Joe Hanks was sent out to Gloucester while Polyfilla stop-gap players came in to take the place he should have been occupying in the side.
After making his debut in October 2012, he had to wait 18 months until the final two games of 2013-14 to play again as loanee after loanee was brought in ahead of him.
After Jack Butland and Garbutt in 2011-12, there were very few good ones from any managers. Ben Burgess in the play-offs that year, Michael Hector came in after Bennett's departure in 2013, Koby Arthur gave us hope back in August, Jack Dunn lit us up briefly and Wes Burns shone in the death throes this season.
But there are far more like Lee Lucas, Eusebio, Kane Ferdinand, Shaq McDonald, Billy Daniels, Jake Taylor, Kemar Roofe, Michael Ihiekwe, James Wilson and Toby Ajala - who never even got on the pitch. The list goes on and on -and I bet you have forgotten most of them were ever here.
From a good-quality committed squad in early 2012, who cared about the club and had a connection with the supporters (especially the likes of Scott Brown, Bennett, Penn, Lowe, Pack and Duffy) we have been left with players who for the most part can't wait to run off the pitch and hide, then try to sneak out of the ground without so much as a sorry for the fans they let down.
Managers
Mark Yates
At the start of 2012, we were flying. Playing some fantastic football - remember those wins at Oxford, Bristol Rovers and Bradford... that home win over Southend.
Before we get too wistful, back to reality. We played Spurs in the Cup, made some money and Mark Yates walked on the White Hart Lane pitch and made that infamous signal pointing upwards. If only Mark.
Suddenly, the club seemed to be going places. Top of league soon after at Macclesfield, and with FA Cup money burning a hole in our pocket - and it was soon spent on Jermaine McGlashan.
Now let me get this straight right now. I am not blaming Jermaine for anything which has happened.
But we just didn't need that type of player. My view is that the board and manager decided they had to make some sort of statement and made a big-money signing just because they could to show the fans they were trying to show some ambition, and 'go for it'.
If they wanted to do that, I feel they should have looked around and tried to strengthen what we had - look at the depth of the squad and bolster it rather than splurging it all on one player just because he played well against us a couple of times in the recent past.
We were playing a system which worked. Four at the back, the holy trinity three in midfield and two wid-ish men (usually Mo and Jimmy Spencer) with one front man, Jeff G or Darryl for the most part.
McGlashan's arrival meant the system changed. Yates tinkered with something which was working and the momentum was lost. We had that mad March and eventually scraped into the play-off final but lost to a Crewe side on an amazing run with an inspired player in Nick Powell.
Yates dropped Penn and Duffy at Wembley, and with defeat the team began to break up, and as I have outlined above the squad gradually got worse quality and determination-wise.
Duffy was frozen out, Bennett and Goulding left the following January as Byron Harrison arrived, yet with players like Shaun Harrad and Marlon Pack we got to the play-offs again but lost to Northampton.
That was to be the summit from which we have now plunged to Saturday's relegation as Yates - previously held up as 'having a good eye for a player' lost his touch completely and lost the plot where player recruitment was concerned.
It wasn't just the recruitment, it was also how he used them. Look at the forwards he signed - a virtual who's who of lower division forwards, all with exceptional records wherever they had been. Until they got here.
Paul Benson, Harrad, Jamie Cureton all scored goals at League Two and, in some cases, a lot higher. Here, they were in and out of the team, dropped if they went a game or two without a goal, chopped and changed. They never looked the same players here as they had at Dagenham, at Burton and at Exeter, Bristol Rovers, Norwich, Reading etc etc
It was one up front a lot of the time, feeding on scraps with a central midfield and wide players incapable of providing them with the right kind of ammunition - a failure to play to their strengths. A far cry from the heady days of 2011-12.
It seemed to me that Yates had lost his touch. He seemed to have taken his eye off the ball, and the Cup defeat by Tamworth was the low point, and led to the frankly ridiculous and inexcusable decision to sell Russ Penn and Keith Lowe.
There was a case for him to go then, or even seven or eight games from the end of last season to allow someone a few weeks to assess the squad and make decisions.
His contract was up, it would have been a clean break. But what we got was a fudge. Neil Howarth sacrificed, and Yates given a one-year contract.
A vote of no-confidence, and a manager almost forced to work with both hands tied behind his back. He should have gone then.
The start in August papered over the cracks, based on the goals and pace of Koby Arthur. Four wins and two draws - but let's dissect them a bit.
Bury was a good win, I'll give you that. Hartlepool was a last-minute winner. Accrington missed a penalty in the last minute for a 2-2 draw. Tranmere led 2-0 and their season shows how bad they were.
The Carlisle draw featured a last-minute 'offside' goal dubiously chalked off after we were outplayed, and the Morecambe game was pretty tepid.
We were hardly playing teams off the park, and once Arthur was called back we dropped off, and won five matches from then on.
Yates lasted until November and that's when the wheels came off - but don't kid yourselves that it wasn't the right time to sack him. In my view he was lucky to still be here, play-off seasons or not. I don't hold with the 'we would have stayed up if he stayed' argument at all.
He had hit the wall. We were on the slide having taken nine points out of 36.
Forget the Swindon win, a total freak performance. The 5-1 and 4-1 defeats by Stevenage and Wycombe which followed were right up there with bad performances under later managers - Stevenage especially - that was an abject surrender.
Paul Buckle
So the Yates decision was right in my view, but what happened next was just shocking from Paul Baker and the board.
First we had the 'vote of confidence' statement the day before Yates was fired. An utter farce. Then after Yates had been fired at 9am on the Tuesday after Wycombe, by 2pm I know Buckle was going to get the job.
It smacked of the Martin Allen appointment within hours of Keith Downing's sacking, and the alarm bells should have been ringing loud and clear.
But we shouldn't have been surprised as the board's track record for managerial appointments is not exactly startling, but this is the one which will arguably go down as the most costly.
This was a man who had been out of the loop for 18 months but had apparently almost got the Burton job. Imagine if that had happened. Just imagine. Wow. Things could have been soooo different!
Apparently, we spoke to people at Torquay, Bristol Rovers and Luton. All spoke well about him. Not many fans on social media did, and so it seems those fans knew a bit more than those at the top.
This was a man who passed the buck from day one. None of it was his fault.
Mark Yates left him with a poor squad. He told that 'poor squad'  that from day one, and - surprise, surprise - they didn't want to know after that. I was told he 'lost the dressing room' within a week. My Twitter DM feed was full of club staff asking me to do all I could to get the man out.
He didn't seem to be able to handle the senior players with strong characters - so that was that for Jason Taylor, Steve Elliott and others like Terry Gornell and Byron Harrison.
