Colchester United 1 Mighty Swindon Town 3
Well now. Here's a crisis. We've all got stuck in to Andy King since he arrived back at the County Ground, and a few bad defeats since his appointment seemed to be confirming our darkest fears.
But last night the boys went to Essex and came back with three points - after being a goal down at half time - and by all accounts put in a pretty good performance too. Grounds for optimism or is it just a false dawn? Talk of the playoffs might be wide of the mark, but it does look like Andy King has got the team going just as well as Roy Evans ever did.
"The visitors could have hit four of five" enthuses today's Adver. "Why can't they play like this every week?" it asked. Even U's fans are full of praise for Town (although you'll have to dig through the disappointment at their own showing).
So what went right? Andy King was quick to lay claim to his team's magnificent victory, saying it was "lovely to see my team play the sort of football I believe in". He points out that's two wins and two draws in the last four games, and highlights the contribution from Bobby Howe and Matthew Hewlett (note both are just returning from injury).
Yesterday in the Adver it was interesting that Andy King talked a lot about the pace of Sabin and Invincible up front - he described the pair as being the fastest strikers outside the Premiership - and the match report on the official Colchester website makes a lot of Sabin's speed as well.
If this is the result of King's comments about playing more to our strengths, then long may it continue. Saturday's home game, the first home match on a Saturday for a while, will give us all a better idea if this startling run of form is built on rock, or just lousy opposition.

Sad news confirmed: Mark Robinson has offically decided to retire after failing to recover from a double hernia operation. He says he at least had time to prepare for the news, and will stay involved with Town as a scout for Andy King.

Good news. Man City thumped Ipswich Town in the cup tonight, winning 4-1, proving that Town are easily better than a middle-ranking Premiership side. We only lost 2-0 to City, and that was up at Maine Road too, which must count for something.
This sits well with us Townies, of course, as we already know we've got a manager who's more than capable of working in the Premiership. Now City go up to Newcastle in the fifth round, and we look forward to Kevin Keegan proving Town are easily better than one of the Premiership's top sides.
:-)

Wrexham 2 Swindon Town 2
A storming comeback and goals from Graz and Reeves have earned a point for Town, and we're now sitting in 15th place.
I didn't make it up to North Wales, so listened in to a hyperventilating Ed Hadwin on Wilts Sound. They have a pretty cool running text commentary on their new website - and there was plenty to write about in the second half, as you'll see.
Before the match, a draw wouldn't have looked so good. But, given the fact we were two goals down midway through the second half, and given our terrible away form this season, and the fact Wrexham must have hit the woodwork at least two or three times... not a bad result, really.

Sad news: Town defender Mark Robinson looks likely to retire after taking specialist medical advice next week. Robbo's been struggling for fitness for some time now, and feels he hasn't been managing a good enough standard since a hernia operation.
He's been a good servant to Town since his arrival from Newcastle back in '94 for £600,000, and a fit Mark Robinson would (and does) stroll into the current Town side, but it seems he's lost all confidence in his ability to play regularly, and well enough.
If he does retire, it comes only weeks after centre back Gareth Davies hung up his boots because of his injury problems, saying he wanted to make sure he could still kick a ball around the back garden with his wee boy, rather than see him grow up from a wheelchair. It all rams home the price many pros pay for their careers in the game - and the fact that these players, unlike the hugely well-paid Premiership stars, will probably still have to work in some way to make ends meet when their career ends.
Meanwhile, yesterday's rumours proved to be just that - rumours. There were a few quite solid suggestions Sol Davies was moving to Pompey for a quarter million, but it seems that, in fact, club chairman Milan Mandaric had left "unimpressed" with the defender's performance on Tuesday night. Harsh on Sol, perhaps, but at least we haven't lost another defender from the club.
Team news for tomorrow's trip to second from bottom Wrexham: Matty Hewlett is back in the squad after injury, but Andy Gurney will (hopefully) stay in midfield after his solid performances in the last two games. Paul Edwards still isn't fit for action yet, and Alan Reeves plays his last game before his likely four-match ban for getting sent off against Bristol City.
Meanwhile, the north Wales side hope to have a new goalie in the nets to face Swindon Town: Marius Rovde is currently Ayr United's second choice keeper, and was the unfortunate man in goals when Rangers won 7-0 against United in a Scottish Cup semi-final at Hampden a couple of seasons back.
The Adver has a good rundown of Wrexham's awful season so far - let's hope we can make it a little worse tomorrow... (and seven goals would be nice :-))

