You can't say it's not tight at the bottom. Although we put up a good show at Southend and could have won it, other results conspired to send Rovers back to the bottom of the league for the first time since Christmas. It was great to see Kevin Street finally stick one into the net, as he has gradually improved since arriving from Conference club Northwich and is always looking to have a shot from distance, something that a lot our recent midfielders have failed to do. Adam Barrett too must have loved netting with that header from Wayne Carlisle's corner, seeing as he was going back to his home town club. But Swansea's impressive victory at Macclesfield, coupled with Boston's late winner against local rivals Scunthorpe, gave a sour after-taste to what would otherwise have been seen as a key point gained for ourselves. When the table came out after five o'clock, we saw that the bottom five teams were incredibly split by just one point, and then with midweek results going our way for once with defeats for the Swans and Exeter, nobody now has a game in hand over the Rovers. And although we have slumped to 92nd, the relegation pack is collectively catching the wasters in mid-table and the likes of Macclesfield, Shrewsbury and Darlington are being sucked in. It takes a while to acclimatise to scrapping at the bottom, and 'Macc' in particular look to be in freefall at the moment, while the Shrews have been too busy mucking around with Premiership big boys in the Cup to worry about the league of late. I've been doing a bit of number-crunching and have worked out that at the current rate the bottom five are accumulating points (28 from 30 games) then they are on course to reach approximately 43 points by the end of the season, after 46 matches. Looking back over the last seven years, since the Third Division reverted to 24 teams, the tally needed to beat the second-bottom club has varied dramatically from just 36 to finish above Brighton in 1997-98 to as many 50 points needed to beat Carlisle the next year. Rovers only managed 45 last season and indeed Scarborough were relegated in 24th position with 48 points in 1999, so we must be careful. My maths dictates that about 45 again should be enough this time around, but even that seems very risky because there are no hapless Halifaxes this year to cut adrift and forget about as we are all so close. Anyone down to Leyton Orient in 15th place could still surge into the play-offs at the top end, and seeing as we are less than ten points behind them, the league is so amazingly tight that even the Os could find themselves in the Conference by the summer. Third position is very much up for grabs and Lincoln City, who were abysmal at the Mem when they visited in October, are just three off Bury at the moment. With everyone beating each other, we could see somebody going up automatically with just over 70 points. For now, Rovers need to stay in the pack and pick up scraps here and there against teams like Southend and Scunthorpe, while staying undefeated in head-to-heads with our fellow strugglers. Of the bottom seven, we have Macclesfield and Shrewsbury to play at home, and an away trip to Exeter which could be critical. For the others, Swansea and Shrewsbury both have four six-pointers left and Carlisle face three in a row in mid March with trips to Boston and the Vetch before a scrap at home to the Macc. Most of us have three or four meetings with other members of the lowly fraternity, but Exeter have just two to come before the curtain falls. Having said all that though, it may ultimately be more advantageous to play less 'up-for-it' sides at the end of the campaign because they might not have as much need for those elusive points. © Chris Chappell - Friday 14th February 2003 Back to Index