This is a story about a man in form. A dragon slayer, beating off injuries with his diamond right boot. This is a great Christian, a believer in all things good. But I’m not talking about St George.

I’m talking about the ass-kicking dynamo that is Christian Roberts.
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‘Like a feller once said, ain’t that a kick in the head?’. Once said by Dean Martin, and more recently by Petr Cech, it couldn’t be more relevant to good old Swindon Town. In fact, Ince leaving was a kick in the head. When Wise left, he made a new quote.

‘Call that a kick in the head? Now THIS is a kick in the head!’
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For the first time ever, I’m going to quote what someone said sitting behind me in the County Ground. It was a 6-year old child, banging on the seats and clapping with the chants, with the football knowledge of a small dog trapped in a bass drum it’s entire life.

He said: ‘I thought Swindon were rubbish. But now they’re good.’

A few days ago I said that Wisey taking away the day off from the players was a bad thing. But I saw it work today. The first 5 minutes, as in any game, were scrappy. But then we found our rock. And boy, did we dive from it.
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Honestly, I could hardly bring my pen to paper to write this column. The mental strain that Wise and his men have put on me is enormous, more even than sticking my head in a short-circuiting X-Ray machine. As you may have heard, Ince has left us.

Dun-dun duuuhhhh… But there’s more. The Wills family, one of our largest investors, could be leaving. Having pumped over 6 million pounds into the club, the Wills family could easily be leaving.

Dun-dun duuuhhhh… But there’s more. Wise, like the fans, has been getting so frustrated with the lack of motivation in the squad that he’s actually taken away their rest day to make sure they train every day. Will that make them more motivated, or just send them lower into their bubble, and make them more tired?
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There are too many words to describe the feeling I get when I see Swindon frustratingly bereft of a win again. After the best start in seasons, we’re now on the downward slope again. 3 games without a win. Good good. Optimist’s view: Dramatic downfall leads to fantastic climax. Pessimist’s view: Time to get out the hangman’s noose.

But we’re not doing that badly, even peering through our current gloom. Wise has cleared up all the rumours and confusion by saying he isn’t going, praise the lord above. Losing him would be like a shark losing it’s gills. We’d flail around for a while, occasionally knocking into things and biting them, but eventually we’d hit rock bottom, die, and get eaten. Isn’t life a wonderful thing?
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Ok, I’ve put my hands up. I’m not a hardcore Swindon supporter. I don’t have a scarf touched by Jamie Cureton. I don’t have a dartboard with Iffy Onoura in the middle and certainly I certainly don’t pray in front of a Dennis Wise poster. So I don’t go to the away games. Big deal.

But I have picked up on something.

Something bad.

But later for that. Right now, thanks to our tantalising 1 - 1 with Notts County, we’ve slipped to fourth. Fola Onibuje, the very man I was raving about last time, scored our goal just after half time, putting us very slightly ahead and reversing the Notts County dressing-room chat. But they found some courage and pulled back in there through Alan White in the 67th minute.

So now we’re fourth, at the bottom of a 4-team plateau made up of Walsall, at the top thanks to the 5-0 smashing of Peterborough. Then comes Lincoln, level on points but a little shy of goals. Then comes Wycombe, level on points with us and only 1 ahead on goal difference. Then us, backing up the rear with our red flags and shaky English football legends from a bygone era. Sorry. I shouldn’t speak about the governor in that way, even though he has as much involvement in the team as a banana does in NASA.
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Oooph. That was a low blow. Coming off the back of a 5 ? 0 plastering from Walsall is never a good place to be diving from. Especially not into the Swindon paddling pool. So Peterborough were always going to be up against it. And the match! Oh, the tension! Oh, the football! Oh, the exaggeration of the last 3 statements!

What I witnessed today from Swindon was as exciting as peeling potatoes, as flowing as golden syrup, and so boring that even Rocky Robin was dozing. But enough with the ironic similes. Time for the match.

The first 47 minutes of the first half was a mixing pot of errors. The main ingredient were handling errors, such as Peter Brezovan’s nightmare’s and the terrible passing that seemed to have been drilled into the side whenever they caught sight of the box. There were several shooting errors, and a testament to that is that Swindon got their first shot on target in the 83rd minute.

And of course, sprinkled on the top were the spicy and noticeable errors of simple selection. Ince simply never got the ball. I actually saw Curtis Weston and Christian Roberts actively take the ball away from him. No small wonder he was substituted in the half-time. Andy Caton was like a dodgy signpost at left midfield when it came to passing. He was always led you in the wrong way. So at least Wisey had his head screwed on when he took him off at semi-frozen-chips-in-a-cup time.
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Matt Pocock is State of the Game’s new Swindon Town columnist

Swindon Town, after losing bitterly to Wrexham, needed to bounce back. Good old Wisey was no doubt piling on the stories and the dressing room pep talks, like an army ready to take back the trenches. There are only so many words you can use to describe that Swindon game. Pessimism, Pressure, Power, Problems and Progress.

First, Pessimism. All around the ground, the air was clear, there were no signs of riots and the breeze was blowing. Nice. Calm. Quiet. So I start talking to a Swindon fan.
‘Yep. We’ve lost. Beginning of the end. Conference next year.’
And I just thought ‘Why?’. Why all the pessimism? Its so easy to get caught up in this media nonsense and forget about all the plus signs. We’ve got Ince, a talisman for a new future, on the teamsheet. We’ve got a cracking manager. We’ll crush MK Dons.

Now to the game. Pressure. The game was full of it. MK Dons cut through us like a knife through butter, and I was starting to think we’d been shot down and the grumpy soul outside might have been right. It seemed so wrong that we should go down, when we’ve made the best start to the season in a long time.
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Dennis Wise has been named as the new manager of Swindon Town with his former Chelsea teammate Gustavo Poyet being unveiled as his assistant.

Wise takes over from Iffy Onoura who has turned down an offer of a reduced role at the club and will now leave, possibly to be followed by fellow coaches Alan Reeves and Ian Woan.

Dennis Wise has some experience of management having led Millwall to an FA Cup final defeat by Manchester United during a turbulent 18 month spell in charge but is relatively untested in the lower divisions having played most of his career in the top flight, most notably for Wimbledon’s Crazy Gang and Chelsea.

The pair have verbally agreed to sign for Swindon and contracts are due to be drawn up later on Thursday at the County Ground.