Rumours abound that Sol Davies is on his way to first division Portsmouth for £250,000. Nothing's been confirmed by either club yet, but Pompey are known to be on the lookout for a defender, and their chairman was at the County Ground on Tuesday night.
While it'll be a shame to see one of the home-grown players leave, if the story's true it represents a shrewd bit of business for a player who could find himself on the sidelines if Paul Edwards keeps his form up...

Not much of a match, and in front of Town's smallest first team crowd of the season (under four thousand souls), but still a win against Notts County, thanks to a superb individual goal from Danny Invincible. It puts a little distance between us and the rest of the strugglers, and takes some of the relegation pressure off.
Danny, who admitted last season that he preferred having the sun on his back when he was playing, has clearly got used to British winter weather. Midway through the second half he collected the ball inside the County half and raced towards goal, before driving a shot past ex-Town keeper Mildenhall. It was one of the few touches of class in the match, but enough to grab all three points thanks to some pretty bad misses from a couple of County players. Read Dave Hanley's good roundup of the match here.
Talking points? Was David Duke your man of the match, and what on earth was Andy King on about when he got stuck into Town fans on Wiltshire Sound last night? His comments last night appear to be a continuation of what he said to the Adver yesterday - and adding that we have no right to boo Reeves.
Boo Reeves? Nobody heard much of that last night, even though the captain was having a stinker - perhaps King's mistaking the tradtional chant of "Reeeeeeves" for boos?

Ossie Ardeles is quoted tonight in the excellent, and very sarcastic, Fiver email from Guardian Unlimited:

>>>>"I want the Derby job. I've got a good record in England. Remember what I achieved with West Brom and Swindon? Unfortunately people remember what happened at Spurs but that was a difficult job at the time" - Ossie Ardiles presumably thinks saving Derby from relegation is a doddle.<<<<

Swindon Town v Notts County
Hmm - should we be previewing Town v County here tonight, or the United v Liverpool match that I suspect more people in Swindon will be watching tonight?
Perhaps turning out on a damp Tuesday night to watch two struggling second division sides is something only looked forward to by us football nutters, but it's a shame more people who live round here can't be motivated to come and watch live football. There's been plenty of debate about why so many have lost the habit - perhaps it's what Andy King is talking about tonight when he points out the obvious: that one of Town's biggest problems is that we, very recently, were a pretty big club. I think what he's saying is that expectations are too high, although it's not particularly clear to me from the piece.
Still, turning our attention to the most immediate crisis, we should be able to overcome the likes of County, who have been enduring a rough time of late.
That run continued at the weekend, when they lost 3-1 to Port Vale at home (and they only got their goal five minutes from the end).
They've been struggling to readjust their ambitions too, having expected to be closer to the top of the table at the start of the season when they made several signings - including Town goalie Steve Mildenhall. He makes his first appearance against Town since that move tonight, having missed our game up there last year through injury.
King insists this isn't a "six pointer", but County lie in the final relegation spot. A win for Town tonight would introduce a welcome nine point gap between us and them. A win for them... and it's all just like last season, all over again.
Town team news: not much to report. We should be unchanged from Saturday's 1-1 draw with Peterborough, assuming Mark Robinson and Dominic Foley get over knocks.

