Following quite a lengthy period of everything feeling like it was going wrong, you have to give credit where it is due and say that last week was a good one for Swindon Town.

It was a confident building. I made two trips to the County Ground last week and both times there was a feeling that things were about to get going. Every person seemed excited for what was to come. Speaking to Heads Groundsman Matt Povey, after a difficult first year, he was ready to have the chance to get the pitch right with a full summer in the role, a pitch that could help the team and preferably not be brought up unprompted in press conferences. But beyond just that, everyone I spoke to seemed excited about next season. At the time it was tough to see why.

That became clearer with the confirmation of Mark Kennedy as the long-running search for a head coach reached an end on Wednesday evening. That brought with it the press conference the next day and again I was greeted by discussions with people saying that the dry well of the Swindon news cycle might be about to fill up. The announcement of Ollie Clarke as the first signing of the summer seemed to back this up. A midfielder possessing all of the traits Town lacked last year: grit, experience, and a winning mentality. Suddenly I felt a tinge of excitement too.

It had been a very good week but what is more important is this being only the first step. The expected and logical decision to extend the season ticket deadline was taken, and now Swindon need to keep making moves to prove to people that buying one will be worth it. The house went up in flames last year and you are not going to rebuild it just by putting a nice chair where the living room used to be. I would very much like to sit in that chair, but there is the small matter of not having a roof yet and walls that look like Anton Du Beke is trying to fit through them.

These big press conferences do come with increasing scepticism every time Swindon have to do them these days. The big pronouncements have all been heard before and it would be difficult to believe Jose Mourinho that good times were ahead if he were sat there, let alone Jamie Russell. But despite this Kennedy spoke well, I shall leave any commitment in a believe-it-when-I-see-it box, but he struck a different tone to those who have preceded him. He portrayed an aura of calm that one could not attribute to Gavin Gunning, Michael Flynn, or Jody Morris. There was never going to be an appointment that wowed, but the fact that this one did not spark outrage is probably a good sign given the powder keg it was released into.

We have two new faces that should start to make the footballing side better, and ultimately if the club can get that right then they can buy themselves more time to do the other badly needed repair work. This is just the start. Right now Clarke has joined a team with 12 senior professionals, so clearly more needs to be done to drive season ticket sales. But for the first time since 9.37 pm on November 28, on Friday night I thought about Swindon and felt excited about something and for the first time this summer there was a reason to think that it would not just be more of the same. Isn’t that what football should be in June?