Elliott was treated appallingly and it was good to see him come back and help out Russ Milton, then Gary Johnson - but I have to also say I didn't disagree about getting rid of the other three, and still don't.
Taylor is just a poor footballer, as are most of the ones he left behind. Yes I know, he has done well at Northampton and got a two-year deal, but all he really did here was point a lot.
Harrison scored 15 goals last season but offered next to nothing this bar three tap-ins against Swindon. To say he would have scored the goals to save us is, quite frankly, a joke.
His 'display' when he came on at Hartlepool in a crucial game showed just how much he would have fought for the cause.
Gornell had scored about eight goals in 80 games for us. Not a record to suggest he would have been the saviour either despite what he did at Accrington after his move.
About the only decent thing he did was to bring in Jack Dunn and Kevin Stewart, two loanees who made a difference - but they needed some of those seniors around them, and they had been alienated or shipped out.
Things got worse and worse, and he finally went after we had won one game in 13 including the Dover FA Cup loss, and the most disgusting evening of League football I have ever seen involving a Cheltenham Town side, the 2-0 loss at Southend.
Only 49 CTFC fans went. They sang 'We want Buckle out' almost constantly. Lee Vaughan laid bare to fans before the game and to me at half-time just what had been going on.
Buckle and Rob Edwards sat motionless on the bench all match. No encouragement, no motivation. Southend scored after eight minutes and the game may as well have stopped then. Our players were going through the motions and had effectively downed tools as far as the manager was concerned.
That night Buckle called the chairman and told him he wanted out, and two days later, after he had farcically done a press conference for a match he and the media knew he wouldn't be in charge of anyway, he was on a plane back over the pond.
Even by Cheltenham Town standards, this was just an utter shambles. Effectively 13 wasted games and an appointment which was wrong from day one - but not the sole reason for relegation, albeit a significant factor.
Russell Milton/Steve Elliott
The club was now totally disunited and the appointment of Russ and Steve was definitely the right one to reunite fans and players together to fight the drop.
The atmospheres against Bury and then for the win over Tranmere were fantastic and things definitely seemed to be on the up.
He was able to bring players in, and Matt Sparrow and Pablo Mills started well but gradually faded away, Shaun Harrad gave his all with little reward and Danny Haynes shone all too briefly.
Will Packwood was a success before he got injured, and the Tranmere momentum carried on against Newport and Portsmouth with encouraging away performances which should have brought more rewards than two draws - but unfortunately that was as good as it got.
We should have built on those displays against Exeter and Plymouth at home, and after the Argyle loss, I felt the chirpy Russ we had seen in previous post-match interviews was replaced by a more serious, worried tone.
The fact that the board had mooted the possibility of bringing in a guiding experienced hand to help Russ and Steve suggested they didn't exactly have complete faith from the off, and so it proved when they made the final change.
Gary Johnson
Johnson was one of the names in the frame to be the experienced hand to help Russ and Steve, as he had left Yeovil nine days before Buckle was sacked.
The home defeats by Exeter and Plymouth seemed to convince the board they needed to make one more last throw of the dice and brought him in. A final gamble.
He couldn't bring in any players as all the deadlines had passed, so was left with what he had, and couldn't wave a magic wand and make a silk purse out of the sow's ear he inherited.
Ahead of Saturday's final League game (for now we hope) it's been one win and five defeats for Gary, no better than Milton really, but neither of these last two managers - in my view - take culpability for what has happened as the damage had already been done.
The Cambridge win was ultimately a false dawn as the players couldn't be trusted to follow it up with another decent showing and that was basically that.
But there were still some strange decisions and happenings. A lot of niggly injuries - over-training maybe?
Kane Ferdinand on the right wing at Northampton for half an hour after not playing for weeks - never seemed to be a good plan that one, and thankfully it was nipped in the bud.
But will he stay? The chairman wants him to, as do a lot of fans. We shall see.
The board
Two decisions will be looked back on with enormous regret as the curtain comes down on our Football League life - keeping Mark Yates last summer, and appointing Paul Buckle with such haste when he was eventually sacked.
Ultimately they have proved costly - but they are not by any means the sole reason why we have gone down.
As Paul Baker correctly stated after holding his hands up to these two mistakes, they have done a lot more right in the past 16 years or so, but they need to learn from what has happened.
A bit more ruthlessness with Yates last summer instead of what turned out to be a bit of a fudge could have set us on a different path. Ifs buts and maybes...
To have kept us on a relatively solid footing over 16 years in the Football League has been a great achievement and that should not be forgotten in all this - despite their slightly dodgy record at times on choosing managers along the way...
Neither should the redevelopment of the ground, the facilities at Seasons and the Academy set-up as well which hopefully will stand us in good stead going forward - for as long as it can be sustained financially.
That has always been the issue. The club has lived from hand to mouth all the way through, expect when we have had a little bit of extra investment, but that from Simon Keswick for while or Mr Mystery from the Cayman Islands.
But all along, for 16 years, one accusation has been levelled at Paul Baker and the board. Lack of ambition.
These three words always crop up when things go wrong. We don't hear them when we are in play-off finals or have a cup run. Lose a few games and out it comes again.
But they have always backed their managers. The budget has always been competitive - and this season's was bigger than Wycombe's, who might yet go up. Practically every loan request has been granted.
So basically the board have put the money up, but they have been let down on various occasions by managers who have spent the money abysmally. No more so than the last two summers.
Now we have the Trust money and having a director on the board, but things do need to change at the higher level.
We need to find new blood, new investment - easier said than done I know - and we need to get back to some strong leadership off the field. It is more important than ever.
Things have slipped up recently and at times we have appeared rudderless - so it has been good to see Paul Baker being decisive and honest in the days since Saturday and not hiding away like many of our players but coming out and fronting up.
I am glad he is staying on and I think we need to keep that continuity with the chairmanship at this time.
Good people are going to lose their jobs, in the club's office and among the management team, they are going to have to make cuts and still try to keep us competitive at this lower level. A tough ask.
The fans
No blame attached here - just admiration and respect for those who have stuck by the club over the past two seasons, and this one especially.
The 200 or so who have travelled up the motorways every other Saturday deserve huge credit and have been let down, as have those who have bought season tickets and endured the home games.
