Relegation Thread 2019/20 (sponsored by Steve Dale)

[Chris FGR]

What a crock of shit, between 1968/69 and 2004/05 they spent 34 of those 37 years in the 4th tier. They are now back at their natural level after some years punching well above their weight.

Fucking hell that's almost as long as Rochdale spent in the 4th tier in one stretch I think.

 

[TrinidadsNumberOne]

Fucking hell that's almost as long as Rochdale spent in the 4th tier in one stretch I think.

Dale were 36 consecutive years between 1974 and 2010.

Think Hartlepool spent all but four seasons in this league between 1958 and 2003. Exeter and Northampton also strike me as clubs that don't stay out of League Two for long either.

 

[hellogregory]

If we’re still 11 points or more clear after the next 3 games I think we should stay up and it would be a remarkable turnaround considering how shite we we’ve been. But as things stand I still think there’s a very good chance we’ll be relegated. It all hangs on the new players settling in well and us not becoming the same disjointed mess we have been all season but with different players.

 

[GEORGE]

What a crock of shit, between 1968/69 and 2004/05 they spent 34 of those 37 years in the 4th tier. They are now back at their natural level after some years punching well above their weight.

Not sure where Scunthorpe's natural level is ? When i started watching league football they were in the old Division 2 ( now Championship) and i believe finished 3rd behind Sunderland. Always thought they were a third div team ? Maybe i'm wrong.

 

[Bottega Don]

Not sure where Scunthorpe's natural level is ? When i started watching league football they were in the old Division 2 ( now Championship) and i believe finished 3rd behind Sunderland. Always thought they were a third div team ? Maybe i'm wrong.

It's all about era's really. In my era we've barely been in L2, we got promoted to L1 in my third season watching and have only returned twice since in 16 years. Someone older will remember how long we've spent in this division, people even older will remember us battling Liverpool at the top of Division 2.

 

[northstandexile]

Scunthorpe are just newcomers into league, didn’t get elected until 1950.

 

[Deepcut Cobbler]

Dale were 36 consecutive years between 1974 and 2010.

Think Hartlepool spent all but four seasons in this league between 1958 and 2003. Exeter and Northampton also strike me as clubs that don't stay out of League Two for long either.

We don't, two and sometimes three seasons before we come back down, even when we went to the top tier (Division One) we only spent five seasons out of the fourth...

 

[valefan16]

It’s all down to generations I guess, I grew up with the Vale a half decent second tier side even briefly flirting with the idea of Premier League football and the likes of Swansea, Bournemouth, Brighton and Cardiff being sides we’d hope to get for an easy passage in the cups, regularly beating Man City, Wolves, WBA etc and teams like Grimsby, Tranmere and Swindon would be there with us. (If I recall it was Swindon who’s second tier spell ended at the same time and came down with us)

Fans ten years younger would only know Vale as a league one mid table side with a few flirts in L2 in the past decade.

When you look at some of the sides that have been or are in the Premier League who were rattling around the arse end of league two not too long ago I guess it shows things soon change. (All be it much harder now due to the money side of the game)

 

[Ninety Per Cent]

We were just behind Rochdale at one point for longest serving members of this league, 1983 to 1998. Ironic that the year i moved away we got promoted. More likely to do these days what Grimsby have done for most of their lives bar their Second Tier stints in the '90s and pre-WW2 top flight, Bobbing between the Third and fourth tiers.

To the case in point, need to stop the rot and get something saturday, a repeat of last year when McCall was sacked and we fell off a cliff and we could be sucked back in.

 

[Crewelad87]

Obviously history dictates were a league 2 club, but it's hard to pin down where we belong in my time watching us.

8 seasons in the championship
9 seasons in league 1
6 seasons in league 2

 

[Laker]

The last 14 seasons have seen only one change in division but my first 14 seasons following us resulted in 2 promotions and 4 relegations. And we’ve generally been quite an up and down side since joining the league in 1970. 2005 onwards has been unusually passive for us.

