Amid a storm of protest, it is crucial to the future of this club that Swindon Town's players retain your support

A storm is brewing, and not just Darragh.

On this weekend of all weekends, it is not particularly surprising that when reading the headline ‘red warning of risk to life in the south west’ my mind did not go to the poor Somerset towns about to be besieged by winter winds.

No, naturally my mind went to Swindon Town.

Of course, talking about “risk to life” in the same sentence as a fourth-division football club is hyperbolic nonsense. But wait a minute, isn’t all football just hyperbolic nonsense?

Little else in our social lives impacts our emotional, mental and, yes, even physical states in quite the same way.

Little else in our social lives drives local economies in quite the same way, drives local communities in quite the same way.

Little else brings people together in quite the same way.

So it may be hyperbolic nonsense, but it’s our hyperbolic nonsense. And the most important word in that sentence?

Our.

Today, the community of Swindon shares its football club, as it has done for decades. It shared it when Don Rogers rolled in the famous third at Wembley. It shared it under those Towers in 1990 and 1993. It shared it through the despair of much of the 21st century, and the isolated pockets of hope. It shared it with Hoddle, Macari, Ardiles, Di Canio and everyone else in between.

It is ours.

Right now, there is an increasing feeling of existential threat to our club. That threat is not inevitable just yet, but the warning texts have been sent. The gusts are growing, the wind is wilder than before.

This is the environment in which protest spawns, and this weekend that sense of protest is very likely to take root at the County Ground.

The protest is against the general decline of this club over the past three years: a layered decline that, by extension, has taken away much of the joy that going to football is meant to bring.

The protestors want the nominal owner Clem Morfuni to publicly put the club up for sale. In response, he has said he would welcome offers and proof of funds from potential purchasers, and if the right one came along he would be happy to stand aside.

There is nuance here. To put a formal bid in, external parties would almost certainly want to undertake due diligence, which requires collaboration. To show proof of funds, prospective new owners would need to have undertaken due diligence. No due diligence, no formal offer, no proof of funds.

Do you see the problem?

For whatever reason, Morfuni is attached to his club.

No, wait. Let’s start the sentence again.

For whatever reason, Morfuni is attached to our club.

His willingness to sink money into it to underwrite costs month after month after month is testament to what appears to be a very personal obsession.

Why he chooses to do what he does is a question we’ve all asked a thousand times before, without ever stumbling upon a satisfactory answer. But attached he remains, and this is why we have ended up in this place.

If he was to choose to walk away now he would give up millions. If he stops funding it, and it gets relegated, he would give up millions. If he has to stump up for a dozen new signings each transfer window and a new head coach every six months for years to come, he would give up millions.

It is a mad investment. A bad investment. The sort of investment you only persist with if you’re proud, crazy or ignorant. But it is his money, so it is his choice.

His choice about our football club.

So what happens next? What is beyond protest?

There has been chatter about phoenix clubs.

Only one has ever made the EFL, and those magnificent Dons are a total anomaly. Building an infrastructure from scratch takes so much more than the fabric of the Swindon fan community can currently sustain, regardless of good intentions.

There has been chatter about the ‘non-league for a bit might be good for us’ theory.

Respectfully, none of those arguments seems to take into account the scale and scope of additional costs that would need to be covered in year one. Nor does it appreciate how hard it is to find a buyer for a National League club with the cost base of Swindon, nor its current annual losses.

Relegation is the foremost existential threat to this club right now. And this is where we, as a community, have to come together.

It is why, for the 90 or so minutes the players are on the pitch this weekend, and every weekend until May, that delicate balance between dissent against ownership and support of the team is so important.

As we all know, the Swindon side of 2024/25 is low on confidence. Low low. Low enough to smell the scent of the pavement.

You have to build these players back up. We have to build these players back up.

They have no stake in the standoff between fans and ownership. But they could be heavily impacted by that standoff’s existence.

Swindon need League Two points, around 30 of them. Fail, and the future is too bleak to properly comprehend on a Friday night.

Please, this weekend, leave protest to one side at 3pm.

Just for a couple of hours. And again in future fixtures.

Give the team, and by extension the club, the best possible chance to survive.