Over the years, there have been those who have drifted away. Some have valid reasons, family commitments, cost, work commitments - and I know many people who would be there week in, week out if their personal circumstances were different.
But there are those who have turned their backs on the club for less valid reasons. Mainly because we didn't win every week and weren't playing teams they have heard of every week.
They'd pack the ground for Leeds, or Nottingham Forest in League One. They would be happy to go to Spurs, to Wembley, and then moan when Everton at home sold out before they got a ticket. But Accrington at home? No thanks.
For some so-called fans, the novelty wore off and League Two football became boring, so off they went back to their Sky subscriptions and the Premier League - all of which works out costing more in a season than a season ticket at Whaddon.
Others will turn their backs now. Non-league football will be beneath them. Cheerio then. So much for 'thick and thin', eh?
I know the ones who will still be there at Braintree and Barrow. They are the true fans.
What happens now?
First of all, I hope I can enjoy my football again next season, as the last two seasons really have been a complete drudge.
It would be nice to win a game or two at the very least and have some enjoyable Saturday nights instead of being miserable most of the time.
Above all, I just want to see some players with some commitment who look like they have some pride in the shirt they are wearing, rather than just seeing it as another club to earn some money from.
I appreciate that with the modern-day footballer, that would be a fanciful notion, but I can hope, can't I?
We have eight players out of contract, and I would not keep any of them. They are Troy Brown, Matt Richards, Craig Braham-Barrett, Durrell Berry, Mathieu Manset, Danny Haynes, Matt Gould and Andy Haworth (yes, remember him!!) and they can all go.
It is doubtful that the 14 who remain under contract will all be here come August.
Trevor Carson may want to move back North where his family are and try to find a League club. Surely there would be a taker somewhere.
Asa Hall and Matt Taylor both have fitness concerns. I'd like to think Hall might get fit and be an asset in the Conference - but we don't know as we just haven't seen him play.
Taylor is a concern to me. He keeps breaking down and the award of a two-year contract last summer on what must surely have been decent money is now exposed as total folly. His leadership qualities have also been exceptionally disappointing.
Lee Vaughan might have a future in the Conference, where he performed well enough for Kidderminster but as I suspect he too earns decent-ish money for our new budget he would be able to go if there were takers.
Let's face it, any of them would be able to go.
The other 10 under contract should all form a basis of next season's squad. Some of them, especially Eliot Richards (if he is fully recovered from his illness as we all hope), Jordan Wynter, Zack Kotwica and Joe Hanks have some experience and could flourish in the Conference.
It will be a big season for Kotwica and Hanks. Both have shown some promise and need to now kick on and establish themselves as 'senior' players in the ranks.
I have confidence that Hanks can do that, maybe in a 'holding' position where he can use his passing ability while others do the 'box to box' work. He can also take a decent set-piece, which might make a refreshing change.
I have reservations over Kotwica, who needs to be more positive when he gets a chance to run at players and make things happen. Omari Sterling-James is in the same boat. Both have shown little flashes but really need to try and kick on next season.
Also Jack Deaman, who did okay in some early games, but struggled in others with some mistakes leading to goals, but maybe he is another who could find his feet. Maybe - but I have my doubts.
James Bowen, Harry Williams and Bobbie Dale have barely had a look in, and I want to see these three get a chance. I mean a proper chance. All three played on loan last season at Conference North and South level so now they merit an opportunity to show what they can do.
Williams and Dale have scored goals wherever they have played, and Bowen looks a committed and feisty player with a decent attitude. I want to see all three heavily involved next season.
Jamal Lawrence is the other player under contract, but he is a year younger than Williams and co, and may need some loan time again - but having seen him in the youth team there may be something there.
We need to know for sure if all these young lads are good enough. They were deemed good enough to be given contracts, and have then been messed around amid the chaos of the last season or two.
In the past, we have seen Marley Watkins and Sam Foley slip through the net only to flourish elsewhere and I would hope we at least offer these guys the opportunity. They won't all swim. Some will sink, but I feel that the Conference gives us an ideal opportunity to try them out.
No more of this 'it isn't the right time to play them' crap. If we don;t use them now, we never will.
But we also need some experience around them, and hopefully the budget will allow us to bring a few in, but I have one thing nagging away at me.
Steve Elliott. How fit is he? Can he go away in the summer, get fit and play next season? Lend his experience on the field to these young lads and be our captain? Someone who the fans respect leading the team on the field. It maybe just a pipedream as he is 36 and his body might not be up to it - especially having not played since November.
But we need someone like him. A talisman on the field - a call to Cork to see if Benno wants to come back even. Now I am dreaming.
Off the field, we need someone to lead them. To mould these youngsters with a bit of experience into a team which can give us some pride back.
I feel that the manager needs to be experienced. I don't feel this is the time for a novice, and it's no great surprise to see Gary Johnson as Paul Baker's number one choice.
I wouldn't have a great issue with that - but my worry is that if an agreement cannot be reached and Johnson doesn't take the job that again there will be a rush to make an appointment.
I hope that there is a plan B - a fall-back plan in case Johnson says no, and that we haven't put all our eggs in the one basket with feelers at least being put out to other people.
Baker says he wants a 'swift and decisive' appointment - and I hope that isn't board-speak for 'rushed'. We know what happened the last time we did that.
It will not be an easy road back.
Already I have heard some fans saying we will bounce back as Bristol Rovers might yet do. But they have not found it easy on gates four times or more the size of ours. And history shows they are the exception, not the norm.
Luton took five years. Grimsby, Wrexham, Macclesfield, Lincoln, Torquay, Aldershot. All clubs around the same size as us yet still not able to break back out - some after several years. Add Tranmere to that now.
There is also money swilling about. There is Eastleigh, paying out more money than we do for players like Jack Midson and James Constable. Forest Green we know about. Both still in with a chance of replacing us.
It's not a cakewalk. So we need to be a bit humble about it. No 'Billy Big Time' stuff saying how we are too big for this league and how we are going to walk it. We aren't, and we won't.
So it's time to take some humble pie, swallow our pride and get on with it. Roll our sleeves up and try to get back, but in no way should that be an expectation.
Don't get me wrong - it would be lovely to go straight back up, but I just want some stability.
A season with the same manager from August to May perhaps, without hundreds of loan players, with our young players given a proper go, and with some pride being shown in the shirt and lots of passion on the terraces and in the stands. Is that too much to ask?

