The writer Armando Iannucci was recently talking about how various iterations of the government in recent years have undertaken sweeping purges of its personnel. Theresa May removed David Cameron’s loyalists, Boris Johnson then removed Brexit-sceptics, then Liz Truss removed Boris Johnson supporters. Each one stripping away experience from the centre of government. What’s left is a government full of people who might, in more stable times, have ultimately developed into serviceable politicians, but instead have raced into positions of great authority they’re ill-equipped to do. He described them as ‘cosplay politicians’.

Yesterday saw the second and fifth longest serving managers in the Football League facing each other at The Kassam. At one point in the second-half, Kyle Joseph went down injured under a heavy challenge from a Wycombe player, Karl Robinson rushed from his dugout with his hands on his head in horror. Meanwhile Gareth Ainsworth strolled around impassively in his Cuban heels and shirt unbuttoned to his navel, like Putin with a Thin Lizzy obsession.

It’s a scene we’ve seen a million times before, but it failed to raise much of a reaction from fans, or anyone else in fact, because it felt performative. Like those reboots of Only Fools and Horses; nice and familiar, but not particularly funny. 

Most managers will reach a point where players and fans have seen the absolute limits of what they can do. They’ve seen them at their most nurturing and at their most volcanic and the impact of both lessens every time. Malcolm Shotton’s reign of terror worked for a while when he was manager, but eventually the players realised that shouting and threatening people was all he did; it stopped being motivating and just became a noise. 

The impact of Robinson’s histrionics will inevitably lessen as time goes on; it just becomes what he does. What was once viewed as passion – and a welcome alternative to Pep Clotet’s stone cold persona – is now a man playing the role of a man showing he has passion. Given Wycombe’s start to the season, Ainsworth’s mystique may also be slipping, albeit perhaps more slowly.

The day’s main talking point was the part we probably shouldn’t speculate on too much. The fan who collapsed was about four or five rows in front of me. Initially there wasn’t too much concern, people moved from their seats, I got a sense that someone had been sick. Then it appeared to get more serious; a fan looked like they were doing heart massage while the medical teams arrived and stewards surrounded the scene with blankets passed over from the director’s box. The mood was serious but calm, there was little sense, as far as I could see, that we were dealing with the ultimate tragedy.

Cameron Brannagan’s penalty miss brought a degree of farce to it; even people close by seemed more interested in that. But as the game was paused, Niall McWilliams appeared, then Chris Williams, Amy Cranston and Nathan Cooper. Everyone wanting to help, doing their bit. On the pitch, Robinson and Ainsworth checked in on medical staff who’d been involved and reassured fans. It’s a timely reminder that we’re dealing with people, and thoroughly decent ones at that. 

It was interesting that new CEO, Tim Williams didn’t appear on the scene until much later, and only really to check everyone was OK. I’m not surprised, he’s probably still trying to figure out how to make the office coffee machine work. It was probably right to step back. This was a moment to allow the established team to do their thing; work together and get the best result they could.

Despite the incident, the game resumed at a good pace, the goal resulted from a stunning, frankly world class, cross from Alfie Mawson, but before and after, the match seemed to chug along in an unspectacular fashion. Brannagan, who perhaps had too long to mull over his penalty miss, activated his hero-mode by blasting a series of 25-yard shots over the bar. He needed a cooler head. It was illustrative of the whole game, there was much effort and little craft, a pattern we’ve seen all season.

As the game reached its conclusion, the crowd quietened; perhaps we’d just been there too long. There seemed little anxiety from either set of supporters. It struck me that the brooding animosity between the sides which has developed over the years wasn’t really there. 

It’s a shame, there’s an opportunity to make something of this fixture, but there’s something very flat about the club’s marketing at the moment. Robinson v Ainsworth? A derby? There’s something there. But the standard playbook says there isn’t a rivalry and therefore no effort is made to give it the context it increasingly deserves. A good marketer should see it; the history, the rivalry, the scores to be settled, something to stir the loins; there was an opportunity during the week before the game to re-run some of the highs and lows from past – but instead it was treated like every other game. It felt like we’d played safe and that malaise drifted into every part of the game. Why didn’t we roar our battle cry all week? Why weren’t we roaring the team on in the closing minutes? 

Because, and this I think is a problem, we’re cosplaying this, we’re a club of good people, but we’ve lost momentum almost because of it. Focus will inevitably fall on Karl Robinson, and maybe he can find something in him to re-energise the club although it feels like we might have seen everything he’s got to give. But it’s more than that, we need exciting characterful players, we need fans on a collective mission, we need games to have a narrative and a purpose. It might not be about changes in personnel, but there are a lot of new faces at the club without their roots in our recent history, they’re unlikely to rule anything out.