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I truely believe that. Yes I was at MK yesterday and witnessed the terrible shambles we were in the second half but everyone seems to have forgot the first half where in my opinion we were good for our half time lead. With the players that Iffy had available to him I thought the line up was spot on and apart from a few errors at the back we pretty much had most of the play first half. So what happened at half time? Well my guess is Danny Wilson told his lot to beef things up a bit, get stuck in and don't let Swindon play the ball. This they done and simply we were out muscled and second to the ball each time. We really could have done with Gurney and Ifil on the pitch to be honest. Once they had equizalised there was only ever going to be one outcome. The players heads all dropped and without a leader on the pitch Iffy had pretty much no chance of sorting things. 2-1 down it got worse. Players like Fallon who were first class and chasing every ball seemed to have given up with the look of defeat all over the faces. I feel for Thorpe and Cureton as it would appear as they are being made scapegoats for simply not scoring goals. If they were missing sack loads of chances every game I would understand but seeing as most games they are only getting a couple of half chances it seems a tad unfair. These two will score goals but like all strikers they need that first one to get the confidence. Remember Fjortoft when he first joined?

With over 30 games left this season we can get out of this. We will get out of this. A win over Vale will at least close the gap and inspire a bit of confidence within the team. The long term damage done by King cannot bechanged in just a week. I'll be back at The CG on Saturday to get behind the boys again and give Iffy support in what could be his last in his tempory role. At least if its not or we do see a managerial change again what we do have is time. If we are bottom at Christmas then I promise to admit that this post was all bollocks. But we won't!

Thats the spirit!
I know that fans from other clubs will think we are kidding ourselves, and many of our own fans will too, but I honestly think we are capable of getting out of this situation, and Iffy seems to have installed SOME confidence in the side. As long as we can get the first goal in a few more games, and have leaders on the pitch (which we will do soon with Seano and Gurney), then we have every chance of turning this around.

IT IS EARLY DAYS YET! There have been teams in the past that have gone from this kind of position to comfortable mid-table and beyond. Don't write us off yet!

That is very true, but your brother still needs a haircut.

I don't think we'll beat Vale next week, they are 5th in the league.

Ditto. Re: haircut  :D

I am normally very positive but i think that Franchise game was going to show us a lot about the team.....how much passion there was, how much they cared whether we got relegated or not..... and its the same story as everyweek..... one player wanted it (rory) and the rest couldnt give a shit... Mcdons wanted it more.... and they are now 1 point of being safe, where as we are 6 points from being safe...... we have to start playing football again like we were a couple of seasons back!!

Absolute bollox - they were gutted.

I wasnt going to post this before. But Jack Smith and Pook looked like they were going to cry after we lost to Donny. They were devastated too.

We're going down easily, if we play like that no fighting spirt what so ever.

We are as good as relegated. Even Mourinho couldn't save us with this bunch of players. They are all fucking shit. Fair enough they put in the effort (apart from Collins, Thorpe and Cureton) but the fact is they are not good enough. The blame lies with the board. High ticket pricing leading to falling gates = no money for players and the budget being slashed by a further £200,000. No club can stay up in those circumstances. The scary thing is I doubt we could hold our own in League 2. But fuck it, i'll still be there every week.

Bring on the Oxford.

I hate playing Oxford.

Fans are pure thugs and if we lose, all i hear for the next year is their thugish fans talking shit.

That's all right, i'm a thug aswell.

Thats fair enough but it's not nice to go to a football match and worry that your 51 year old dad will get attacked by their scum fans.  I hate playing them.

we're not going down! i'll be more worried if we are still near the bottom at christmas. come on town!  :beers:

We won't go down no way,We WILL pick up soon and get bagging points I know it.Iffys only managed 2 games so far and I've already seen a bit of improvement and thats something to build on.Keep the faith!

Everybody needs to wake up i'm afraid.

We're no where near the team we were 2 years ago when we reached the playoffs.

We are at best a mid table side now.

Our forward line is shit and the defence isn't much better.

We will go down unless there is big changes in playing personal.

I agree with Ralphy, isn't it saying something to you that the effort is there yet we are still getting beat?? We aren't good enough for League One and to be honest I think we'll struggle in League Two next season. How many players can leave at the end of the season? The gates will be lower, no one will want to come here. That could very well be the end of STFC as we know it.

Call me pessimistic, but unfortunately its the truth.

Stockport are currently 22nd in Division 4 (League 2!) and if we go down a lot of the better! players will leave and I think we would struggle as well.

Going down, we'd need to come straight back up and build from it. Not always a bad thing as 95-96 showed although we shouldn't have gone down in the first place.

When we got relegated in 2000 I thought we'd be back up in 3 years at the latest. Well it's into the 6th year now and it's only looking one way at the moment and that's down. I do not want Swindon to get stuck down in Div 4 for any length of time. Four years in the early 80's was long enough and our only stint down there so far.

I have never watched Swindon in the 4th division (league 2)

My first game was 87-88 season against Birmingham City at home, we lost 2-0.

Neither have I and I'm not looking forward to starting!

It might do us good though, look at Huddersfield and Luton for example..Went down and came back up stronger teams.

Reg, OST etc will probably be able to tell you lots of stories about those years.

85-86 was excellent, 83-84 wasn't. We finished 17th, and I believe had our lowest ever league attendance of about 1600/1700 against Darlington at home.

Thank god for Lowndes Lambert sponsering the club and wanting a well known mananger, along came Lou and the rest is history.

I still lie back in my armchair and think about the day we beat Leicester at wembley, was one of the best days of my life.

distant memory though, we'll never reach those heights again, infact I doubt we'll ever reach the heights of two seasons ago again.

All doom & gloom

That was I agree.

Although at 3-3 I was panicking just a tad. Then Steve White wins the penalty, up steps Bodin etc etc. My Dad couldn't bear to watch at that point so had turned round. He only saw it on tv that night.

The 90 match against Sunderland was good as well. We played them off the pitch that day, Denis Smith said afterwards it could have been 6 or 7.

I think with the right manager and players we could be an average championship side, but thats a long way off.

finance wont let us get anywhere near that position.

I was there in 1990.

An 8 year old lad but i can remember it well.

It's hard to imagine us getting there but look at Luton.

They were in a real financial mess a couple of years ago. A new chairman comes in (John Gurney who almost ruined Bedford Rugby club, not a good track record), sack Joe Kinnear, went into admin, fans wouldn't buy season tickets till it was sorted, phone vote for manager which was fixed etc.

And then once they got rid of Gurney and despite the money problems and not a lot of faith in Mike Newell they had a mid table season, stormed the league last year and are now third in League one.

So with the right manager/board/fans etc it is possible.

i think we will really struggle if we go down. in fact i dont think there will even be a Swindon Town if we do. i can't see us surviving with crowds of 3000 and a low budget for players. i can see the stadium plan going tits-up too it doesnt look good