Wednesday 22 April 2015

It's now or never

SIXTEEN years ago tonight, the impossible happened.
I say impossible, as I had spent most of the previous 19 years without even giving a thought to Cheltenham Town being a Football League club as I went to places like Sutton Coldfield and Oldbury United on a Saturday afternoon.
For most of that time, success was an FA Cup run - getting to the fourth qualifying round maybe, or maybe through a few rounds of the FA Trophy... and , of course, six points a season against Gloucester City.
I remember when we played Weymouth in the FA Cup fourth qualifying round. That big club Weymouth of the Alliance Premier League, and all the talk pre-match was whether the crowd would be over 1,000.
Yes. Really - and that was the way I thought it was always going to be.
But then a manager came along who believed that seemingly-impossible dream could happen and wanted to make it a reality.
He was helped by a group of players who believed in him, and ran through brick walls for him, and backed by a chairman who bought into his single-mindedness, and a set of fans all pulling the same way.
So it is hard to contemplate that in three days time it could all be over, and those 16 years could be consigned to a bygone era in our club's history.
This really is it. Defeat on Saturday and a win for Hartlepool, and it's all over. All we can hope to do is take it to the last game and try to do the business at AFC Wimbledon on the final day.
A friend said to me the other day that I 'have been up and down like a tart's knickers' about our situation, and he is right.
One minute I sit there and think we'll be fine. We will rise to the occasion on Saturday and get something to keep it alive. The next, I encounter some sort of grim reality and post the directions to Bromley on Twitter as surely Hartlepool will sweep Exeter aside and Shrewsbury will be gunning to seal their promotion and finish us off.
Lots of straws have been clutched at. We are the only team of the bottom three to have won a game in the last five.  This is Exeter's final shot at an outside chance of sneaking into the play-offs, so they have to go to Pools and win. Shrewsbury only need a draw really, so they might be a bit relaxed... and so on.
Then there are the injuries. What chance of Will Packwood, Danny Haynes, Wes Burns and co rising Lazarus-like from the treatment table in time for Saturday? Come on Wesso, work your magic.
The optimism glass was about two-thirds full after Cambridge, but Northampton drained it a fair bit, I have to admit.
It really was such a disappointment after the magnificent display and it's hard to compute how 10 of the same players can produce two Jekyll and Hyde displays within days of each other.
But maybe it isn't - and is another example of why we find ourselves in this predicament, be it a lack of mental strength or simple desire to want to go out there and reproduce what went before.
Yes, the injury to Danny Haynes was a blow, but while he was a star against Cambridge, many of the others also hit the heights, only to plumb the depths again days later.
They can do it. They proved it. So they shouldn't be surprised at the backlash when they drop those standards again.
With Haynes out, it was surely a toss-up between Omari Sterling-James and Shaq McDonald for his place against Northampton right? Errrrr, no.
I must admit to being stunned when I placed the microphone under Gary Johnson's nose and heard him utter the words 'Kane' and 'Ferdinand' when I asked him who was going to replace Danny. Never saw that one coming, and I don't think the others who were listening to Gary speak did either.
And I'm afraid this one won't go down in the annals of great managerial masterstrokes. Instead, it ranks alongside Mark Yates' dropping of Russ Penn at Wembley and playing CBB as a right-back at Tamworth. I am sure you can think of others... Gavin Caines on the right wing, Lee Ridley and Andy Lindegaard as wingers...
Ferdinand was hauled off after 29 minutes and was frankly lucky to have lasted that long. The display summed up his Cheltenham Town career, which spanned all four managers, 17 games and is thankfully now over. Not before time - his stay should have ended when Mark Yates left.
He will deservedly be consigned to the list of the poorest loans we have had, joining luminaries such as Andy Smith, Peter Hynes, Rob Elvins, Lee Lucas, Lathaniel Rowe-Turner, Tom Denton and Kiernan Hughes-Mason and Toby Ajala, who never even made it to the pitch. Again, I am sure you can nominate others from the huge list of fill-ins we have had to endure.
Shaq McDonald and Pablo Mills have also been packed off home.
Shaq was a strange one from the start I felt - when he came I didn't think we needed another forward (a centre-back, or even a left-back was more pressing) and he just seemed too small and lightweight, as he showed against Wycombe when he never affected the game.
That display seemed to sway Gary's mind when it came to the Northampton selection, and, let's face it, if Kane Ferdinand is being picked ahead of you, then the writing is on the wall.
Even more so when the early change was made, and Joe Hanks was the replacement, and not Shaq. At first Hanks was deployed in a narrow three with Matt Richards dropping deeper, but eventually as a right-winger in a 4-4-2 ahead of Shaq.
Ferdinand and then Hanks were also preferred to Omari - again that is not saying much for his standing under Gary, although it could just be that Gary doesn't feel Omari is a winger, believing he is better centrally, in that 'number 10' role.
As for Pablo, he started superbly against Tranmere, but as the weeks have gone on his influence has waned, culminating at York, where he looked slow, unfit and immobile compared to two blokes they had called Penn and Summerfield, who I am sure I know from somewhere.
That seemed to mark his card, and it was telling how Jack Deaman was preferred to Pablo in the 18 against Stevenage, started ahead of him against Wycombe and came on against Northampton.
At Northampton, we were okay in the first half. Just okay as we weren't under any great pressure, but, unlike Cambridge, created precious little ourselves.
Mathieu Manset was making a pain of himself and getting stick from the crowd, which in itself told me he was doing something right, but wasn't able to turn good approach play and strength into anything tangible.
The second half was very poor indeed, bar Hanks' shot against the bar (yet another 'if only' moment...) and a Manset volley at the keeper in the last minute we showed absolutely nothing.
Northampton were ruthless twice on the counter-attack and it was refreshing to hear Gary pulling no punches about the performance and not coming out with platitudes and letting the players off the hook.
And so now we come to Shrewsbury, and thanks to Hartlepool and Tranmere being as inept as we are it's not all over yet - but this is the first time when it could be at 5pm Saturday.
I'd love to see a full ground. Unfortunately, the match was designated as a premium game before the season started, and before we knew about the situation we are in.
Shrewsbury have sold their 1,700 tickets as they anticipate a promotion party, and have paid the premium prices, and I am not sure on the rules - but I am slightly disappointed that we haven't cut the prices somewhere along the line.
I know that cutting the prices doesn't guarantee that people will flock along, but at least it would be an attempt, an incentive to tempt people in. A sign that the club is at least trying.
There has been no tubthumping this week, nothing to try and drum up some support and enthusiasm for this game, which is - let's face it - the biggest we have had for a while. It's just as important as any big Cup tie or play-off game.
We need to try to re-create the spirit and atmosphere of the escape against Doncaster in 2008 or that night 16 years ago today when this rollercoaster adventure began.
The club have asked for messages from fans to be put on the players' dressing room pegs before the game.
I can see what they are trying to do here - get the fans involved, try to get the message through to the players how much it means to us to get out of trouble and keep this club in the League.
But they shouldn't need to be told. They should know that anyway. They should know that too often this season they have let the fans down, especially those who have gone up and down the country in hope every other week.
They should know they are playing for people's livelihoods, not just their own. People who have worked harder than they ever have in their lives to put this football club where it is now and kept it there for 16 years.
They should be sat there thinking 'I don't want to be recorded as one of the players who got this club relegated from the league'
I won't lie, I am looking forward to the time in two games' time when this season is over and I won't have to see some of these players pull on a CTFC shirt again.
I am fed up to the back teeth with watching some of them but we have to pin our faith in them for the next 180-odd minutes and hope they can pull something out of the bag. Hope is all we can do now.
What would my message to them be? It would be quite simple. I'd tell them to watch these two videos...







