Swindon Town were thoroughly embarrassed on the road as they were roundly beaten 4-0 at the hands of fellow strugglers Colchester United.

The first half was like something out of a twisted nightmare as Harry Smith’s own goal was swiftly followed by a Samson Tovide brace and Jack Payne pouring an immense amount of suffering on Town.

Swindon were allowed the mercy of wallowing in their mess in the second half as both teams lost the will to apply full force.

Following a sixth game without a win, Swindon sit bottom of the fourth tier of English football for the very first time.

Ian Holloway was surprisingly light on tinkering for the visit to The JobServe Community Stadium, making just one enforced change from the weekend. Despite many of this line-up having played a punishing 120 minutes just three days ago, Joel Cotterill was the only difference to Accrington Stanley.

Following an opening ten minutes which saw little in the way of action, it was the same, old story which saw Colchester take the lead. Yet another early corner drifted into the middle where Tovide met it and his header struck Smith and flew into the net.

Before having time to process yet another set-piece goal going in against them, Colchester had a second. Slack play on the edge of the area from Ryan Delaney allowed Payne to steal in on Jack Bycroft. He cut the ball across for the waiting Tovide to send the ball into the empty goal.

Rocked by the start, the confidence in the Swindon players looked to be drained beyond zero. Colchester sat back, happy to absorb the passive passing and spring their counterattacks, which all looked more dangerous than anything Town could muster.

Holloway, Marcus Bignot, and Gavin Gunning seemed the sense the inspiration might have to come from them and were locked in a lengthy discussion before the clock even read 20 minutes about how to turn the ship around.

But before those talks of how to get out of the hole came to a conclusion, it was even deeper. A Swindon long through was launched into Colchester shins allowing Owura Edwards to get away down the left. He jinked beyond Tunmise Sobowale and cut the ball back for Tovide to slot home his second.

With less than half an hour on the clock, Paul Glatzel was summoned with Delaney making way as Town shifted to an even more gung-ho 424.

This made little to no difference as the play was equally lacking in bite and invention, with nobody in the stadium even considering that Swindon might be capable of a comeback.

Before the break, the embarrassment reached truly epic proportions as Tovide bullied Wright to win the ball high up, ran away from Grant Hall down the side and then rolled the ball across goal for Payne to slide home.

In 145 years of Swindon’s history, there couldn’t have been too many 45 minutes which were packed with more misery than the four goals and hitting the bottom of the fourth tier for the first time which had unfolded.

A triple change at halftime saw Joel McGregor, Rosaire Longelo, and Harrison Minturn handed the unenviable task of sparking football’s most unlikely comeback.

With Colchester understandably easing up with another game on Saturday, Swindon were able to create something after the break. Cotterill rifled a strike over the top with the help of a deflection and Aaron Drinan flashed a shot into the side netting but still the menace only belonged to The U's.

Any moments when Swindon showed a flash of quality were swiftly followed by Colchester strolling back in and easing them off the ball like a dad playing with his child in the garden.

It was a night that even before the goals started cascading in looked to not be going right but this was truly a debacle. Playing against a side who are struggling towards the bottom of League Two with them and Town beat in the FA Cup just a month ago, the gulf in quality couldn’t have been more vast. Without having to get beyond the first few gears, Colchester were winning the simplest points of their campaign and firing a harpoon into Swindon’s.

The seeds of the fear of relegation out of the EFL, which were first planted last year, have continued to grow untamed into a great big oak tree in the corner at Swindon. You can’t look anywhere else. A slow start has turned into a malaise and now a full-blown end-of-days crisis. Town are not in danger of going down, it quite simply seems to be the most likely outcome unless the course corrects rather drastically.

CUFC starting XI: Macey, Iandolo, Flanagan, Tovide, Payne, Gordon, McDonnell, Read, Egbo, Edwards, Donnelly.

CUFC substitutes: Smith, Kelleher, Bishop, Hunt, Woodyard, Thorn, Taylor.

STFC starting XI: Bycroft, Sobowale, Delaney, Wright, Cotterill, Smith, Kilkenny, Tshimanga, Drinan, Hall, Cox.

STFC substitutes: Barden, Ofoborh, Glatzel, McGurk, Longelo, Minturn, McGregor.

Attendance: 3,401 (170 away).