I am exhausted. Not just because of my ill-advised decision to watch the Super Bowl when I had to catch an early train, but because of my contractual obligation to watch every Swindon Town game.

Every game there is a desire to be optimistic and to feel like things might click like they often threaten to, but now, I think I might just be in some elaborate practical joke played upon my psyche.

I delayed writing this until after the Gillingham game for a few reasons, but mostly because I wanted to see if there would be any differences between that game and against Salford City. I wanted to write about something else, but at the moment there is nothing else.

For the third game in succession under Gavin Gunning, Town have created more than enough chances to have a comfortable afternoon and in the last two, they completely shredded a team for the bulk of the game. But in each, there was a mad period in which all of that good counted for nothing.

Following the Salford game, I felt that some went over the top in reacting to a very good performance that had an unfortunate ending in a season that no longer mattered beyond putting Swindon in a position to do better next time around. But when you watch that same game twice in four days and for the umpteenth time this season, the straw has snapped the camel’s back in half.

28 points. Crewe at home, Wrexham away, Morecambe away, Salford away, Colchester away, Stockport home, Harrogate away, Tranmere away, Colchester home, Newport away, Salford home, and now Gillingham away. 12 games in which Swindon have led and gone on to throw it away and blow it away, even though I am pretty sure they can play. Arguably the problem is that there is no psycho screaming.

Not all of those are the same, some are games that Swindon shouldn’t have been ahead in in the first place, but far too many are games that have followed that same pattern of being in a comfortable position before the inevitable implosion after the break.

The most annoying thing about a wet night in Kent was how much there was to like. Swindon travelled to a physical side gunning for the play-offs and shut them down. Sean McGurk looks like another January addition that has the promise to be something special. In the space of 90 minutes, Swindon proved themselves capable of slicing and dicing a team through possession and being a slick and exciting counter-attacking side.

I like what Gunning has done with this team they would be so much more fun to watch than what came before were it not for the exhaust port still not having anything covering it up.

The playoffs were gone as soon as Swindon failed to show up in Wimbledon, the results have not mattered for a while. But it has now been exactly a year since Jody Morris’ side lost a game that they were winning after 85 minutes against Sutton United to set off this never-ending cycle of foot shooting. Three people have been at the helm since and still nothing has changed.

This team should be lovable. Conor McCarthy has added calmness to the backline for 88 minutes out of the 90, two young permanent signings have come in and instantly shown that they can hack it in Paul Glatzel and Sean McGurk, and a returning hero who is never short of excitement looks to be re-finding his feet. And yet every game ends with that same stare at the sky wondering how this has possibly happened again.