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Is it this year? Anyone know?
DV must be licking his lips  :)

Obviously 93/94 sprang to mind and probably statistically looks worse, but you could forgive that in some ways. Then I remembered an awful season about a decade ago, couldn't remember the details so had to look em up I'm afraid...

99/00                           10/11 (so far)
Position: 24/24               TBC - 23rd
Points:   36 points           34
Goal dif:  -39                  -19
W:         8                     7
D:          12                   13
L:           26                   19

So on paper at least, it looks like it's going pretty similarly so far to 99/00... though I'm sure those with longer memories, or more time will be able to dig up some even worse seasons, though I wouldn't be surprised if they had trawl their memories back to the 60/70s or even further!

To add insult to injury we were practically going under to. It's all too easy for us to remember

And we were a division higher.

 :sherlock:

worst i can remember is 73/74 - finished well bottom of old division 2 and had a team including some players who would have struggled in div 4!
A few new players the next season and we challenged for promotion.

I think you have to factor in the division that we're playing in.  We were playing at a higher level in 1993/94 and 1999/2000.  If we finish bottom this season, then there can only have been a max of 5 seasons in our history when we finished lower in the league (because this is the number of seasons, according to Reg, that we have been in the 4th tier).

Given that at least a couple of those 5 seasons must have been promotion seasons (as 2006/07 was), then I think it's fair enough to argue that this season is certainly one of the worst ever.  Certainly since 1990, when I started watching, this has to be the worst.

That was indeed a shit season played out against a background of financial crisis at the club and political crisis in the country. Nevertheless your aspersion as  to the quality of player, available that season is misplaced....we could still field an XI containing Jimmy Allan, John Trollope, Joe Butler, Frank Burrows, Kenny Stroud, David Moss, Will Dixon and Peter Eastoe.  Many of the current crop aren't fit to lace the boots of some of those boys.

We even had the likes of Ray Clarke as a squad player, who went on to become a legend for both Feyenoord and Ajax.

It was the perennial problem of cheapskate directors and shit manager that went against us.

The 74/75 side which in today's money would have been a PO side, only added Colin Prophett and Trevor Anderson, but more importantly Danny Williams was back in charge for a whole season.

I've done some reseach and it's grim reading indeed. I've listed the worst seasons I could find throughout the archives since 1890 below...

---------------------------           

Season     01/02       32/33       55/56       73/74       99/00           

League     South1    3 South    3 South         2             2   
Position   16/16       22/22        24/24        22/22       24/24
Points*    9             38            38            38              36   
Goal Dif   -75          -45           -44           -36           -39
W            2             9             8              7                8
D             3            11            14            11              12
L             25           22            24            24              26

* = table adjusted to 3pts for win.
Divisions all adjusted to 1,2,3,4 etc for comparison

Honourable mentions:
64/65 looked bad, but we won 14 games so meh...
93/94 - bad season, but remembered with fond memories!

---------------------------

1901 & 1993/1994 could probably be ignored for reasons which should be obvious. So using that logic, in my mind if we don't get a win or 2 at least together soon, this campaign may well rank anywhere from 5th worst, to in fact the worst... depending on your point of view.

Either way it's not good!  :doh:

--Edit: Sorry about the shit formatting!

Worst ever season is the one where Oxford did the double over us.

Only once in our existence have we suffered that humiliation.

Could you see this side beating the Scum?  We may be getting another one soon.

Have a chart

[url width=854 height=506]http://i.imgur.com/HFGWB.png[/url]

That one post is more relevant than all the others in this and other threads.

That depends if you take league position across the whole football league to equate to "the worst season ever" or not.

At the lowest ebb of that graph, in 83/84 we finished 17th. V good and inciteful graph!

I do.

Using that logic winning the league next year, will be a worse season than being relegated this year.

Correct, but it guarantees the one after that will be better than the one just passed.

 Although there is something to be said for the graphical approach, I think it fairer to compare seasons in the same league....which brings the debate as to whether finishing 24th in Div 3 South, is the same as finishing 24th in Div 3? Discuss

I think that's something very difficult to quantify given the age of the league. That said however, having looked at the teams in the table at that time, there are plenty of names that these days would be considered reasonable teams, so I imagine a comparison may be fair...

1955/56
http://www.swindon-town-fc.co.uk/LeagueTable.asp?CompCode=LGE&Tier=3S&Season=1955-1956

 I would say Div 3 South, was a lower standard than Div 3, on the basis that a lot of the teams were probably Div 4 standard, and better teams in Div 3 North were avoided. This is why I prefer to use Div 3 since 1958 as a more reliable yardstick, when comparing degrees of shitness,

Apparently only the top team got promoted also back in those days it seems.

This is indeed a relevant comparison, impossible to compare fully when the division was split geographically.

I remember the 83-84 season very well, we had a couple of great results that year such as the 7-0 away win at Kettering and other FA Cup games against Carlisle and Millwall.

But that side was pretty dire in general and we played some very poor football culminating in 3 home attendances of under 2,000 and a handful of under 2,500, partly due to Beamish's inept man management skills and tactical inability.

Interestingly thought, we never looked like we wouldn't win a game (which we certainly do now) thoughout that season and certainly never went on as bad a winless run as we are in now.

 I'd say the 83/84 side was better the current mob....it could put out Alan Mayes and Jimmy Quinn up front with Dave Hockaday and Garry Nelson on the flanks.  It's main problem was being shit away from home....but as shown in the cup could play well at home,and pull out the odd perfomance away. Nevertheless as it was our lowest position in the lowest league, it is a benchmark we've got for next season.  Maybe this should be Fitton's stated aim, to finish higher that that....our road to recovery might be shaky...

I think this season compares in some ways to 1994/95 in terms of both seasons we had a team of players that should have been good enough to stay up but ended up relegated. In both seasons we were going well in September/October but then went on bad runs, changed our manager and sold our best striker and the lack of goals at the end of the season killed us. The 1994/95 team could perform which was evidenced by the cup run and if we had replicated those results in the respective league games would have stayed up. This season we have beaten Southampton and Huddersfield at home yet struggled against the supposed smaller teams who have more realistic ambitions.

The only lesson might be that most of the 1994/95 team were kept together and came good the to win the league in 1995/96. The issue next year will be there are some players on top end League 1/Championship wages so aren't going to want to take a cut in League 2 (apparently this is in their contracts).

Yes I thought that I heard a lot had a relegation clause in the contract.