Three league games since the FA Cup heroics at Sunderland – was that really only ten days ago? – and somehow we’ve squeezed just one point from nine. One point. Even the most devoted optimist, the last believer clinging to the miracle, the resurrection, the mountains of fire – surely even they must now be staring at the table thinking, yeah, alright, that’ll do. Acceptance is good for the mind. Cleansing, even. Let it all go. The water’s lovely. Like slipping into a bath after a day spent arguing with reality.

Last Wednesday: Bradford. We were dreadful. Ninety minutes of being bossed around like we were the understudies in someone else’s play. Men vs boys, the old cliché, except this time the cliché felt offended at being associated with us. Every player running like they’d been poured into concrete moulds. Kyle John, Connor Hall, Tyler Magloire – honestly, pick a name out of a hat, they were all struggling. Bradford wanted to win. We wanted to be somewhere else. They won. Comfortably. We didn’t even put up the pretence of preventing it.

Then Saturday: Huddersfield. Collusion. That’s the only word for it. A joint, cooperative effort to produce 90 minutes of non-football, like both sides had quietly agreed beforehand that entertainment was unethical. Excruciating. Nil-nil, because of course it was. We improved after the break in the same way a corpse improves by sitting slightly more upright. Huddersfield were more upset at the result than we were when the match mercifully came to an end – You’re not fit to wear the shirt –  echoing around the Bycars. And, it made me smile. Schadenfreude is all I have for the remainder of the season. And, why not? What else is there?

And then Blackpool last night. Oh God. Like two drunks stumbling out into the salty evening air, swinging whatever punches their blurred vision allowed. Faded glamour everywhere, the smell of chips and the ghosts of better decades. We landed a couple of decent hits, just enough to think maybe, maybe tonight, but of course we ended up face down on the canvas. Again. A season of canvases. A season of spat‑out gumshields. We staggered along the promenade afterwards, metaphorically and spiritually, looking for our next drink or maybe a time machine.

And here we are: 35 gigs into the season, six wins, ten draws, nineteen defeats. Nineteen defeats! You have to laugh. Or cry. Or both at once. We are a disgrace! An embarrassment! But we really don’t need to be getting bent out of shape about all of this. Because it’s not us, is it? We didn’t pick the team. We didn’t sign the players. We didn’t leave it too late when the season could have been salvaged. None of this is our fault. We’re just witnesses, spectators at the world’s longest slow‑motion car crash. Acceptance really is the way out.

So, disconnect from the league and pour everything into the FA Cup Quarter-Final. Chelsea away. Thirty-five quid! I’d have paid more, honestly. Safe standing. Six thousand of us rattling around the poshest corners of the capital. A free hit. A pilgrimage. The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea: where the pavements are polished like marble, where the townhouses stare down at you like disapproving aristocrats, where the street lamps look like they come with trust funds. And the price of a pint – passive‑aggressive violence, really. £7 if you’re blessed, £9.20 if the bartender has a moustache and an art degree.

But London days always drift into something mythic. Sloane Square, South Kensington – places where you feel like an imposter wandering through a novel you haven’t been given the plot for. Then you slip into Pimlico, a bit frayed at the edges, a bit less varnish, far more our scene. Where the people look like they’ve yelled man on! at least once in their lives. Proper pubs. Proper ale. Proper characters. Rail chaos? Maybe. Probably. But we’ve navigated worse. London is always a top day out, always, no matter where you end up, and this one should feel mythic. The trains might be a nightmare, almost definitely will be, but a little defiance mixed with a little creativity usually gets you there in the end.

It’s funny what your mind dredges up after a match like last night. Keith Lowe appeared out of nowhere – 2007–08 relegation campaign, Foyle at the beginning, Sinnott at the end, that miserable season that somehow still manages to haunt the modern-day chaos. Wolves loanee, big and awkward, like a prototype for Tyler Magloire – that’s probably what led me to thinking about Keith. Jesus, Magloire was poor last night, let’s not tiptoe around it. And my boy Hernandez flickering in and out of existence like a player haunting the edges of reality. All that twisting, turning, doing nothing. I still want him to sprinkle stardust everywhere he walks, but it’s just not going to happen. Doesn’t matter. He’s still my Player of the Season. It’s always been about far more than consistent performances for me – flair, personality, jazz, the sense they understand chaos and suffering – all things that need to be considered. Hernandez can sit alongside the likes of Lewis Haldane, Joe Cardle, Paulo Tavares, Jeff Minton, Robin Hulbert – all worthy Players of the Season in my world. Gods in the strange little chapel of my memory. Players that the streets can never forget.

Bolton on Saturday at Vale Park. Third in the table, still sniffing at automatic promotion. And the weather looks decent. So have a few beers. See your mates, see your family. Soak up the sun. Go the match. Don’t go the match. You are under no obligations to do anything. The day is yours.

And the final score on Saturday? It really doesn’t matter.

Because it’s done. Finished. League Two next season. They can’t hurt us anymore. The worst has already happened. This is house‑money football. Gallows humour. Free-wheeling down a hill with no brakes because the crash already came months back. So breathe. Laugh at the absurdity of it all. And remember: for all the misery and all the farce, it’s still our circus, our clowns, our beautiful disaster.

And when the dust settles we’ll still be here. Loyal to the chaos, faithful to the fall, ready – somehow – for whatever comes next.