Wednesday 15 April 2015

Rising to the occasion

AS I walked down Whaddon Road at around 6.45pm last night, I had that horrible sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.
This was it. The point of no return. Basically, it was win this, or we are off to Woking.
One hour and about 80 seconds later, and we were on our way, and boy, does it feel good.
As I sat down to start the commentary, I made a list of names. It said Packwood. Burns. Wynter. Hanks. Ferdinand. Hall. E Richards.
Seven players injured, ill or unavailable - and at least three of those would definitely have been in the starting line-up, with one or two others having an outside squeak.
We were down to the bare bones, the final 17 left standing, and looking at the side I had my concerns about it - notably the pairing in centre midfield of the two Matts, Richards and Sparrow, where my worry was mobility and also numbers - we can never make a 4-4-2 work... can we?
How would Shaun Harrad and Mathieu Manset link up? Would Danny Haynes be a bit lost on the right wing? Could Matt Taylor and Troy Brown deal with their two big centre-forwards? All of those questions ended up being answered positively.
We got off to a flyer. Haynes fed Harrad and he finished superbly. That was the Shaun Harrad of old, almost without thinking he drilled it into the net.
Haynes should have added a second, and then I started wondering where this had been for the past few barren months.
But there were lingering doubts. We had seen this before. A false dawn shot down in flames, and after seeing only four wins in 38 games it was hardly surprising if there were a few nerves about.
Zack Kotwica's run and cross-shot which hit the post was put in by Mathieu Manset. Offside. Well, the assistant thought so, but Craig Cope's charge to show the referee the footage at half-time would assume the opposite.
Should we have had a penalty for handball? Gary Johnson's touchline exclamations would suggest so - and with the luck we have been getting recently you could be excused for sitting back and waiting for the bite on the backside to arrive.
It duly did, courtesy of Ryan Bird's equaliser. Trevor Carson probably won't be too proud about it, and unfortunately the assistant was up with play this time, unlike his mate at Wycombe on Saturday, and flagged for the goal.
Now usually that is the sign for the tide to turn, maybe a few heads to drop and for another goal to follow quickly afterwards. But not this time.
We stayed pretty resolute until half-time. Not exactly comfortable, but resolute enough - and with Hartlepool and Tranmere losing, there was a chance to be had. Probably the last one.
It was now or never - and we delivered.
The second half performance was the best 45 minutes I have seen from us in a league game since way back in August. I'd have to go back to Bury on the opening day, or the comeback at Tranmere, or the second half when we won at Cambridge to find anything close to matching it.
Having shown flashes in the first half of having the beating of his full-back, Danny Haynes led the way.
The tactic was simple from us - get the ball, and give it to Danny. He responded with pace on the flank and some decent deliveries. We knew there was a player in there and it was great to finally see it.
Having got his goal, Harrad looked to have a weight lifted off him and he and Manset were a constant threat.
This was the Manset I have wanted to see. He was winning flick-ons, holding the ball up and seeing defenders bump off him due to his strength. Agonisingly for him, as well as the offside decision he was inches from converting a cross on more than one occasion. He deserved a goal.
So did Haynes, and he got the crucial second one. After (shock, horror) a decent corner delivery from Sparrow and head across the box from Taylor he snapped up the chance to allay fears that our strong second-half start would not bear fruit.
At this point, with Pools and Tranmere still behind, we were out of the bottom two! Quick, end the season now...!
We were dominating, and Cambridge were by now much less of a threat as Richards and Sparrow had a grip of the midfield, Harrad and Manset were bullying the centre-backs and Haynes was running amok while Taylor and Brown had the front two under control.
But (yes, I know. There is always one of those) we needed that third goal.
Hang on. This is Cheltenham. We just don't score three goals in a game. Oh. Wait a minute, maybe we do as Sparrow rifled it in via a deflection.
3-1 was about right though given our second-half domination, and Cambridge were a beaten team. For once I wasn't sat there panicking we were going to chuck it away in the latter stages. It was a good feeling and very nice to hear Happiness again at the final whistle.
On Saturday, I saw a Cheltenham side at Wycombe who were going down with a whimper. There seemed to be no heart, no will, no desire to make a fight of it, as if they had accepted their fate.
This was the polar opposite. I saw players at the end - notably Taylor, Manset, Harrad and Haynes - who looked like they could barely stand, such was the effort they had put in over the 90 minutes.
That's all we ask for. That sort of effort - and you see what you can get from it. Finally we saw a Cheltenham side who looked like they wanted to be out there, who seemed to actually be enjoying themselves.
They deserved the ovation at the end, and it was great to see the Bristol Street Motors Stand rocking at the end, and all three sides of the ground on their feet.
But (yep, here we go again) it's not done of course, by any means. No laurels can yet be rested on. This will count for nothing if we return to the passive, flat displays at Northampton on Saturday.
Only three more displays with this intensity, this determination, this desire will do now. Standards have been set.
Hartlepool's equaliser which dropped us back below the line was only a minor setback as now, for once, maybe we are the side with the momentum.
This needs to be the catalyst now to go to Northampton with confidence and have a real go. The supporters who acclaimed last night's win deserve that, and they will expect it.
Maybe, just maybe, we can still do this...

