Town supporters have had little to cheer about in recent years.

From the dark days of re-election throughout the 1980s, those horrible FA Cup defeats against Whitby and Marine, I have shared those miserable times.

I was there when we went into the Vauxhall Conference (the first time round) losing at home to Hereford and endured the mid-1990s wilderness of non- league football.

Then came George Mulhall, Kieran O'Regan and super striker Geoffrey Horsfield to fire us back into the league in 1998.

That should have been a springboard for bigger and better things.

But, alas, the club could not hang on to those players or sustain that wonderful charge.

Within four years of that proud open-top parade around Halifax, we were hammered at Darlington and sank back into Conference obscurity.

My young son was not the only one to shed tears in that final league game at the Shay against Rushden and Diamonds. I cried, too.

Since then our hopes were briefly raised. One great season in 2006 saw us reach the play-off finals at the Walker Stadium, Leicester, where – yet again – Hereford defeated us.

But like a true, long- suffering Town fan, I kept the faith, enduring those miserable, often nerve-wracking matches, losing to the Burtons, the Farsleys and the like.

Even when we lost those 10 points in March by going into administration, it did not seem such a big deal.

Less than a month ago I was gripped by that final league game against Stevenage as we unsuccessfully tried to claw back the goals – then cheering my head off with relief when the Weymouth result filtered through, condemning Blue Square Premier rivals Altrincham to relegation.

I thought it was all over – we had survived to fight another day.

But it seems that fight is over.