Where do we go from here?

Another away game and another comprehensive thrashing handed out by another team looking better than us in all departments (except goalkeeper, but this is only because I can't rate a player that was untested over 90 minutes of football).  A defeat to a team backed by a town with a population half that of Desborough.

What's worse is there's no obvious way out of our cycle of thumping defeats.  We have conceded 10 goals in our last two matches (as if you needed reminding), but could not have argued if we had shipped twice as many.  There's a strong case for awarding Billy Johnson MOM for both games even though he spent most of them picking the ball out of his net.

The morale-boosting win over Mickleover now seems like a game from a different age.  Since then we seem to have lost a number of grown-up players to be replaced by young boys, playing at being footballers.  It's not their fault to be young and hideously inexperienced, but it does us no good as we fight to stay in this division.

Increasingly I'm reminded of the last time we were dropped into the Southern League Premier division.  We were extricating ourselves from Non Park, didn't play for a month when we really should have been wound-up, and rotated through numerous players who were picked simply because they were available on the day and could get to the ground for 3 o'clock.  We finished rock-bottom of the division and spent the next couple of years rebuilding against clubs who looked on a three-figure gate as a bumper pay-day.

That time we had the backing of Ritchie to help us rebuild.  Now?  Well, don't look at the League Table for the Love of God.  A win in the 6-pointer at Stourbridge next week will still see us firmly in the relegation zone.  And this is at a time when the very notion of 11 players in our shirts beating another set of players in a different jersey feels more like a fantasy than a possibility.

Still, as we wallow in the unceasing dread of another relegation here's yesterday's sunset.  Not as good as the Halesowen one, or indeed, as good the as the sunset at Needham Market when we last played there and strolled to a regulation 3-0 win on our way to the League title....  But then, most things aren't as good now.