Relegation reality

Last updated : 17 April 2008 By Richard Brown

As the Magpies teeter three points off the Football League trapdoor, the threat of relegation - as if it hadn't before - now seems a very real threat.

Where battling Easter displays against Peterborough, Rochdale and Shrewsbury had offered hope, that form now seems a distant memory with

Posh point... Notts battled well
the false dawn of a five-point resurrection now all but forgotten.

But for a predictably cautious 0-0 draw with fellow-strugglers Mansfield barely 10 days ago the club could have all but sealed their Football League status.

Tellingly, the Magpies' failure to secure all three points that day only offered a stay of execution to their guest, who escaped back up the A60 to Mansfield with the initiative to foil County's survival hopes.

Two games down the line and McParland's men have no more points to speak of, whilst the Football League's Houdini act, Mansfield have managed to close the gap with a priceless 2-1 victory over bottom-side Wrexham, followed by a home draw with Barnet.

Fortunately the Stags were beaten 2-1 by Stockport at Edgeley Park on Wednesday night, but only thanks to a late penalty.

Whilst Jason Lee's first of the season and a Neil MacKenzie penalty did away with the unwanted record of not scoring more than one goal in a game since December, the empty bleatings of a deflated Ian McParland offered little inspiration ahead of potentially the most important four days in the club's illustrious history.

Dream duo... Armstrong-Holmes and McParland haven't delivered
The club's long-suffering support have been expected to tow the party line all season that the 26 man squad is one of the league's best on paper.

And, as hard a pill as it is to swallow, the bleating of John Armstrong Holmes et al. hits the nail squarely on the head.

Unfortunately for supporters, however, the club have not before nor since played a single match on paper, and so seasoned veterans like Russell Hoult and Michael Johnson, both excellent in their short time with the club, make for nothing more than journalistic fodder for programme readers.

And as the club's management bumble their way through their roster, Notts' on-looking fans are left pigeon-holed into two definitive categories.

The first, having become so disheartened by a near-eternity of life in the lower reaches of the Football League, are apathetic at best, whilst those hardened souls left behind look on in distain, helpless to prevent the dramas unfolding before them.

Dwindling Meadow Lane crowds tell a story all of their own, although without a trump card to turn to few could deny the outcome for the Magpies looks bleak.

Saltergate... Will Notts need something from final day trip?

And while supporters, the board and players face an absolutely crucial final four games, only Notts County can stare into the eyes of non-league obscurity in the knowledge that this 'been-there, done-that' club has seen all of this before.

Whether or not all roads lead to Farsley Celtic now hangs ominously in the old lady's final battle against her inoperable slump into footballing oblivion, with the club's run-in to the end of the season being key to their survival hopes.

Few fans will relish a final day decider at Saltergate, whilst fewer still will be banking on claiming all three points at home to Wycombe on the penultimate day of the season.

So without proven goal-scorers to speak of, surely battling displays at home to struggling Accrington Stanley on Saturday, and away at bottom-side Wrexham are our only hopes of survival?

Ten years ago... Notts as champions
Regardless of our position come May 3 though, the question remains  whether we deserve to go down.

The league table, as they say, never lies, and should the Magpies fail to deliver League Two survival then they will have only themselves to blame.

Just ten years after clinching promotion from the Third Division in record time, the club will have confirmed its terminal decline, and relegation would only confirm what many already knew.

After years of crippling mismanagement on and off the field, relegation will only underline the club as masters of its own, sorry demise.