Monday 13 April 2015

A question of Trust

These are my personal views. People are free to make up their own minds and vote as they wish. This blog is not meant in any way to influence people's decisions in Thursday's votes, but is merely my opinion on the matters in hand. 

I WAS on the original steering committee for the Robins Trust when it was formed. Unfortunately due to work and family commitments at the time and since I have been unable to offer more help to the cause, much to my regret.
At those original meetings when the Trust was in its' embryonic stage, I made no secret of the fact why I was there and why I wanted to get involved.
I wanted a fans' representative on the board of directors, so we can get a proper say in how our club is run - a supporters' voice. That wish hasn't changed, and I hope that becomes a reality on Thursday.
Bryan Jacob was also at those meetings, and while I or no-one else can speak for him, I think we were all there for that same goal. I'd like to think he would want his money to bring about a fan-elected director.
I remember being knocked for six when I was told about Bryan's legacy being left, lock stock and barrel to the Trust. 
I knew then that the aim I had a decade ago was going to be fulfilled - despite what I feel is several moves of the goalposts by the board since those days.
The £100,000 threshold has always been a bugbear of mine. You are not telling me that every member of the current board has put that sum into the football club, but that's another story entirely.
My (maybe cynical I admit) feeling is that this sum was put there in the belief that the Trust would not achieve it - or would take a very long time indeed to do so - therefore now it has been achieved, my belief is that the fans must grasp it and take the opportunity.
Therefore it is disappointing to see that option C does not currently guarantee a fan-elected director despite the fact that the £50,000 investment would hit the £100,000 mark.
For what it is worth my vote will go to A or B (I am still undecided on which one) as those options will have that guarantee - but I can understand people being reticent about choosing one of those options.
Poor decision-making at the top of the club has proved very costly and it looks like we will be paying the ultimate price - maybe as quickly as next Saturday at Northampton.
So I fully understand how fans have lost trust in Paul Baker and the board over the course, not only of this season but after the last couple as well, so I can understand their concerns over (as one fan put it to me) "Bryan's money disappearing into a black hole."
But the problem is that the club needs the money. My suspicion (and I stress this is a suspicion) is that the board (and although Paul Baker gets the flak, they are a board - he doesn't make all the decisions alone) have speculated slightly in the hope this money is coming as they try to help keep us up.
It looks like those efforts are all in vain, but they had to try all they could to give us the best chance. 
Other factors including their poor choices of, and too much loyalty to, managers in the recent past and how those managers have spent the funds the board has made available to them have also gone some way to putting us where we are.
So we have to be careful. While I don't blame fans for not having complete trust in the current board to use the money wisely (although I suspect it would mainly be used for paying wages and trying to put a half-decent team out next season) we have to balance that with wanting the club to survive in the medium and long term, and to try to compete at whatever level we are at.
Depriving the club of the money could threaten our survival and competitiveness.
In short, we cannot cut off our nose to spite our face. While the current board have let us down at times in the recent past, the bigger picture is that over 16 years they have rebuilt three sides of the ground, got us one of the best training facilities outside the top two divisions and stabilised us in the Football League (until now).
I know a lot of people want Paul Baker to stand down. But again we have to careful.
The problem is that there is, and never has been, a succession plan. There is nobody on the current board who seems to have the credentials to take the job on. If there was, they'd be doing it by now.
But people can go on too long - in the same way the Mark Yates was kept on last summer when he should have left. 
I don't enjoy seeing Paul Baker's chairmanship soured by recent events.  This is a man, remember, who has paid transfer fees (Steven Gillespie and Brian Wilson to name two) out of his own pocket, and bought a house so we could then knock it down to build the Hazlewoods Stand.
Things like that shouldn't be forgotten amid the broken promises about short-term loans, bold pronouncements about signings at season-ticket renewal time, appalling managerial appointments and crazy votes of confidence 24 hours before the axe fell on Mark Yates.
The last thing we need in the boardroom when we are about to drop out of the league is a vacuum. We have appeared to be a bit rudderless anyway in recent times, and this would only make it worse.
The board have done their best, and yes it might be time for some change, but we must be careful how radical that change is, especially if, as I think most of us expect now, we go down.
A boardroom vacuum could lead to freefall - Stockport come to mind, or an even worse scenario, Hereford United, and none of us want that to happen. Sometimes it is better the devil you know, whatever the perceived shortcomings.
But Paul Baker won't go on for ever. He doesn't want to for a start, but he won't just hand the club over to anyone, mainly for the reasons explained above.
He and the board have been accused of lacking ambition (I don't hold with this - they have always backed managers financially and tried to take the club as far as they can), and also not seeking or welcoming investment. But surely if it was there and (this is the crucial part) from the right people, they would have bitten their hands off? Of course they would.
An approach from the former Southampton owner Rupert Lowe is the one people talk about, but my understanding is that he wanted to buy the club completely. 100 per cent control. 
Who knows how that could have turned out - but I certainly would not be comfortable with anyone having autocratic control and being able to do whatever they wanted with no recourse.
We certainly wouldn't be getting fan-elected directors in that scenario.
We had Simon Keswick here. A combination of Martin Allen and fans on the forums demanding he used his fortune to fund their entertainment saw him withdraw again to the background. 
The mystery man in the Caymans put £500,000 in which - to their credit - the board used wisely, in dribs and drabs but that has now come to an end.
I constantly hear fans saying there must be loads of very rich people around this county who would get involved. Well, I don't exactly see them beating a path to Whaddon Road if they are out there.
Maybe they don't like football, or, if they are sensible businessmen, realise that a League Two/Conference football club would be the 'black hole' which the fan I mentioned earlier referred to.
We are where we are, and we have to try to make the best of it, and to carry on backing the football club we all support.
Thick and thin. That's what we signed up for when we started walking down the Whaddon Road.
Yes, it's thin at the moment. Probably the thinnest it has been for me in my 35 years but we can't turn our backs. If we go down, I know some will. 
I have constantly been staggered at the small number of members the Trust has compared to our average crowds. When I ask people why they aren't members, "what's the point" is the commonest answer. But my feeling is every CTFC fan should join. It's only £12 a year for goodness sake.
Thursday's vote can help us show that there is a point to being in the Trust. 
Supporters' Trusts, it seems, only come into their own when their football club is in some sort of danger, be that financial or from an asset-stripper in the boardroom, but this vote will give our Trust some leverage and a strong position in the club. We will potentially be one of the major shareholders.
There are two candidates for the fan-elected director - should the vote get that far, which I sincerely hope it will.
I must confess I don't know Mike Collins, and he seems to have good credentials, but I will be voting for Clive Gowing. I feel his hard work deserves to be rewarded with success in the vote on Thursday.
Clive is the man who has done more than most to bring us to this stage. He is the one out there in all weathers selling raffle tickets. He has arranged the yearly hospital visit where players give presents to the sick children at Christmas, putting the club and Trust at the heart of the community.
I know he would do his utmost to ensure Bryan's legacy was put to good use for the sake of the football club we all support.
As fans we have the chance now to have a bigger say in the club than we have ever had, and at the highest level possible. We can't throw it away.




