I met a supporter from a distant land,

Who said – “Four vast floodlights and terraces of steel,

Tower over the horizon … Within that stand,

Amidst the sodden puddles, and missing signs,

Live memories of football that once was grand,

Tattered posters tell stories of sides that could conquer,

Legendary names that they could hardly remember,

But it was lost in the void, as it was all left to fester,

Signs of what used to exist;

And around the empty vessel echoes a sarcastic cry:

The best in the west, Swindon Town!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare,

Tides dragging towards the National League scaring everyone away.”

At the close of the worst season in the history of Swindon Town, there was one final reminder of how the campaign went. A three-all draw and yet nobody seemed to be having fun, I did not even know it was possible to have a boring game with six goals in it, but I have now witnessed one. Slapstick defending, an overrun midfield, and bland approach play. It was nothing you wouldn’t have seen, heard, and thought 46 times already this season.

There was more that would feel frustratingly familiar as promises of better and vows of promotion were made beforehand. Vacuous platitudes that make you want to scream until somebody does something for real. Communication is one of the things that needs to improve, but I also don’t want to hear a single word that isn’t about a properly considered concrete move to make things better.

We are now firmly in the silly season. Nothing will happen for the next two months, but every murmur, every rustle, and every morsel will be feasted upon relentlessly. The retained list is the first stop, so every little movement from the players after the Morecambe game will be analysed relentlessly to see who is staying and who is going. I spent most of my Monday morning feeling like I was back in GCSE English analysing Charlie Austin’s use of pronouns in his post-match interview with the club. Conclusion: Unclear.

The bookmakers don’t even have odds for the next manager, but you are out of your mind if you think I did not try and figure out whether Clem Morfuni and Anthony Hall’s programme notes hid any clues. They did very little to hint at who the next incumbent will be, but they have made me question whether I am one more club statement away from becoming Matt Le Tissier.

The problem with all of this is that, ultimately, these decisions really do not matter. Gavin Gunning did not seem overly happy answering questions about where things went wrong and how they are going to change for next year after the game, but that is the only way things will be different.

To borrow an analogy from Ripping Yarns’ Golden Gordon: it is not the shorts that matter, it is what is in the shorts that matters. That is to say, you can change the manager as much as you want, four times in three years, but the result won’t be any different unless what is beneath the surface is working properly too. As yet we have been told nothing about whether the structure that produced the Morfuni Meridian is going to have some structural work done. On Saturday there was a side that hadn’t paid its players and one in free-fall who were both playing for nothing. I am not sure that will be the case this time next year.

It was the end, but truly it only feels like the middle.