Survival means so much for Newport, a club still scarred by the past

“You don’t dare to think about it, really.”

And yet it feels that’s all fans of Newport County have done this season.

However hard they try and block it out on the five-plus hour bus trip to Barrow on Saturday, the prospect of relegation from the EFL will swirl around – just as it has for many others who have seen their side spend 25 of 45 match days in League Two’s bottom two.

The concern of the fans is shared by former players and managers, including Michael Flynn, the architect of Newport’s ‘Great Escape’ in the 2016-17 season.

“Unthinkable,” is how local boy Flynn puts it – with the Exiles needing to win on the final day to guarantee league status, or risk leaving their fate in the hands of others.

Naturally, no fan wants to see their side drop down, let alone into non-league.

But for Newport in particular, it’s deeper. It’s more than the dent to pride and ego, the step out of the spotlight, or the slightly off-beat away days.

As another former boss, John Relish, sums up: “It’s the worry if we’d ever get back – and for a city the size of Newport not to have a club in the Football League, it would be a disaster. For the area, for the businesses, for the fan base – especially the fans – it all means so much.”

Relish should know. The last time Newport were relegated in 1988 – after six decades of league football – they were wound up before even completing their first season in non-league.

A heartbreaking auction of all of the club’s worldly possessions did not even touch the sides of the debts and money needed to pay players.

Former player Relish returned to manage the reborn Exiles, the phoenix club established with the aim of firstly giving the people their club back – but ultimately returning to the league. Run by fans, defying authorities, it took five promotions and 24 years.

“That’s what I mean, we have to treasure that league status,” says Relish, hinting at the scars of the past that the fans carry, passing on to the next generation with tales of the club’s journey.

“It took so much to get here. It would be awful to drop back down after all the fans went through and did so much to rebuild the club.”

At least the club’s health is not on life support as it was back in that last relegation.

And rebuilding is what former Swansea City chairman Huw Jenkins has been trying to do since taking a majority shareholding in Newport more than two years ago.

Having taken the Swans from a final-day survival for league status to the Premier League, Jenkins’ arrival at Newport could perhaps be seen as an attempt to capture lightning in a bottle all over again.

It hasn’t worked so far. The attempt to go for young, overlooked talent is yet to reap rewards, with league positions worsening with each year.

It has taken £3m of his own money to stabilise finances that were in disarray before his takeover, and still the losses come and more investment is needed.

Talks are taking place with a number of parties – that could even see him hand over full control – but it is thought it could all hinge on survival.

If no fresh funding is found, relegation would mean Newport are staring at a drop in funding of around £1m while still having to pay out for the use of a stadium and training ground they don’t own.

“Then you see some of the clubs in the National League, the money they spend and the crowds they get – there’s not much difference between the fourth and fifth tier these days,” adds Relish.

“And then there’s no guarantees. You see so many league clubs who have fallen – and some have fallen again.”

Indeed, even when Newport won promotion from non-league in 2013 they were backed by a Euro lottery winner, winning a Wembley play-off at Wrexham’s expense.

It took their Welsh rivals another decade and a Hollywood wage bill of £6m – more than Newport’s current income – to finally make it.

Losses of sides trying to return are often just as big – if not bigger – than those fighting to stay in the league.

Fans were trying not to think of all that as they arrived at Rodney Parade in the sunshine last weekend.

The city centre is only a five-minute stroll from the gates to the ground, to a point that the nearby bars and restaurants can easily follow the scores by ear.

It could do with the help of a league club. Newport is Wales’ fastest growing city by population, but whose high streets have suffered more than most. A new central retail area continues to suffer as major brands pull out.

After last weekend’s dramatic late win over Oldham Athletic, former captain Jason Perry admitted that, “Newport needs Newport County”.

Meanwhile, local boy and former Wales striker Nathan Blake nodded along at his commentary position as a fan caller spoke of the city’s closeness and the club’s central part, revealing he had been crying at the radio as the significance of the 108th-minute winner sunk in.

Another in tears last Saturday was former defender Mark O’Brien, now club ambassador but the goal-scoring hero of the last time Newport won on the final day to secure league status in 2017.

“It’s perhaps only since taking this role I’ve properly understood what it meant that day,” says O’Brien, Irish-born but now fully Newport having stayed in the city when heart problems forced his retirement from playing at the age of 27.

“I knew the passion but not the impact on the city, on people’s lives. People have come up to me thanking me not just for saving the club from relegation, but for saving their jobs.

“When this club is successful – and we’ve seen it with cup runs and the like – everyone benefits. People don’t travel from afar, this support is generational, it’s right around you, so success just brings so much joy.”

O’Brien admits he too has had lingering fears but, like so many around Newport, has tried not to think of them.

Instead, he has flooded fan message groups on social media with a reminder that the club – with all its past – has always fought to the end.

Indeed, amid the flares and the fervour of last weekend’s late win, manager Christian Fuchs – he of the unlikeliest Premier League title win – said he saw the fans after the final whistle putting fears and frustrations aside, how it helped drag his side over the line, he saw “what is possible here”.

All season, it is has been one set of possibilities that has plagued the thoughts of Newport County fans.

They will hope more than most they are not scared to think of what’s to come on that long bus trip home from Barrow.