The good, the bad and the ugly of Town's season
Ink Sports Focus - Football writer Sam Morshead marks the end of the season with a list of awards we think every fan will approve of
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The Busted Flush and other accolades for Town
By STFC writer Sam Morshead
It really is all over.
Swindon Town’s season is done. A dizzying low of 19th place in League Two has been recorded. Eight players have been told they are leaving, several others are expected to follow. There is likely to be a new manager in place by the time the new term comes around, too.
As we look towards yet another summer of change and churn, The Ink reflects on a desperately disappointing season with our alternative annual awards.
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The Busted Flush Award
Highly commended: The men’s toilets in the Arkell’s Stand
From first day to last this season - wind, rain or snow, six-goal drubbing of Crawley or seven-goal implosion against Aldershot - there was one constant. Old reliable. Something to set your watch by.
At half-time a steady trickle of urine would be winding its way towards the concourses. By full-time, it would have formed a sticky, smelly puddle. Every game. Without fail.
Winner: 3-5-2
Everyone knows the famous Albert Einstein quote about insanity. In 2023/24, Swindon Town’s determination to stick with a formula that simply did not make sense would have driven the mad genius to distraction.
Individually, Swindon’s defensive players are more than capable at League Two level.
Udoka Godwin-Malife is an intelligent runner, strong in the challenge and fleet-footed. Frazer Blake-Tracy is an assured presence and very capable moving out with the ball. When Conor McCarthy arrived on loan, he looked every bit a sensible, no-nonsense central defender. Harrison Minturn times a tackle well and has caught the eye of several scouts from higher levels.
Yet collectively they were so much worse than the sum of their parts.
In 2023/24, Swindon Town conceded 99 goals at an average of a shade under two per game, some of them so slapstick they’d have been written out of a Laurel and Hardy script for being far too silly.
Forty-one of those goals came during a relentlessly miserable 16-match period between October 28 and January 13, as Michael Flynn’s persistence with 3-5-2 got completely out of hand.
That Swindon went through an entire campaign failing to address a fundamental misunderstanding of how to generate results in League Two – namely stick two big bastards in central defence, and allow your full-backs to create goals for your forwards – was perhaps the most frustrating aspect of an entirely frustrating season.
Avoidable Departure of the Year
Highly commended: Liam Kinsella
In January, as Swindon faced up to life under a fee restriction and the recruitment department was working overtime trying to find new signings who would not cost the club a penny, one of Town’s most senior players saw his contract ripped up by mutual consent.
By all accounts, the club did well by Kinsella, who sought a move closer to his Midlands base, and to avoid another summer desperately hunting for a contract, with a young family to look after.
However, from a business and footballing perspective, Swindon’s compassion created a considerable hole.