Peterborough United v Swindon Town
We’re off to Barry Fry’s Posh tomorrow, badly in need of a determined performance and - better still - a win after two lacklustre displays against promotion-chasing sides Bristol City and Oldham.
Peterborough are not, of course, in the same bracket as those two teams, which is why quite a few Swindon fans have high hopes of taking the points, and kicking off a winning run through a spell that sees us meet a few of the weaker sides in the league.
Posh are still in slightly better shape than Town, though, three points ahead with a game in hand as things stand. We’re meeting them off the back of their excellent 2-0 win away to Cardiff last week, with Leon McKenzie and the former Spurs and Northern Ireland u-21 international Neale Fenn scoring the goals. Midweek, they managed a 2-2 draw with Darlington in the FA Cup, which doesn’t sound great until you read the match report and find it took one hell of a comeback to even get the replay.
Posh, like us, also have their financial problems. In December, it was rumoured the wages at the club were paid by a personal loan from someone outside the club, and they’ve got their own consortium waiting in the wings wanting to take over.
They might even have to sell striker David Farrell if they can’t beat Darlo in the cup replay, and earn themselves a money-spinning (cliche - but what else?) tie away to Newcastle. It all sounds painfully familiar, and stands to highlight that there’s a growing divide between the haves and the have-nots in the second division.
For Town, who knows what Andy King's planning. He says in today's Adver he's thinking of making some changes, but sadly those changes are unlikely to involve any inspirational signings or brilliant tactical innovation.
So we could hope for the return of Sol Davies, left out midweek despite King's praise for his gutsy display against City. We could hope for Andy Gurney to be stuck in midfield, ahead of a four man defense (Robbo, not Danny, at right back). We could hope for Danny up front, alongside Graz, with Sabin dropped to the bench (because a striker who doesn't score goals is as much use as.. um... something that's missing something important).
But since Andy King seems to be doing the opposite of what we hope for, I'll hope for nothing, and hope that provokes sweeping, winning changes from our cigar chomping leader. Or something.

The few hardy souls who made it up to greater Manchester last night were badly let down, it seems, by another half-assed performance.
Yesterday's bluster from Andy King about going on the attack proved to be just that - only bluster. He suggested four at the back - we played three. He said he was impressed by Sol on Sunday - that's why he stuck the full back on the bench.
If you forgot to stick on your hair shirt today, there's Dave Hanley's report here and Andy King's excuses on the official site here. To summarise, it appears the players are doing their own thing, rather than listening to King's instructions, which hardly suggests all's well in the dressing room. Players need to have both the ability, and the will, to follow their manager's instructions. Is the current Town side lacking both?
David Duke is the only player apparently criticised by King, albeit in passing, which on current form suggests that Duke will almost certainly be in the starting 11 again at the weekend. Kingy doesn't make it easy for himself, does he?

Back in the saddle after being away with work, just in time for tonight's visit to Oldham (that's a link to the official club site: another awful one done by NTL's subsidiary, Premium TV, which now must be considered a malignant cancer spreading through club websites).
There'll be a slight feeling of déjà vu for those who make it up there this evening - David Reeves, twin brother of our Alan, has just moved to Oldham from Chesterfield and will be hoping he has as much fun as the last time the pair met head to head. The Spireites ran out comfortable 4-0 winners that day, and Reeves (David) scored - there's a video interview with him, if you're that keen.
Fraternal jinxes aside, both sides have been on a poor run of late. Town could have expected worse than the 2-0 defeat away to Man City in the FA Cup, but Sunday's 2-1 home loss to Bristol City - and the nature of the defeat (now that I've forced myself to watch the video) were more annoying.
But Oldham have had it far worse. Indeed, you could say their best result of the year so far came on New Year's day, when their match at home to Tranmere was called off. Since then, they've been the FA Cup by Cheltenham, knocked out the LDV Vans trophy 5-2 (at home) by Blackpool, and thumped 4-2 by Chesterfield last weekend in the league.
In an attempt to shore up the back line and maintain Oldham's respectable league position (they're eighth at the moment, despite it all), Mick Wadsworth has brought in Barnsley defender Matty Appleby. We can expect the 29 year-old to go straight into tonight's team.
Andy King is likely to mix things up after Sunday's lacklustre performance. In tonight's Adver there's talk of "all out attack" and a possible change of formation. King may opt for a flat back four - it'll be interesting to see how he does it. Will he put Gurney (back tonight) in midfield, where a few of us would like to see him? Can he manage to find a way to drop David Duke, who had a 'mare on Sunday? And are we discovering that Danny Invincible is really a centre forward, rather than a wingback or even a winger? Maybe we'll get a few answers tonight…

