It's a truly unbelievable record. We'll have to see how it looks in January but we must be on for one of, if not the, worst Football League record over a two year period. I still think we can take a lot of Doncaster's records from when they went out of the league in 1998. I wonder if we can even have a shot at their record for lowest ever points total of 8 set way back in 1905. Since 3 points for a win its the 11 Derby got in 2008.
As for getting back out of the National League, frankly, no way, not with the current issues surrounding the team both on and off the pitch. It's been historically hard for well run clubs to get out of the division let alone freefalling shambles. Just look at Chesterfield, Wrexham, York, Stockport and Torquay as parallels to ourselves, if we go down I expect to have the same struggles they all had or still currently have.
Only five teams have ever bounced back straight away, Lincoln and Darlington in the early days of automatic promotion for the champions and then since two promotion places were put in Carlisle, Shrewsbury and Bristol Rovers are the only teams to spend one season down there and none of them won the division.
For those of a nervous disposition please look away now.
I know I will be pilloried for showing these stats just after a confidence boosting first win of the season, but I was prompted to research this after Lamb Beret's earlier posting.
Before us, several clubs have had dire runs in the league, but they generally have only lasted one season:-
Newport County 1970/71 (First 25 games winless).
Barrow 1970/71 (First 16 games winless).
Rochdale 1973/74 (Two league wins all season).
Doncaster Rovers 1997/98 (First 20 games winless).
Derby County 2007/08 (One league win all season).
However it is the longevity of our poor run that prompted me to make a comparison with a perennial struggler back in the late 1960's, Bradford Park Avenue who were everyone's whipping boys, culminating with them failing to be re-elected in 1970, ironically to be replaced by our opponents this Saturday, Cambridge United.
In the three seasons from 1967/68, they finished bottom of the league each time, with an overall record of 15 wins, 36 draws and 87 defeats. Using the current 3 points for a win, that works out at
0.586 points per game.
Interestingly (and unfortunately) the comparison since our win on New Year's Day 2019 is depressingly similar. Since that day we have P67, W8 D15 and L44. This gives a total of 39 points, or
0.582 points per game.
As an aside, just to show our benevolence to the opposition is not just a recent characteristic, recalling some of those one season failures I quoted earlier:-
We were the opposition in Newport's first win in their 26th game.
We were the opposition in Barrow's first win in their17th game, and they also went on to get the double against us.
One of Rochdale's two wins in 1973/74 was at Roots Hall.
Oh yes, and in Bradford Park Avenue's last season in the league they beat us at home and drew at Roots Hall.
Now when is that positivity course I am due to go on?