THREAD: Swindon Town FC.

Many football fans pick a team based on what makes a particular impact on them as a kid. In my case, I'm a Norwich fan because, at a time of hooliganism and the long ball in the late 80s, they were palpably different.

They played lovely passing football. They were a very friendly family club. They even had cute yellow nets! And unlike other fanbases, there was really no hatred about Norwich at all: we were nice. Welcoming. And have remained so ever since.

During that time, Norwich were overachieving quite massively in the top division. 5th in 1987, 4th in 1989, 3rd in the inaugural Premier League in 1993 - and famously, we beat Bayern Munich and gave Inter Milan all they could handle too. For a time, we seemed like THE model club.

Yet out west, there was another club who, for all the world, seemed like a somewhat smaller (but still admirable) version of ourselves. Swindon Town.

Another friendly family club who played great, ahead of its time football under first Ossie Ardiles, then Glenn Hoddle.

Like Norwich, Swindon's greatest ever season was in 1992/3: when they overcame the immense trauma of forcible demotion in Summer 1990 to achieve what they deserved. Premier League football.

Back then, there was so much less football on TV, you'd hardly believe it.

I'd been very impressed by Swindon's performance live on the BBC in losing 2-1 to Aston Villa in the FA Cup the year beforehand. And at Wembley in the playoff final, wow! It was one of the greatest English matches ever played.

Yes, that's Leicester they were beating to promotion there. Another reminder of how much things have changed; it was a completely different world.

Sadly for Swindon, their long, long decline began only days after that match: when Glenn Hoddle left for Chelsea.

The Swindon fans were furious - not least because Hoddle had joined in with the celebrations back in Swindon, so they felt betrayed.

Yet in truth, he was always going to leave. I'm nigh on certain he'd already given Ken Bates verbal assurances back in February, in fact.

Swindon's budget was paltry, and their squad, the core of which dated back years, was seriously ageing. Even under Hoddle, they'd almost certainly have gone straight back down... but as it was, their chairman Ray Hardman made an awful error.

Hardman had been weirdly oblivious about Hoddle's imminent departure, even though the national press had known about it for weeks. In an act of raw sentimentality (and revenge?), he plumped straight for Hoddle's assistant, John Gorman.

Gorman was hugely popular among the Swindon fans - but he was a coach, not a manager. Far, far too nice for his own good, he also had an, um, *curious* approach to the defence. That is to say: there wasn't one.

In their one season in the Premiership, Swindon conceded 100 goals.

They had their moments: they held double winners Man Utd in a wonderfully tempestuous game at the County Ground; they were minutes from winning at Anfield; and they won praise all over the country for their approach. But it was all very self-defeating - so down they went.

What was apparent to me watching on was that, as fun as they were to watch, they were beyond soft. That softness ran right through the club. Naturally, their fans expected to challenge for immediate promotion back - but the attitude of the side was awful. No edge, no hardness.

They briefly started well, then began to slide. And slide. And cost Gorman his job.

Their board clearly recognised the problem: that's mostly why they brought in hard man Steve McMahon. But he never, ever understood Swindon Town - he didn't 'fit' them at all.

Unfathomably, incomprehensibly, he sold Jan-Aage Fjortoft on transfer deadline day - and with no-one to put it in the net, down they went again. To the third tier. Two relegations in two years.

Norwich, who'd also sold our best attacking players went down that season too.

The thing about this period was: football was changing very rapidly. Much, much more quickly than those in charge at Norwich or Swindon ever understood. Sky money and the Bosman ruling transformed the landscape totally, and left smaller clubs behind.

Very fast, Norwich went from mid-table top flight club to mid-table second flight club, without the resources to seriously challenge.

Just as fast, when they returned to the second tier as Champions under McMahon, Swindon found themselves barely able to cope.

The sheer extent of the miracle Hoddle and Ardiles worked could be seen in how their gates rarely rose above 11 or 12000. Under McMahon, they fell into four figures.

On the face of it, he did awfully well to keep them in the second tier.

But - amid a contest of everyone else spending way too much - he did the same, made some God-awful signings, and consistently alienated Swindon legends and fan favourites.

Fraser Digby, Shaun Taylor, John Trollope, Andy Rowland: the latter pair were treated disgracefully.

It was all a perfect storm. Swindon could no longer afford to compete at the top end of the second tier; the fans, used to such open football under Ardiles, Hoddle or even Gorman, hated what they were watching; Chairman Rikki Hunt worshipped McMahon and slagged off the supporters

McMahon left, Jimmy Quinn replaced him, did remarkably well to steady the ship at first... but disaster was looming. On their gates, they really couldn't afford to be in the second tier at all - as would become horribly obvious in 1999/2000, as they plunged into administration.

Here, something which still applies even now would begin to destroy them. Swindon don't own their ground. Therefore, they can't bring in the revenue that most other clubs can; they can't even redevelop an old, tatty ground which confers barely any real home advantage.

