The depressing thing about relegation is that it’s not actually as devastating as you might imagine.

Sky Sports, always with an eye to the drama of the game, will mark the relegation of a side with a crash zoom in on some puffy-eyed, shaven headed ultra, wiping tears from his face with a tattooed arm and a scarf. He becomes the proxy for all, promoting the notion of the crowd as a great obsessive family, together in grief. It’s a slightly cosy notion, and most other football fans (who rarely experience promotion or relegation) can feel relieved it’s not them.

Yesterday, at Swindon Town, we were as good as relegated by a 3-1 defeat at the hands of Brentford, very well reported in today’s Observer by Spencer Vignes. As he notes:

“Twenty years after The Robins last occupied the Football League’s basement, it now looks almost certain that they will mark the anniversary by becoming the first club ever to drop from the Premiership into what is now League Two. This was a must-win game for Iffy Onuora’s side, especially with their remaining fixtures falling against the in-form Bristol City and Huddersfield. In the event it was all over by half time, Brentford’s win keeping them in touch with Southend and Colchester in the race for automatic promotion.”

This was the point of realisation, the point to start welling up and railing at the injustice of it all. There is no way back. But this supposed emotional low point of the football season wasn’t, really. It was expectations fulfilled, rather than the (far worse) hopes dashed. Losing a play-off tie is far worse (we experienced that a couple of years ago).

The end was greeted with a shake of the head, some boos, and cries of “what a load of rubbish”. A few of the better players in the side stared at their boots and sheepishly applauded the crowd, who slightly sheepishly applauded back. We don’t want them to go.

The others got the hell off the pitch; professionals thinking only of the summer break and the next contract, wherever it might be. Potentially, it’s worse for them than for us; pay at this level isn’t startling, so they won’t have much in the bank. There will be a few who simply won’t get contracts in the professional game this summer. That’s a personal relegation that’s far harsher than the one their ineptitude has inflicted on the club.

Almost to prove the point, in the crowd nobody was crying, and few even looked as disappointed as the players; a few shaken heads, a few wondering if next week’s trip to local rivals Bristol City might be worth it (that match will confirm things, mathematically). No need to rub salt in your own wound.

But, in the meantime, nothing but a low-grade disappointment. A few fans will console themselves with the thought - optimistic, as proved every season - that the relegated side can bounce straight back to this level next year.

But another part of this creeping disappointment, I suspect, will be the publishing of the fixture list in the summer - with visits to such hotspots as Shrewsbury and Rochdale, and nothing but low four figure crowds - and the realisation that, even in securing promotion from that league, it’ll only win the right to get back to here.

Then they’ll be instant favourites to go back down, yo-yoing again, but at a lower level than they’ve seen in two decades, the promise of mild disappointment stretching years into the future.

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