For 40-odd years the Swindon fan has lived with his grandfather’s words: “It all goes wrong after Christmas.” After five successive wins, all against top-half clubs in League One, he could have felt Christmas had come early. Sadly it had. Even a draw at home to Doncaster Rovers would have taken them to the top, as Bristol City went down to Crewe, but they fluffed a penalty in the 80th minute, lost to one in the 26th and slipped to third behind MK Dons.
It was not altogether a surprise. Doncaster travel as dark horses not donkeys. They came in 17th place because of one win in nine home games and left with six in 11 away. Paul Dickov, their manager, had tweaked his system to 4-1-4-1, he said, to confound Swindon’s overlapping full-backs but “we believed we had the players to hit them on the break”. They played in a diamond and made it in spades. “I don’t think many teams will come here and create the chances we did,” he added.
With Theo Robinson, who converted their penalty, menacing from the wide service of James Coppinger and Kyle Bennett, or later Harry Forrester, they did indeed create chances, though the best fell into their laps from Swindon whose high-risk, close-passing confidence in the 3-5-2 shape wavered between Barcelona and catastrophe. It was cool going on casual – a delight on the brink of disaster as even last defenders passed or were caught short.
Mark Cooper, their manager, said: “The last thing you need when teams get everyone behind the ball is to give them something to hang on to.” He called the tackle that conceded Rovers’ penalty “fantastic”, the decision of the referee, Kevin Johnson, “atrocious” but added: “Second half we had enough opportunities to get something out of the game. We have a penalty [also dodgy and wasted by Michael Smith] and a clear one-v-one on the keeper [set up by Smith for Andy Williams].” Jon Obika also saw a shot deflected on to a post. Dickov thought neither penalty correct – easier when Christmas has come early.
Both managers have been with their clubs for a season and a half. Cooper, a modest midfielder, is son of Terry, one of the earliest overlapping left-backs for England and Leeds and this is a serious chance to make his mark. Swindon have spent most of their time in anonymity, if not administration, with every now and then (League Cup winners from the Third Division in 1969, promotion to the Premiership in 1993) an assertion above their station. (Theirs is a railway town, headquarters of Brunel’s locomotive maintenance works, and the club have a train as well as a robin on their badge.)
After a sequence of owners in quick and embarrassing succession they look to have stability in the hands of a chairman, Lee Power, former team-mate of Tim Sherwood at Norwich, which has led to a flow of good players and goodwill from Carrow Road and Tottenham. Now the nth-phase possession in the boardroom has shifted to the pitch.
But, when the average attendance sank below 7,000, Power warned they had based their budget on 7,500 and would have to “sell one or two of these lads”, besides shortly losing two of the midfield five, Yaser Kasim (Iraq) and Massimo Luongo (Australia), to the Asia Cup. They really are lads, too. The average age of the starting XI was 22.
Saturday’s crowd of 7,793 barely half- filled the County Ground which, with its catchment area and classy play, should be bulging and rocking. For character this match compared well with anything offered by the greatest league in the world, which could not raise a single candidate for the Sports Personality of the Year award. “It wasn’t our day,” Cooper said, “but we won’t dwell on it. We move on.” If they dwelt a bit too much on the ball, they look fit to move on and upwards, even after Christmas.
