The Swindon Town Supporters Trust believe that an increasing malaise across the club led them to a point of having to take drastic action towards the club.

The Trust penned an open letter to Clem Morfuni expressing that they had lost faith in his leadership, and Vice Chair James Phipps spoke to the Adver about how he thought we got to this point.

He said: “It feels like a lifetime ago, but when Clem first came in and he was walking around the Town End and having that absolute open engagement, I remember having a conversation with him and saying that the stuff on the pitch was going great, but the reality is that there will be as many downs as ups, so enjoy the ups but be prepared for the downs.

“What you have got to do is try and give that consistency, it is ok being around on the ups but the fans want to see you more on the downs and those are the times that you have to work even harder on that engagement.

“There has been a huge turnaround of players, around 50 per cent up every year versus the years previous and a huge turnaround in literally every role in the club; club secretary, CEO, finance, and commercial, every role has changed once or even twice.

“That is the challenge with that much turnover and a lot of the staff coming in are inexperienced, you just lack that stability and the knowledge that comes with that experience at the club and in the sector.

“And lastly that engagement has fallen off the edge of the cliff, and the club’s view is that they do the advisory board and that is their engagement, but if you look at the club’s website, how many of those minutes from this year have been published? Virtually none.

“This vacuum that has been created in communication reflects a similar conversation to what has happened on the pitch.

“You could see that that has been happening over that three-year period and it hasn’t been just one thing that has occurred but several things.”

Phipps believes that the club have failed to understand the troubles they have faced as the situation around them has started to unravel.

He said: “You have to reflect when the noise is coming from all around and think about ‘how do we fix that?’

“I think that the problem was that you were riding the crest of a wave when Clem came in and I don’t think he understood, even though attempts were made to make him understand, that when you had things like the former CEO having to come out and say there had been no share transfer when there had, that trust had been eroded.

“Then it gets eroded further when you say payments have been made on time and you get an EFL charge saying that the club was guilty of not paying HMRC on time.

“I think that there hasn’t been a recognition inside the club that a series of things have eroded that trust and confidence and when you lose that, you have to pedal two or three times harder to get it back, but what has happened has been the exact opposite.”

Phipps added that although it was a very difficult decision for the Trust board to write the open letter, they felt it was the only course of action.

He said: “It was very sad and frustrating to get to the point of writing that open letter to just make one final plea of ‘You really need to listen to your customers.’

“In the Premier League, it is different with the TV money, but in this environment, the fans are your lifeline and if people don’t renew their season tickets then you are in a phenomenally bad place.

“None of this should be new news but I think they are genuinely surprised that the supporters are unhappy.

“As the trust you have to ignore the rollercoaster of what happens on the pitch, but when you get to the place of people who have been fans for decades that have seen the highs and lows and they are yet to renew or have said they won’t renew, that is a core base that you are losing.

“That was the reason for us doing the survey, to quantify that in actual terms and the results are clear from the survey, nearly a third of the fans have said they are either definitely not renewing or they are undecided.

“When you are left in a situation with no permanent manager for months and no sign of one being appointed, you get to the point of saying that those fans who were waiting to see what happens before they renew are even less likely to do it now.”