Sunday 12 April 2015

45 seconds of hope

The ridiculous stats which tell the underlying tale of this most rancid of seasons keep on stacking up.
Four wins in 37 league games, one in the last 18, one clean sheet since early September, and - most crazily of all - we have had more managers than league wins since October 21.
Yet still we are not cut adrift and already resigned to our fate. We have a chance of staying up, if only a mathematical one as even the biggest optimists among our fans would have to say they can't see it happening.
I spoke to several of the away contingent after the game yesterday - yet due to a level of incompetence which matched a lot of our defending yesterday and over this season as a whole you'll have to take my word for it as there is, I am afraid, no recorded evidence to support this.
None of them thought we were going to stay up. Several of them may have had a little drink or two, which is probably the best way to be when watching us at the moment. That way you might wake up the next day and not actually remember it.
Most of them belied a lack of blood, sweat and tears amongst the players. A lack of desire, lack of will, and lack of fight. Gutless and no passion were other words and phrases cropping up. So while we are mathematically able to dig ourselves out, I would hesitate to say we are still in there fighting to stay up.
Gary Johnson's post-match interview pretty much summed it up - it was the equivalent of a cricket captain saying his team can't bat, can't bowl or can't field.
He knows. He is not stupid. He has been round the block enough times to know he basically has nothing to work with.
They might try their best - and the worrying thing is that I believe the majority of them are - but he knows that they are simply not good enough - and the fact that we aren't already cut adrift is down more to how equally bad the other sides around us are than anything else.
I didn't hear it, but those who went to the press room at Wycombe at half-time could hear his raised voice tearing a strip off the team.
But that's a bit like a father berating their child for not being able to run the 100 metres in 10 seconds - they simply don't have the tools for the job they are being asked to do.
Johnson also summed it up when he said "we have to hope there are two teams worse than us." That, basically, is all we can cling to for these last four games.
Trouble is, that involves us having to collect some points, and actually winning at least two of these last four games.
I didn't see the game against Stevenage but was told we weren't completely terrible and Johnson made a couple of changes with Will Packwood injured and Joe Hanks left out for Jack Deaman and Matt Sparrow.
Deaman, having given the penalty away on Monday, was the surprise choice ahead of the more experienced Pablo Mills and Matt Taylor.
Mills looked horribly unfit and immobile at York on Good Friday, and it seems Johnson isn't a fan. Taylor hadn't been in the 18 on Monday after family-wedding-gate saw him miss training on Easter Saturday.
On that subject, I assume the club knew about this and had sanctioned it a long time ago, before Johnson arrived. Yet it doesn't send out a very good message when your club captain chooses a family wedding over a training session when his club is five games from relegation. All in it together? It makes you wonder a bit where his priorities are.
That's my view on it anyway - and reading between the lines, I would deduce that Johnson wasn't happy about it at all as Taylor wasn't in the 18 on Monday and was overlooked yesterday until the 77th minute.
After his mistake on Monday, Deaman not surprisingly looked nervous and picked up a fourth-minute booking, and after several nervous moments was lucky not to pick up a second one for a late challenge on the Wycombe keeper near half-time.
The fact that he came out for the second half owed more to the fact that we had already lost Wes Burns and Jordan Wynter to injuries in the first half than anything else.
Burns rolled his ankle from the free-kick after Deaman's booking and tried to run it off,and Wynter crocked himself and Wycombe's Joe Jacobsen in a full-blooded 50-50 challenge.
Danny Haynes replaced Burns and I had expected to see Shaun Harrad take Wynter's place, but instead it was Durrell Berry who got the nod, which led to Lee Vaughan being used as a right winger. An interesting move...
We hadn't troubled Wycombe going forward, and had kept them out - just - until first-half stoppage time although an earlier Nico Yennaris shot hit the bar and clearly to my eyes bounced down and crossed the line before bouncing out again. No goal-line technology here and the assistant was nowhere near being up with play, so we got away with one.
Trevor Carson had made one fine stop but couldn't keep out Aaron Pierre's shot through a ruck of players who were left prostrate on the floor as the shot weaved its' way in.
So we needed a goal. It was difficult to see where one was going to come from as we hadn't seen one from one of our own players since Packwood's header at Portsmouth.
The it happened. A miracle... and from the most unlikely of sources, with Berry firing into the corner. I must admit it took me totally by surprise when it nestled in the net.
After the 'over-the-line' shot escape and then that equaliser out of absolutely nothing, I did wonder at the moment if we were going to get that bit of luck we needed.
Oh come on, don't be silly. Those wistful notions where jolted back to a depressing normality about 45 seconds later. From the re-start, corner, centre half left free, header, 2-1 down. Head was back in hands.
So again, we needed a goal and Johnson has one change left. Right, he has Harrad there so Johnson can throw him on. He could take off Mathieu Manset, who was blowing a bit and hadn't been effective. Or Shaq McDonald, a peripheral figure. Or Lee Vaughan, being asked to play on the right wing.
Haynes could have moved out wide (although he wasn't that bad playing down the middle when he came on) and Harrad gone in up front, but no, Johnson simply swapped Deaman for Taylor.
Yes, Deaman was on a booking - but I didn't understand why, having rightly not made the change at half-time to keep the third change up his sleeve, he then made it at 2-1 down with 13 minutes to go when we needed a goal.
Yes, he could have got the second yellow in those last 13 minutes, but weighed up against the fact that we needed to try and get another forward on to get a goal I would say that was a risk worth taking.
We didn't really threaten for that equaliser, so it became five defeats in a row. With Carlisle winning and Hartlepool and Tranmere losing, the mini-league of four is now probably down to three now, with two going down.
That 'last chance' we seem to have had for the past few weeks now moves on to Cambridge at home on Tuesday, which becomes about the 20th 'must-win game' in a row. Our record in these must-wins so far isn't great, so I am not exactly holding my breath.
I can't see us having Burns and Wynter available, so the 11 Johnson chooses will be an interesting one. Surely Taylor will partner Troy Brown, Haynes might get the nod in place of Burns. Wynter's replacement? That's anybody's guess.
It's also anybody's guess how these last four games will pan out. While many of us may be resigned to what we think will happen, there is still, amazingly, a bit of hope to cling to.
That's what the heart is saying anyway. The head is telling a different story.





