After Darlington left Rockingham Road with three easy points following the proverbial “men against boys” victory the writing was on the wall for our title aspirations. The writing said, “You ain’t good enough”.
Back then the Conference was still mostly made up of the teams we knew and hated for many seasons, interspersed with the annual “Guest Star” from the Football League. Generally they slummed it for a season and went back to where they came from. Being full-time in an otherwise part-time league always proved to be a handy advantage (see also the Poppies circa 2007-2008).
The Division is a lot different today – you can barely turn around for knocking into former lower league, and not so lower league has-beens. Our season in the Ryman league seemed like a detour to the farthest reaches of Hell, even though it was only a division below the highest level we’ve ever played at. One can only image what it must be like for fans of Luton, Oxford and Wimbledon to have gone from playing the likes of Liverpool and Manchester United not so long ago, to digging out the road map and looking for Eastbourne, Hayes & Yeading and, let’s be honest, little old us! Doesn’t bear thinking about.
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