Wait... no - could this be some good news trickling in? Town has paid off the £45,000 it owed the PFA which means we're free to make some loan signings, according to the Adver (although don't tell the Inland Revenue, who I'm sure advised against Town making any new signings before they'd payed back the £600,000 owed to them). Andy King has gone off scouting which, no matter what you think of him as a manager, has traditionally resulted in some handy signings making their way - albeit briefly - to the County Ground. Talk is of two new faces arriving before the weekend clash with Bristol City.

Ah - but before we go and get too insanely happy, or anything, there's the sad news that Gareth Davies has decided to end his three-year battle against a knee injury, and retire from the game aged 28. Davies, a former under-21 Welsh international, made the decision last week after his knee swelling up in training. He said he still wanted to kick a ball around with his son, rather than watch him grow up from a wheelchair, and who can blame him. There... that's better. All nice and depressed, again.

Groan. I might be thousands of miles away from the County Ground this week, but the news from there still manages to depress.
Town have turned down a £200,000 offer from Steve McMahon's Blackpool for Danny Invincible. Danny says he wants to stay - and it's difficult to see a move to Blackpool being the kind of step an ambitious player like him would want to make. Let's also hope that the board wouldn't sell off our prime asset for such a low fee.
But a bigger bid, from a bigger club, and it's obvious what would happen next... :-(

Meanwhile: it's the only table we're likely to top this season, but Andy Gurney is saying he's misunderstood, despite leading the foul play table for the second division...

Man City 2 Swindon Town 0
And so it wasn't to be... not the drubbing which many Man City fans had expected, but in the end we didn't pose Manchester City many problems.
To summarise (Dave Hanley's excellent, and full, report is here) Bobby Howe had Swindon's only real effort on goal in two minutes, and six minutes later City got their first through Wanchope. Town saw enough of the ball, without much of a cutting edge, and Bart Gremink had to pull off a few superb saves to keep the scoreline down. Ex-Robin Horlock made it 2-0 midway through the second half with a cracking shot after some good City passing.
Town's fans made much of the noise, but as Kevin Keegan said afterwards, there won't be many takers for the video of this one. Annanova gave us a reasonable write-up, for once, while the BBC continues its impressive Online coverage of the FA Cup (they've got the TV rights, so I s'pose they're making an effort) with a full report.
More links to follow, although regulars might find the timings of my updates a little strange - I've just arrived in San Francisco for a week's work over here, and don't know what time it is anywhere.

Man City v Swindon preview... part two
Listen to Teamtalk, and you'd hear them telling you that Andy King is "sweating" on the fitness of four players for tomorrow's big game at Maine Road. Gurney, Grazioli, Ruddock and Edwards are the names mentioned.
Well, news for Teamtalk that most fans (or the ones that listen to WS or read the Adver) already know: Ruddock is suspended and Edwards has been struggling to walk properly this week, let alone train fully, so neither will make it. Edwards has been encouraging the team to earn a draw, to bring them back to the CG on the 16th when he's fit and well, so he can have a go at the side which released him years ago.
Gurney and Graz are struggling, though, with both facing late fitness tests before King picks his side. Gurney would be a particular loss after his good performance against Bury - Adam Willis would take his place.
After yesterday's request for details of Town's last win over City at Maine Road, Sleepingminnow came up with some interesting details on a victory back in January 1965... we're long overdue another win, aren't we?
Andy King, realising the scale of the challenge, is simply reminding his players: miracles do happen in football. Especially in the FA Cup.
Just keep repeating that, all the way up to Manchester tomorrow... because it will take a minor miracle to beat high-flying City, who have bagged eight goals in the last two games (and one of those matches was against league leaders Burnley, last week). All told, they've scored 63 in 27 games this season.
Stewart Pearce is set to make his return from injury to captain City, and needs just one more goal to bring his career club tally to 100.
These, and more stats, are included in a very comprehensive match preview on BBC News Online. Well worth a look.
I'm less keen on the pretty cocky Man City preview - maybe King should post a print-out of this on the dressing room door tomorrow before the players run out. And he should certainly post a pic of him with his perm to cheer us all up...

