It's been a season to forget for AFC Telford

The Bucks had been tipped for the drop by several bookmakers in pre-season, having just survived in the previous campaign.

Much was also made of the team's part-time status in a largely full-time league, and their modest playing budget.

But relegation by such an emphatic margin – 19 points – was beyond everyone's worst nightmares.

Despite the naysayers, there had been air of optimism surrounding the Bucks in August.

Then-boss Andy Sinton had assembled a squad which, on paper, looked significantly stronger than its immediate predecessor.

The team quickly began to justify that assessment with emphatic wins over Braintree, Southport and pre-season title favourites Luton Town.

And those results were achieved despite major injury problems.

By the time they had dismantled early play-off contenders Dartford 4-1 away, whispers about a possible play-off push were growing louder.

But that game – 14 matches in – proved to be the pinnacle of what would become a nightmare campaign.

Failure to win any of the next five league games, and an FA Cup exit against Nuneaton, did not cause too much panic.

But the disastrous December that followed showed that the Bucks' downturn was no blip.

A last-gasp equaliser by Barrow's Joe Jackson in a game Telford had dominated was followed by three straight defeats.

Another costly draw, at Stockport, then left the Bucks teetering just above the drop zone.

The FA Trophy exit, at Kings Lynn, a side playing three divisions below, was a watershed moment.

And Sinton's post-match interview, in which he spoke of a 'poison in the dressing room', revealed the team's problems were not confined to the pitch.

Desperately in need of a win to stop the rot, the Bucks visited fellow strugglers Southport.

But despite taking the lead twice, they were pegged back – the latter in the third minute of stoppage time.

It was a major blow which left many genuinely wondering where the side's next win would come from.

More defeats in January – six-pointers against Braintree and Southport – added to the sinking feeling.

The loss to Kidderminster at the end of the month proved the final straw for Sinton, who left the club by mutual consent later that week.

The Bucks swiftly appointed the popular Mark Cooper as interim boss.

But his arrival and a raft of new signings – including Ian Craney, Bagasan Graham (loan), Charlie Henry (loan), Nialle Rodney, and Karlton Watson (loan) – failed to arrest the decline.

Cooper's shock departure, after just 30 days in charge, to take up the assistant manager's job at Swindon sparked an unbelievable nine-day period as new caretaker boss Graham Hyde left after just two games in charge.

First-team coach John Psaras then became the club's fourth manager in 39 days. Psaras had inherited a team that looked all-but-certain for the drop.

They were seven points from safety after failing to win any of their last 23 league games. A wave of fresh injuries then compounded an already gargantuan task.

Unsurprisingly, he could not prevent the Bucks setting a new winless run for the division – 27 games – with a 3-2 defeat at Lincoln last month. Nor could they prevent the side being relegated.

There were though, a few slender shoots of recovery sighted during those final few games.

The win at Ebbsfleet, on the penultimate weekend of the season, and the emergence of youth-team starlets James O'Neill, Jake Bennett and Tom Bradley provided small crumbs of comfort for the future.

Mistakes have been made by the club in recruitment and the team has clearly not been good enough – on that, surely everyone can agree.

Costly goals, conceded both late and early on, have littered the campaign. But quite how things descended to such a low still remains something of a mystery.

The decisions that the club faces – namely in appointing a permanent manager and overhauling a misfiring squad – must now be the right ones if the club is to banish an abomination of a season firmly to history.

By Matthew Viney