 

[Conker]

We’ve got Morecambe on Saturday, still gotta play Stevenage and Macclesfield I believe too, in fact after our next two games (Morecambe and Orient) we got Newport, Cheltenham, Swindon in a row

I’ll be honest, if we lose this weekend I’ll start bricking it. Also the only difference between us and relegation right now is Maynard - imagine if he gets injured.

The postive is we have been performing much better under GC - but we haven’t really seen that turn in to wins yet. We 100% have the special relegation ‘bottle it’ mentality.

 

[AdamStag]

We’ve got Morecambe on Saturday, still gotta play Stevenage and Macclesfield I believe too, in fact after our next two games (Morecambe and Orient) we got Newport, Cheltenham, Swindon in a row

I’ll be honest, if we lose this weekend I’ll start bricking it. Also the only difference between us and relegation right now is Maynard - imagine if he gets injured.

The postive is we have been performing much better under GC - but we haven’t really seen that turn in to wins yet. We 100% have the special relegation ‘bottle it’ mentality.

This side is worse than the one that went down, have been saying that for months.

Least a long weekend in Lancaster to look forward to, I imagine quite a few who are going for the weekend won’t go to the game

 

[Conker]

This side is worse than the one that went down, have been saying that for months.

Least a long weekend in Lancaster to look forward to, I imagine quite a few who are going for the weekend won’t go to the game

I’ve been offered a lift up, no thanks I’ll watch it at home if I can be arsed.

 

[Conker]

I’m now near fully convinced that if we had more than one relegation place this season Mansfield would be playing pub teams like Chesterfield next season, 99.8% confident.

 

[The Terminator]

I’m now near fully convinced that if we had more than one relegation place this season Mansfield would be playing pub teams like Chesterfield next season, 99.8% confident.

We're not much cop at home, you'll have a chance on Tuesday night against us. Our record for Tuesday night home games is terrible!

 

[shoddycollins]

Hopefully not famous last words but you can stick a fork in stevenage now I think. The rest of us are just fighting to avoid the ignominy of staying up on a technicality

 

[Conker]

We're not much cop at home, you'll have a chance on Tuesday night against us. Our record for Tuesday night home games is terrible!

Let’s agree to a point beforehand. Stevenage can fuck off.

 

[E10rifle]

Let’s agree to a point beforehand. Stevenage can fuck off.

Pretty sure we could both lose every single game until the end of the season and still stay up. But better safe than sorry, eh.

 

[Chris FGR]

Hopefully not famous last words but you can stick a fork in stevenage now I think. The rest of us are just fighting to avoid the ignominy of staying up on a technicality

There is NOTHING ignominious about staying up on a technicality.

 

[GTFCfish]

There is NOTHING ignominious about staying up on a technicality.

We stayed up in 2009 purely because of Luton’s 30 point deduction, the two other teams who started on deductions of 17 points (Bournemouth and Rotherham) both still finished above us but Chester and Luton finished below us.

But as we felt guilty for staying up by default we decided to rectify it the next season by signing a team of alcoholics to get us relegated to the Conference.

 

[Chris FGR]

So....Did anyone take hellogregory's advice and lump on Carlisle to finish bottom? Still 22/1 now, having played us, Mansfield and Swindon and stayed unbeaten. Just Cheltenham to go but 'striking whilst the iron's hot' two weeks ago doesn't seem that good advice at this point.

The only possible value is Macc at 9/2 in case they get more points deducted but tbh think Stevenage are nailed on

 

[hellogregory]

It may not look good advice now, but speak to me on the eve of the last game of the season.

All it will take is Stevenage to all of a sudden go on a similar little run to the one we’ve just been on and for us to fall back into our usual ways. Before beating Walsall 2 weeks ago we’d only won 2 games since September, then suddenly we win 2 games in 4 days, so it’s possible Stevenage too could string some wins together out of nowhere sooner or later. That’s why I still say strike now, while the bookies are lulled into a false sense of security.

