“We spent all week working on our defensive shape and keeping things tight for the first 20 minutes at Old Trafford – then Manchester United scored inside 20 seconds, everything went out of the window,” says John Moncur, the former Swindon midfielder, now able to laugh at the memory.
In a 1993-94 season that saw the Robins ship 100 goals, asking Moncur or any of his teammates to recall all of them would be a monumental task. It wasn’t all doom and gloom, though, as Swindon scored more goals than any other side in the bottom four. To paraphrase Kevin Keegan, it was very much a case of “you score five, and we’ll probably score at least two”.
“It used to wind me up,” says lifelong fan, Nick Judd. “People would say ‘we love watching you guys play, we also love playing you, because we’re pretty much guaranteed to win.’.”
Now, 30 years on – Moncur and his teammates are gathering at the County Ground next month for a reunion of the class of 1993-94 – Sheffield United know exactly how Swindon felt. The latter would eventually finish the season last – a distant 13 points off safety.
As things stand, the Blades have a goal difference of minus 50 and a points tally of 13 points. Reaching Swindon’s eventually tally of 30 looks some way off. The same goes for Burnley, who are currently level-pegging with the blunt Blades.
At least the pair have already surpassed Derby’s total of 11 (the Rams won just once) – in 2007-08. Kenny Miller was the club’s leading scorer that season with four goals. He tells i that, even in the midst of a catastrophic season, it is incumbent on the players to remain positive.
“I would go into every game thinking we had a chance,” he says.
“I probably drove some people mad but you can’t turn up at a football match expecting to lose, regardless of who you’re playing. I had played for Celtic and Rangers, so I knew exactly how it felt with the boot on the other foot.
“I still think about that season quite a lot, I was talking to someone about it last month, actually. That was a really good dressing room to be a part of, and the fans were incredible.
“They could have turned their backs on us but they stayed with us right to the end. I remember the penultimate game of the season against Blackburn, we were 1-0 up and going for it. The fans were so loud. We lost that game 3-1, but even though the situation had been hopeless for so long they were still determined to enjoy the season.”
It’s not just the players and supporters who are affected by a season where relegation is inevitable, even with two months of the season remaining.
“It impacts everyone,” says Sean Jarvis, the current CEO of Leicestershire Cricket Club and the Commercial Director at Huddersfield during their rise to – and subsequent fall from – the Premier League.
In 2018-19, the Terriers were toothless, finishing 16 points and winning just a single match between 25 November and the end of the season.
“You always hoped to get into the Premier League and there was an amazing buzz around the club for the seasons we were there,” says Jarvis.
“Then it just felt like everything we had built up over that period just, sort of, fell apart. You end up feeling completely powerless. We had had a bit of luck going up in the first place, the stars completely aligned, really.
“Then the opposite happened – everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong. The football gods conspired against us.
“As the season goes on, people start to realise that relegation means different things to different people. It brings pressure for the players and manager, of course.
“You build up staffing levels in the Premier League and then, of course, redundancies do happen. Everything becomes very tense. Very fraught. It’s not a pleasant journey. To put all that effort in to get there, and then see it all disappear is soul destroying.”
Yet seasons from hell can create a Band of Brothers mentality.
“It’s a mental thing more than a physical thing,” says Moncur. “Even when we were playing well, and we were getting near to good results, it always seemed like something was going to go wrong. It was the both boxes scenario – if football matches weren’t decided by scoring or conceeding goals then we would have been safe. But the key thing is to stick together, and I think we did that. We’re still all good mates now.”
So, would that Swindon side beat Chris Wilder’s Sheffield United?
“It’s a good question,” says Judd. “We would probably have to score quite a few and hope they had an off day in front of goal.”
And is it all over for the Blades or can they pull off the great escape?
“No chance,” says Moncur.
He’s almost certainly right.
from Football - inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/7VwMnlC
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