IT was almost inevitable, but there was still a tear in my eye when the Football League sent us down on Tuesday night.

People say clubs are too good to go down. Usually they are wrong, but the irony is we WERE too good to go down.

We are not a bottom-four team and proved it in the first half against Brentford, as we had against Port Vale and Stockport.

I hope the ovation the lads got at the end shows that we appreciate all their efforts this season, even though everything has gone against them - including the Football League "rules."

As Denis Smith pointed out after the game, just because it's a rule, doesn't make it right.

I caught an interview with League chairman Brian Mawhinney on Sky Sports before the match.

In it he tried to explain away the ruling that has punished us - the fans - because greedy men have stripped our club.

Smug ex-politician that he is, he avoided the question, simply stating that it was, you guessed it, "the rules". The last refuge of a scoundrel.

Asked if he had a message for the fans, Mawhinney fudged it again with some half-hearted attempt to wish us luck.

Politeness stops me sending a message back to Mr Mawhinney.

If they want rules, why don't they have one that says everyone wanting to buy into a football club must be vetted for suitability?

I couldn't make it to the Stockport match on Saturday because the bright lights of Barcelona beckoned for a stag-do.

Sitting in the pub watching Jeff Stelling on Sky Sports, the Catalans must have thought we were taking the rise by singing what to them must have been a nondescript Spanish name.

Over and over again, as it turned out. "Ugarte, Ugarte!"

But every fan we met on that day, from Luton Town to Carlisle, all said something along the lines of: "Sorry, tough luck on you guys."

That about sums up our standing with everyone - except the

League.