Four or five seasons back, when he was still playing for the Reds, we took the now-Forest manager Colin Calderwood, on loan for a month at Meadow Lane.

In his first game, which we lost 3-0 or summat to someone or other, his performance was so bad that Notts fans still shudder to this day. He was hopelessly out of position, at fault for all of the opposition's goals and had less pace than me, a 39-year-old who at post-Christmas time of writing is knocking on 13st.

His performance, for want of a better word, is universally accepted as the single worst debut a Notts player has ever had. Until Saturday.

Now call me old fashioned, but I’ve never been comfortable with having a thug-like clogger in the team, so when I heard that we’d taken (the recently-released from Peterborough) Guy Branston on loan for a month my heart sank. This was a man who, in all the years I’ve seen him play against Notts, did nothing but go out to maim any player who came within 10 yards of his not unsubstantial frame.

As we stood in the Jimmy Sirrell stand at 2.45pm, watching him warm up for our home game with Stockport, a friend pointed out a number of those orange training cones that were liberally sprinkled around the penalty area.

“You know what they are?” he asked, “They’re Guy Branston’s grave locations for the oppo.”

As the whistle blew to start the match a number of us toyed with the idea of having a sweepstake on what minute he would get booked.

Having decided against it, you can imagine what fools we looked when he scythed through some unsuspecting 18-year-old in the 16th minute. By which stage, our early lead had been cancelled out after Branston failed challenges against both of their centre forwards - one of whom danced past him before calmly slotting the ball home.

He missed 80 per cent of his headers, failed once to find a black and white shirt, and exposed the rest of the defence. He even bellowed at the ref that it was the linesman's fault that he was booked after failing to give an offside decision his way. To top it all he suffered the ultimate indignity of being subbed at half-time, with us losing 2-1.

A Christmas haul of just 1 point and three losses on the bounce at home has exposed us to what we are -  a poor side. Milton Keynes, Rotherham and Stockport, all of whom took maximum points from their visits to Meadow Lane, are simply better at football than us.

Even the dyed-in-the-wool home and away Notts fans cannot fail to see that Ian McParland has inherited a bad lot from the previous manager Steve Thompson. No penetration, no real width, confidence draining from every player on the pitch and a distinct lack of a goalscorer means that - once again -  we are spending Saturdays nervously looking over our shoulders and hoping that the likes of Wrexham, Mansfield, Lincoln and Macclesfield are also losing.

It’s a horrible position to be in. And one we’ve seemingly spent the last ten seasons doing.

Gates are sadly - but understandably - down as people realise that creosoting the fence, reading the phone book or analysing a really tricky database might be marginally less painful than paying just shy of £20 and sitting in the stands at Meadow Lane.

Some of the players don’t seem to be trying and some are patently not good enough .

Is it any wonder that people, who five years ago worked their bollocks off to try and keep this club going, are sick of their lot?

Left 'Pie-On: December     Left 'Pie-On: November     Left Pie-On: October    

Left 'Pie-On: September      Left 'Pie-On: August

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