A Review by John Taylor

We started the month just two points above the relegation zone with the Friday night trip to Prenton Park for a game that saw James Meredith make his debut at left back in place of the suspended Derek Niven. Shaw replaced Allison up front. The first half was slightly scrappy but with the home side, unsurprisingly, slightly the better in an ordinary game. Roche made a magnificent save from a Taylor header and Goodison inexplicably missed the rebound, but the opening 20 minutes was fairly mundane apart from that. Shortly afterwards, however, the hosts went in 1 up after some irresolute defending by Downes and Meredith saw Mullin smash his shot past Roche. Tranmere hit a post just before the break and we were fortunate at just 1 down. The second half was similar, but the real turning point of the game was when substitute McAteer set up Colin Larkin with a woeful backpass to give the Irishman a seemingly unmissable chance. He hit the post when it was easier to score. Town heads went down after that and a Greenacre effort, following good work by former Barnsley man Shuker, sealed the points for the Wirral outfit. This was a depressing night.

Derby loanee James Meredith in his one and only Spireite appearance

Midweek then saw Bristol City in town and they proved to be the best side we'd seen all season, romping to a 3-0 half time lead against an increasingly desperate Town rearguard. The Chief pulled one back after the break to add a touch of respectability, but even if we'd got another, the Robins looked capable of stepping up a notch and adding to their tally. This was another night best forgotten.

City grabbed three

The second home game on the trot saw the rare visit of Leyton Orient, also relegation-threatened. Orient fan, Charlie Daniels, on loan from Spurs, started the game for us on the left at the expense of Paul Hall whilst Jamie Jackson started rather than Colin Larkin. Hazell surprisingly replaced Picken at the back. We began brightly with the crowd in positive voice. After only a few minutes, Jackson had a golden opportunity to open his goalscoring account, but he took a touch too many and Garner smothered his effort. The rebound fell awkwardly for Gaz Davies and the threat evaporated. Orient came back and were twice thwarted by Roche and Grimaldi, but our attacks were becoming more sporadic. The visitors had the ball in the net, but it was rightly chalked off for offside. Half time came as a welcome relief to allow us to regroup after losing our way in the last 15 minutes.

Charlie Daniels looked impressive before injury in Swansea sent him back to Spurs

Shortly after the resumption, Jackson had another good chance but he steered his shot wide when it looked easier to score. After that Orient did score and the sense of doom enveloped Saltergate. Despite numerous late efforts, especially from Shaw, who had a point blank header pushed away by Garner, the inevitable 1-0 defeat happened and relegation began to look a foregone conclusion.

Roy McFarland's Town career ended after this one and I must admit that it surprised me despite our dreadful run of late. He could count himself unlucky, with the injury to Ward being especially damaging, but to my mind his biggest failing was in not managing to find a midfield general to gee the side up when the going gets tough. The general feeling with Lee Richardson was that he had to be given a chance to keep us up, but enthusiasm for him as a long-term solution was not in evidence. If he does keep us up, it might be a different matter.

His first game was not the easiest with another Friday night game, this time at Swansea, who were having their own problems with injuries. Their squad is a little bigger than ours, however. Rico made several changes from the Orient game with the biggest surprise being the dropping of Grimaldi. The home side enjoyed the better of the opening exchanges but we survived without looking very promising. As the half drew to a close, we had 2 slices of misfortune with Daniels going off injured and his replacement Davies then taking a heavy knock. He failed to reappear after the break. Against the run of play, we almost took the lead when Gueret spilled Bailey's shot but Shaw fired the rebound over. Two minutes later, the Swans got a typical big team penalty as Abbott dropped in the box under Hazell's challenge. Robinson duly converted, Iriekpen added a second soon afterwards and that was it-yet another miserable Friday night. 

Donny were next up on Wednesday with an unusual preponed (not that that's a real word) game since they were to be involved in the Johnstone's paint final at Cardiff. Jamie Lowry made a welcome return after his lengthy illness and Shaw came back to start up front with Larkin-a striking formation without a goal this year. Town started in determined fashion and looked up for the fight, but Rovers looked the more assured outfit. They went ahead on 25 when Niven and Allott appeared to hamper each other in breaking up an attack and the ball ran clear to Stock, whose effort seemed to take a deflection and wrong foot Roche. We didn't wilt with this setback, however, taking the game to Rovers and forcing several corners. We equalised on 39 minutes with that rarest of things-a penalty. Hall was brought down as he was about to score and the ref actually spotted the offence. Oddly enough though,  he failed to caution the miscreant but Hall scored from the spot and the sense of a possible win was in the air. Larkin missed a one-on-one shortly afterwards and we were level at half time.

A rare March goal against Donny from Paul Hall

The second period brought plenty of endeavour from both sides and several substitutions. We looked the more likely to pinch it, but we lacked the killer ball in the final third and the game petered out to a rather flat conclusion. We needed the win and draws like that won't keep us up.

In a bid to pep up our fortunes, Rico acquired the services of left-siders Paul Boertien from Derby and Nicky Rizzo from MK Dons for our final game of the month at Yeovil. As it turned out Rizzo was ill the night before the game and ruled out, so only Boertien was in the side. Town began very brightly and totally dominated the first quarter, but the elusive goal would not come. As the half wore on, the promotion-chasing Glovers came more into things, but the half ended goalless. The second half followed a now familiar pattern with Town being pushed back and attacking only in sporadic raids. The defending became more desperate as the clock ticked on, but just as it looked as if we might get a point, Jones hooked in from the edge of the box to win it for the Somerset side-another grim away day.

So, we got one point from 6 games in the month and lost a manager. The team changed significantly with several new faces, but it all has a feel of desperation about it. To stop up we need 4 wins from our last 6 games and that looks a tall order, bearing in mind our last run of 4 wins in 6 was 16 months ago. We just don't look like scoring-just 2 goals in the month shows what a problem we've now got. The return of Jamie Ward could solve that, but he's got to drop into the groove pretty sharpish to sort anything in time.

Off the field, other than Mr Mac's departure, we seemed to get some progress with the new ground with the developers having sorted the rest of the Whittington Moor site and being ready to apply for planning permission. Figures crossed that this goes through without a hitch then.  Also young Albert returned to Luton almost unnoticed after fading away following his promising start. 

Man of the month for March is nearly impossible as the overall performances were so poor. On the thinnest of grounds it will go to Paul Hall for gaining us our only point and finally forsaking his gloves. To be fair, he has started to look more like the player of last season and created some openings, but it's a little late in the day.

Now, as it's Holy Week, let's pray for something miraculous Town-wise for the rest of the season.