 

[Chris FGR]

You're 12 points above them with a game in hand. Being realistic they are going to need to win at least half of their remaining 14 games to finish above you. That doesn't seem likely given they've won 3 out of 32.

You're currently averaging over 1 point a game and need at the very most 10 more from 15 games. (0.7ppg). So basically all you need to do is be in what is normally nailed on relegation form from here to the end of the season to stay up.

You should be at least 100-1 imo.

 

[Laker]

You're 12 points above them with a game in hand. Being realistic they are going to need to win at least half of their remaining 14 games to finish above you. That doesn't seem likely given they've won 3 out of 32.

You're currently averaging over 1 point a game and need at the very most 10 more from 15 games. (0.7ppg). So basically all you need to do is be in what is normally nailed on relegation form from here to the end of the season to stay up.

You should be at least 100-1 imo.

Yep it’s ludicrous talk from HelloGregory. All it needs is Carlisle to win two more games (the sort of run he thinks Stevenage need) and they’re out of sight. And even without that they’re miles clear anyway.

Our win and Stevenage’s loss yesterday puts us safe. There’s no way they’re getting 16 points in 14 games. (You can quote me on that at the end of the season!)

 

[shoddycollins]

Big win for Cambridge yesterday, with the teams below them mostly drawing. I said they should be safe, so now I'm revising that to 'are safe'. Walsall and Scunthorpe stopping the rot too I think you can cross all those teams out of this thread now.

Defeat for Oldham, thought they were safe anyway so they drop to 17th but 14 points clear they've nothing to worry about.

Decent day for everyone else who picked up a point (mostly against each other) as Stevenage lose again. Nobody in that bottom pack apart from Stevenage is really on relegation form

 

[Semi-skimmed Silk]

Form would indicate we'd get another 15 points, then with a 4 point further deduction (that could vary either way) would get us to 40 points. Wouldn't take much of a run for Stevenage to hit that, but they done seem a bit crap at the moment.

However, with no sign of any takeover happening who knows what will happen to us March onwards.

 

[The_Boss]

9/2 on us is very tempting to lump on!!

A proper 6 pointer at Morecambe on Tues night mind you. Win that and we're still in a strong position even with another 4 points docked. Lose it and it looks closer to being a 2 horse race for bottom spot.

 

[The Terminator]

Hopefully not famous last words but you can stick a fork in stevenage now I think. The rest of us are just fighting to avoid the ignominy of staying up on a technicality

I wouldn't say so right now, still 13 games left or so. All it takes from Stevenages perspective is for them to win one and Morecambe to lose one and the gap is back to two points, also Macclesfield's situation still isn't resolved with the points deduction it seems.

Its going to take a big collapse now from ourselves in 19th up to 14th now for anyone of those sides to go down.

Stranger things have happened with ouselves, we should just about have enough fire power. Had we won yesterday, I'd probably have my feet up though...........

 

[TrinidadsNumberOne]

Unless Macc implode I can't see Stevenage climbing off the bottom. Westley really is a washed up manager. People keep pointing to what he did before and his past successes. But the man was blessed with a great squad in his first spell at Stevenage and he's well and truly finished. He's at the point where he's dining out on past achievements at Stevenage. Every job he's had in the last 10 years excluding his time at Stevenage has seen him sacked for poor performance or loss of form.

He has no philosophy whatsoever. With regard to signings, he just throws a lot of shit at the wall in the hope it'll stick. He thinks a bloated squad will keep them up but I highly doubt that.

For such a forward thinking club that Phil Wallace claims Stevenage are, their dire recruitment this Summer and Winter was the catalyst of their failure of a season this year. It's alright going for sponsorships and trying to make a fanfare for your off-pitch ambitions. But they've just got it so, so wrong on the pitch this season. This was a side competing for playoffs for two of the last three years, but I can't believe how spectacularly they've got this season wrong.