Back in 2015/16, while being tossed around in the maelstrom of a promotion race and two cup runs I had a moment of clarity. Despite the ups and downs, we were living in a golden age. Previously, I’d largely missed these moments – I remember the nineties being a desperate struggle for survival punctuated by key moments and great players, the eighties as a toboggan run of success so all-consuming it was hard to comprehend what was happening. Only later do you look back on these things with fondness, editing away the bad bits, polishing up the memories, and finding the gold where you least expect.

I looked on the BBC website this morning, there’s a quote from Leon Osman “The whole of Europe is wowed by what Manchester City are doing and how they’re playing.” I would beg to differ, most of Europe are focussed on whatever occupies their days, and increasingly, nobody in this country gives a monkeys about Manchester City’s experiment into seeing how quickly an unlimited amount of money can destroy a national institution. For them, gold is everywhere, and that’s what makes it, and them, boring.

There were 69,000 people at Wembley yesterday for their FA Cup semi-final, a marquee fixture in English football. That’s 5,000 less than were at the Checkatrade final in 2017 and 10,000 less than this year’s final. I didn’t watch a moment of it because the outcome was so depressingly inevitable. 

There was a similarly grinding inevitability about our defeat to Barnsley. Nobody realistically thought we could get anything out of the game. None-the-less, there was still something of a vitriolic response about how we’ve let the solid platform from last season crumble from below our feet. 

I share many of the views – it is not a lack of resource, but a lack of organisation and dynamic strategic management which has ultimately caused this. But it is what is it, and we are where we are. 

That’s not to accept the status quo, but to put the wider issues aside for two weeks and recognise the thrill of what we’re about to encounter. This is football in primary colours.

The jeopardy, the potential to fail, is at the heart of football’s magic. When Robert McElhenney first had the idea of buying Wrexham with Ryan Reynolds, it wasn’t the glory of success, but the fact you could be relegated that piqued his interest. While Wrexham’s own story will inevitably have echoes of Manchester City’s, understanding that bit about football is halfway to understanding football. City, and many of its peers, have worked tirelessly to ensure that failure is not possible for them.

Our path is now clear; incredibly, survival is still in our hands. I don’t understand where during this season we’ve banked the points that have allowed that, but let’s take it. The next three games should be winnable, where Barnsley and other games have come with caveats (we lost, but they are fourth), these don’t. 

If we were going to write a story about surviving relegation, this would be the set up you’d choose. In 1992, we faced a more dire situation – one game, away from home needing results elsewhere to go our way to survive. And we did, in a game which will live in us for generations.

The likes of Manchester City have insulated themselves from the raw emotion of real unexpected success. You marvel at their organisation, commitment and focus, but it’s incredibly boring to most people. Who knows? For us, out there somewhere is an iconic moment, a last-minute winner, a breathetaking save that will see us safe. Someone we’ve despaired over this season could do something that will echo through the ages. What a moment that will be.    

And, that’s all we need to worry about right now, it’s going to be awful and that’s what we love about it. This is our history, our golden age and we should embrace it.