Off the top of my head I can think of a few periods in the last four decades at Saints where the football was poor, eighth place was a relief and silverware was little more than a daydream.

The early 80s and 1993-4 come to mind, with a few blips thrown in between.

During those times loyalty, black humour and camaraderie and a sense of pulling together got the club through to the other side.

I started doing my Saints Big Ten pools round from Dentons Green to Windlehurst in the early 80s – and it seemed that every week, each door I would knock on would have a grumble about Saints losing again, missing out on Wembley for another year and not signing anyone decent.

Those men and women on the doorstep at least coughed up their 15p – and to be fair had a right to moan.

I still recall the week Saints lost 32-6 to Oldham in 1983 – our fourth defeat in five matches – and one of my customers came out and gave me, as the closest he was going to get to a Saints representative, what for during a 15 minute tirade.

It concluded with a declaration that he could play for the Saints and that all the fans should go down to Queens Park on a Thursday night to throw bricks at them training, a sentence that was interjected with a fair few fs too.

Passions do run high with Saints. That is understandable – fans’ lives are very much wrapped up in what 13 guys in a red vee do on a weekend, especially when a fair chunk of the weekly wage goes over the turnstiles.

And it is natural that people moan, grumble and let off steam when things are going bad. I have done it myself countless times.

But Saints are on the threshold of one of the most exciting periods of the club’s history, but to listen to some folk, albeit a minority, we are staring into the abyss.

Of course, not everything is wonderful even though the team has done remarkably well playing with injuries away from home for the full season. With the resurgence of Wigan and revival at Warrington it is increasingly tough to do what Saints did in 2006.

But sometimes I think folk are being deliberately contrary. So when we were winning every game in 2006, the grumble was Knowsley Road was a hovel, our new stadium would never be built and there was more chance of Haydock Ski slope coming on line.

Now the ground is shooting up at a rate of knots and is going to be the envy of the rugby league world, of course the team is being neglected and will be lucky to give Huyton a game, should Geoff Fletcher decide to dig his boots out again.

To some, every player we have kept is too old and not good enough and conversely the ones we release should have been given what they asked for.

The young players we do keep are never going to make it, the ones that are released to double their pay and get regular rugby should, of course, still been here.

Oh, and I forgot to mention all the injuries are inevitably a result of conditioning staff and physios – because in today’s blame culture even accidents have to be somebody’s fault.

Two years without a trophy is tough for team’s followers used to seeing one routinely slotted on the cabinet but is there really such a need for such negativity when Saints are still in both comps and there are 11 teams below them in the league.