Saturday 4 April 2015

Time for a miracle

We have to believe. It is Easter - the time for miracles, and that is what we need now.
A few hours on from another limp defeat away at a relegation rival and the miserable run of form now sits at four wins in the last 35 games, one league clean sheet since August... the misery goes on.
On the way to York, just outside the city, we passed 'Buckles Inn' As if that wasn't bad enough, the song on the car radio at the time was Crowded House's Don't Dream It's Over. I am not making it up. And I'm afraid it pretty much is.
That really didn't bode well, as so it proved, as for York, see also Hartlepool, Dagenham and Carlisle. Pivotal, must-win games where we simply haven't turned up, putting in limp performances and losing them all.
Again, especially in the second half yesterday, there seemed no desire from many players to roll up their sleeves and battle for every ball, every tackle, every header.
At 1-0 down in the 93rd minute, a ball went into the York box. Two York heads bust a gut to get there - not a sky blue shirt in sight, really wanting to win it.
That was a small microcosm of why we are in the situation we are in. You can change the manager as much as you like, but the bottom like is I don't think the players want it, and when that happens it is all over.
Which I think it pretty much is. Monday might be the last chance - a win against Stevenage and you never know, but can Gary Johnson really change the mindset among the squad in such a short space of time?
They have to want to change it themselves and I don't see any great appetite among them to do so.
To make a silk purse from a sow's ear, you need the sow's ear in the first place. I don't think we even have that.
We started the season with four wins and two draws. That is now how we need to end the season if we are to have a realistic chance of getting out of this.
Since those four wins and two draws, we have picked up 23 points out of a possible 102. Now we want 14 out of 18, which would get us to 51 points.
Even the biggest die-hard optimist would have to say this is unlikely. But we can point to Hartlepool, dead and buried a few weeks ago, now four wins and a draw and they have the momentum.
So it can be done. But I am afraid I just cannot see it from this group of players. I can't see the will amongst a group who know that at the end of the season they can just walk away.
They can just walk back to the clubs they have been loaned from, or go to their agents and find themselves another club, and wash their hands of it all. Continue their careers without a care in the world.
On May 2, for a lot of them, it won't be their problem any more. They can get on with their careers happy in the knowledge that they are still earning a decent wage.
Meanwhile, we are left to pick up the pieces of our shell of a football club. To try to pick our way through the ruins of what used to be a well-run football club, which three years ago had a promising future with an exciting group of players, playing good football, a fanbase which was starting to catch on again - but is now a complete basket case.
I don;t have the energy - yet - to go through in detail why this chaos has ensued. That is for the end of the season, wherever we end up. In short, there are many varied reasons for it.
It's not down to one person, it is a collective run of horrendous decisions and policies from people in the club from the top to bottom which have contributed to where we are now.
After last weekend's loss to Plymouth, we knew York was going to be the key game. The players had to be up for it. We had our two best loanees, Will Packwood and Wes Burns back.
But unfortunately, they can only fill two of the 11 places on the field. We need nine others to do their part as well, and the simple truth to me is that they are just not up to it.
Four managers, 41 players, all the systems, tactics, team talks, arms round the shoulder, hairdryer rants, hours on the training ground, watching the bloody DVD over and over again, empty words in interviews, set-piece routines or pre-match warm-ups in the world cannot mask it.
Our players are not just good enough to stay in this division - and many of them don't have the will or desire to make that happen either. Bottom line.
I have seen fans since yesterday saying they were not trying. Problem is, I believe they were. They were doing their best - yet still they have come up short. So what does that tell you? Not good enough.
I believe they were trying, but as I said earlier at key times they simply didn't go that extra mile in the key moments, putting their bodies on the line to really dig in.
Again, we rolled over too easily. A soft touch. After going 1-0 down, as has so often been the case not just this season but for much of the last two as well, we never looked remotely like getting it back.
Small margins again, one header from a corner. See also Carlisle, not defending a free-kick. Also Portsmouth. Plymouth, letting a centre-half run 60 yards through the middle of us and play a straight ball to an unmarked centre-forward. I could go on, but it's just too depressing.
It was the supreme irony that the man we really needed was stood on the final whistle with a number 10 on his back, arms aloft. One of those ridiculous decisions I mentioned earlier. See also their number 15.
But those who have made those decisions have to live with what they have done, and some will, I am sure, pay for it and fall on their swords. But it will be too late by then, as the damage is done.
Damage to our football club, financially in the long-term, and in the short-term it will cost people their livelihoods - it will be inevitable that some hard-working people at the club will suffer, through no fault of their own, but because others have not done their jobs properly.
I hate being negative. It devastates me to say this but I just cannot see where the wins are going to come from to get us out of this, given what I have seen in the previous 40 games, and with this squad in the last three.
It may be the time of year for resurrection, but we need a full-blown miracle to turn this around now.