Today’s game has more resting on it than any I can remember for a long while. It’s a crunch day. A defeat, and I fear Neal Ardley’s time with us could be over. The Board may give him the Rotherham and Plymouth games for one last chance week – but I fear he’ll finally have lost the majority of the fan base if he doesn’t deliver today. We need goals and we need a win. Nothing less will do against a side that lost 0-6 at home last week. I am a huge Ardley fan; at Meet the Manager he was so inspiring and impressive. I so desperately want it to work for Ardley and I really would love to see him lead us out at NPL. But clearly his management isn’t working – and it hasn’t been for a long time. Things have not been right since the Sutton FA Cup defeat, bar the odd blip like the wins over the unspeakables and Blackburn. Since March it’s been dull football to watch and just far too many failures to score. Our scoring record is quite frankly appalling and embarrassing – and mind blowingly frustrating. And the depressing thing is there doesn’t seem any prospect of that record changing. There’s a resignation about the club now, a flatness and lack of hope that our fortunes will lift any time soon. Managers take the plaudits for the good times and successes; so too they yet bear responsibility for the bad times and failures. My last glimmer of hope remains that today we might deliver a performance and result that will turn the tide and promise a more positive outlook. Defeat and/or a blank sheet will extinguish for me the last flickering flame of hope, and resignation may not just be a mood in the days ahead.
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