After weeks of hard work and endeavour we have finally achieved our goal of reaching the bottom of League 1, taking over that mantle from yesterday’s visitors, Plymouth. Our quest for 4th division football seemingly impossible to stop. Darren Moore has not been sacked, and neither has he walked. An announcement has to come from the club on Monday morning because this cannot possibly be allowed to continue. Carol made this mistake the last time out at this level so surely she has learnt a big lesson? It will be astonishing if he is our manager at Lincoln next Saturday, utterly baffling.

And yesterday’s clash? Us and Plymouth Argyle? The Valiants Vs the Pilgrims. The bottom two teams in League 1. The first 45 minutes was as bad as anything I’ve seen from a professional game of football. Twenty-two blokes running around, hoofing the ball if it came near them, no apparent idea of why they were there and what they were supposed to be doing, they were just there and doing it. I could make no sense whatsoever of what I was watching. 

But one man stood out in the chaos, Lorent Tolaj, scrapping, hustling, shithousing through the ninety minutes, and when his chance came he took it. Everything you would want from your striker. Of course he was going to score—returning strikers always do this to us. He even had the audacity to come round the Paddock and Hamil End at the final whistle to applaud us. It was his theatre, his stage, his beat. 

And what did Darren Moore give us in what was potentially his swan song? His last 90 minutes as our gaffer? Radical change? Something new and different? No. He gave us the same old same old. 3-5-2. Einstein and his definition of insanity. We got exactly the same result. It’s difficult to grasp just how horrific we are. Tragedy without end. Hopelessness made manifest.

When we did create chances they fell to Ruari. He hit the target with the three that came his way, but didn’t trouble the keeper. I feel like I’m always having a go at Ruari—it’s nothing personal, he is just not a League 1 footballer. He’s not alone in this, but I’m still always hearing utter nonsense around me in the Paddock—“Ruari’s having a decent game,” “At least he’s trying”—people without a clue, the same people who are constantly screaming “get it forward!” all through the match. Relentless with their stupidity, their voices like broken jukeboxes stuck on one tune. 

Yesterday offered them more. A female ref. Nothing brings out the fragile male ego quite like a female referee. The comments you hear are horrific. “I have a tiny little dick” is what they are all saying. Why admit it in public? Have a bit of self-respect.  I’m venting here, but it’s all so predictable – the chants, the songs. Anyway, the referee was certainly not the cause of any our problems yesterday.

And so we wait for the announcement tomorrow morning. We need at least a dream of a happy ending to the season because this relentless misery is becoming tiresome. Our suffering has to mean something.