This just in... the BBC's Points West programme tonight will have more on the news that a £345k "hole" has been discovered in STFC's accounts. The money simply cannot be accounted for, it is claimed.
Bills uncovered so far include £23k helecopter fees for Terry Brady and £80k paid to Donegan and Blatchley during their time at the club.
Blatchley claims that the "missing" money can, in fact, be accounted for: most of it relates to professional fees.
The programme will also be discussing the attempted winding up of the club by the Inland Revenue, which is wanting 600k paid by the end of February.
More unhappy news on BBC1 between 6.30 and 7pm, and again on Wiltshire Sound tomorrow morning.

Meanwhile, in the present, the Adver reports that the PFA debt of £50k is not likely to be paid off straight away. The consortium is said to be "prioritising" the debt - which means the council and tax man will get their cash first.
It's disappointing, but unsurprising: the Inland Revenue, it has emerged, wanted to wind the club up on January 3rd after not getting the money they're owed. They've only granted an extension to the end of next month. It's like the mafia - if they don't get their cash, we're swimming with the fishes.
Bizarrely, the board are talking about refunding fans who travel to Man City should we win in the cup. Either they think a win is about as likely as Bobby Howe getting a call-up for Brazil, or they're trying to buy us off... :-)

Looking forward to Saturday's cup game, I decided to take a look back at Town v Man City games of the past… and didn't find much inspiration, to be honest. Anyone got more positive memories, of beating City, perhaps? Let me know!
The last time we met, of course, was in the first division a couple of years back. Joe Royle's City beat us home and away - 3-0 at Maine Road, in part down to a nightmare day for Frank Talia (Talia was also blamed for a large part of the 6-0 drubbing Town endured up there in 1997).
Writing in the Times after Town were beaten 2-0 in the return fixture in April 2000, Hyder Jawad commented: "Expectations have not been high at the County Ground for years. There is too little money and not enough morale for such a luxury as hope. Perhaps relegation… will come as a relief for a club that has struggled on and off the field this season.
"The objectives of Jimmy Quinn, the manager, to strengthen the team and of Cliff Puffett, the chairman, to acquire finds may find more favourable circumstances in the second division."
Of course, with the benefit of hindsight it's easy to see that this wasn't the case - things have gone from bad to worse since those words were written. But we can learn from the mistakes of the past. And they suggest that people are wrong when they suggest, with the best will in the world, granted, that another relegation might not be a disaster for Town.

Another interesting point from that game in 2000 (only - what - 20 months ago?) Compare and contrast the teams: I count only five Swindon players that day who still feature in the first team squad. There are nine in the City squad still, despite going up to the Premiership, and coming back down.

Swindon (4-4-2): Talia, Hall (Sub: Cowe, 46), Robinson, Willis, Reeves, Meaker, Leitch, Collins, Williams, Gray (Sub: Griffin, 69), Grazioli. Subs not used: Mildenhall, Smith, Davis.
City (3-4-3): Weaver, Edghill, Prior, Jobson, Grant (Sub: Bishop, 50), Pollock, Whitley, Tiatto, Dickov, Goater (Sub: Wiekens, 85), Kennedy. Subs not used: Wright, Horlock, Wright-Phillips.

A very happy new year to all. Let's hope this year brings more good cheer than last.

...although we'll have to wait until Saturday to cheer anything at all, as today's game at Colchester has been called off (along with most of the games in the Nationwide) 'cos of a frozen pitch.