That fundamental issue - not owning the County Ground and not being able to modernise it - has plagued them ever since. I think it's a big part of why, ever since 2000, their finances have never properly recovered... and why shyster after shyster have bought them and screwed them

They dropped out of the second tier at the turn of the century. Jimmy Quinn was idiotically sacked by new owner Terry Brady - when Quinn had actually developed a very young side which could've done very well in the level below.

Brady himself was gone within a year after a legal wrangle which has repeated itself at Swindon since. It's doing so right now in fact.

Even during their one really great period since 2000 - when Paolo di Canio blazed through the club like a hurricane - they spent way too much.

They've either been in administration or been flirting with it for alarming amounts of time over the last 20 years. And their finances are so weak that the owners who brought Di Canio to the club pulled out because they couldn't afford promotion to the Championship.

Everyone talks about the gap between the Premier League and Championship. But the one between the Championship and League 1 is much, much bigger. Most clubs below the second tier literally can't afford to come up - the wage bills are impossible.

And remember: Swindon still don't own their ground either, so their position is that much weaker again.

That all forms the backdrop against which Lee Power bought the club. Power is your ultimate Cockney wideboy: Del Boy without the charm. Or even, UK tax residency.

He's resident in Switzerland instead, and is only ever in the UK for up to 90 days a year. That immediately means huge distance between himself and the fans.

Power it was who made the ridiculous decision to appoint his mate Tim Sherwood as 'Director of Football'.

Sherwood proceeded to do sod all, blame everyone else, and do self-serving interviews with his pathetic media pals: none of whom could be bothered to do any research, or even give a damn about Swindon Town.

And Power it is, too, who has threatened administration - and wants to sell the club for a quid to an American property development company, about whom no-one knows anything.

That's despite a sizeable alternative offer being on the table from Clem Morfuni.

Power it also is who's been charged by the FA along with agent Michael Standing: who claims to hold a 50% stake in the club. That breaches FA rules over conflicts of interest (though someone might like to remind them of Wolves and Jorge Mendes, about which they've done nothing).

There's now an ongoing legal battle over who actually owns the club - and therefore, who has the right to sanction its sale. Judges have so far blocked Power's attempts to sell to the Americans - but the chaos is clearly impacting things on the pitch, horribly.

Swindon went straight back down to League 2 today, humiliated 5-0 at MK Dons. And no manager there is likely to last long; they have no money, they're again on the verge of administration, and no-one even knows who owns the club.

All of this dates back all the way to the 1990s: when they achieved miracles in reaching the Prem, but lost control of first the finances, then the club itself: alienating and disenfranchising the fans, who've watched on almost helpless.

I say 'almost' - because @TrustSTFC have done a magnificent job keeping the fans informed and holding the likes of Power to account. Follow them: they're excellent, as are @PowerOut_STFC.

There remains a danger that the FA will impose points deductions next season.

There's also a very clear medium term danger that they'll tumble out of the league completely. They're directionless, rudderless, and all the time, are being left in the wake of much more ambitious clubs: usually with rich owners.

They need a new owner who genuinely cares about the club and isn't in it for profit.

They need, desperately, to buy the County Ground and redevelop it.

And they also need that awful chancer Lee Power out.

#FanPowerNotLeePower

Good luck to everyone involved in getting Power out and bringing the club back to where it belongs: the fans and local community.

cc: @SamMorshead_ @KieranMaguire @stujames75 @TheAthleticUK

cc: @suthersuk

PS. Two quick sidelights from this lookback at Swindon's modern history.

1. To get to Wembley in 1993, Swindon knocked out Tranmere in a desperately close semi-final. The reaction of the Tranmere fans at the end was utterly extraordinary: cheering their opponents off the pitch.

The two sets of fans serenaded each other, swapped shirts and scarves... one of the most amazing things I've ever seen in football. Tranmere had just suffered real heartbreak and had two goals disallowed over the two games (both probably wrongly) - their response was astonishing.

2. Here's one which maybe hasn't even occurred to most Swindon fans - but was a major sliding doors moment.

Famously - or rather, infamously - Swindon were denied promotion in 1990 after winning the playoff final. Initially demoted two divisions, they ended up demoted by one.

It was hideously traumatic for the club and the town. But look at it another way. What if either:

a) The Football League had accepted Swindon's offer to withdraw from the playoffs?

b) They'd lost either the semi or the final?

Swindon pleaded guilty to 36 charges; Chairman Brian Hillier ended up in jail. Severe punishment from the football authorities was always inevitable.

So if they hadn't beaten Sunderland, they'd have ended up back in the third tier.

Possibly even the fourth given the national outcry wouldn't have been half as great if they hadn't just won the final.

That win over Sunderland was, in the end, what enabled them to keep it going and bring in Hoddle. Without it, they'd never have made the Premier League.

Funny old game... to say the least.