By John Taylor

April began with a visit by the out of form Shrewsbury Town, winless since January against an unchanged home side. The first half was an open affair with both sides looking to attack, but the Shrews swiftly annoyed the ref, Mr Drysdale with former Town target, Graham Lee, scything down David Dowson who was advancing menacingly on Garner's goal. Nine minutes is fairly early to get a booking even these days. After much action, the first half drew to a close with a spate of bookings between minutes 37 and 39 with Fletcher, Moss and Dowson seeing yellow. None of them could be considered unlucky.

The restart saw Cooper replace Hartley and the team get rejigged and this proved an instant success with Dowson holding off a couple of defenders to fire home from the edge of the box. Within 2 minutes Ward had doubled our lead with a cracking volley after Fletcher's header had set him up. Annoyingly, however, just like the previous week at Dagenham, Ward's first thought was to mock the opposition fans, not celebrate the goal. I don't know what that's all about, but it's not a development to be encouraged. The visitors soon made a double substitution with former Spireite loanee Michael Barnes completing an unhappy return by being hauled off-he must heartily dislike the sight of Saltergate. Soon afterwards Lowry set up Ward for another cracker and we were looking good whilst the Shropshire outfit were looking increasingly ragged.

Lee completed his miserable afternoon, being substituted mid-way through the half whilst Fletcher left to a deserved standing ovation with 9 minutes to go, just after McIntyre's fine strike had given the Shrews some degree of respectability. New recruit Bruce Dyer entered the fray to become our 14^th debutant of the season. He made something of a contribution by assisting Dowson in netting his second of the afternoon in injury time. This was a good win and gave us a sniff of a chance of making the play-offs but we needed slips by Wycombe to have any chance, whilst winning our remaining fixtures.

Next up was our eagerly awaited first visit to Morecambe's Christie Park with a sizeable Town contingent making the journey. The opening period saw almost total Spireite dominance but all we had to show for it was a 35^th minute strike from Steve Fletcher-an absolute stormer fired in from the edge of the box. Ward wasted our best opportunities and the 1-0 lead at the break after such dominance never seemed enough to win us the game. So it proved as the second half saw the home side come into the encounter whilst we struggled to assert ourselves. After 15 minutes of constant home pressure, an unmarked Matt Blinkhorn equalised and the game finished level, virtually extinguishing any play-off hopes.

Darlington were next with the Quakers visiting Saltergate needing just a point to ensure they made the play-offs. They were clearly intent on avoiding defeat and like Dave Penney's Doncaster before them, Dave Penney's Darlington were good at dropping to get free-kicks and thoroughly professional in a niggly unattractive sort of way.  To counter this, the most amusing event of a bitty first half was when Leven and the ref were running to keep up with play and the ref brought down the Scot. The humourless Mr Evans failed to see the funny side of it a few minutes later when booking Leven who clearly referred to the earlier incident in a jocular fashion. Anyway, the ref had clearly injured Leven who limped off just after the half hour to be replaced by Winter. After a goalless first period, we took the lead 6 minutes into the second half as the lively Ward beat Stockdale with a cross-shot after being set up by Winter and Fletcher. After a double substitution on 66 minutes, Darlo were soon level as Downes failed to deal with a long ball and Wright beat Roche to equalise for yet another soft goal conceded. Thereafter we couldn't up our game sufficiently to break down the Quakers' rearguard and they got the point they wanted and condemned us to bottom rung football again next term.

The final fixture of the month saw us visit Moss Rose where near-neighbours Macclesfield needed just a point to ensure they were not relegated. We had our umpteenth skipper of the season as Phil Picken donned the armband whilst Kovacs returned to partner Hawkins at the back. Graeme Owens was given a full debut in order to show off his fancy red boots to good effect. He looked lively, as did the entire side coming forward. We linked well, playing good, flowing football and forced a string of corners, all badly executed and failed to find the killer ball or shot. Just before the break, Macc fashioned a well-worked goal as Evans slotted home from Ashton's pass following a free kick. After that we were rarely in the game and Macc got the point they wanted, to much applause from the home supporters. This was the story of the season in miniature really-failure to take advantage when we were in the ascendancy then conceding against the run of play.

Off the pitch, the month saw a new sponsorship deal for the Kop next season as lottery winner Karen Child of Clowne stepped up to the plate, to use a baseball term. Things on the new ground front appear to be heading in the right direction and Jack Lester was named as PFA Coca Cola player of the year for our league whilst inevitably being in the team of the year as well. Jason Elliott stood down from the board mid-month and, as soon as we couldn't make the play-offs, the retained list was issued. Unsurprisingly we announced the departure of 6 players: Kevin Gray, Adam Smith, Jamie Jackson, Josh Law, Alan O'Hare and Kevin Cooper. Of these, the consensus is that 5 of them make sense, but few fans can understand the treatment of Alan O'Hare all season. As soon as Peter Hartley was recruited, it was obvious that the popular Irishman was on his way and the reasons will probably never be in the public domain. We wish him well and hope that he finds a league club to give him a chance to rebuild his career.

Jack in PFA League Two Team of the season

After the failure to make the play-offs, the end of season can't come soon enough, so that we can look forward to a new campaign whilst putting the mistakes of this season behind us. On the plus side, we played some great football and scored some cracking goals, both from distance and with flowing passing moves. We showed we could grind out results like the win at Bury and the home win over Brentford. On the negative side, we chucked daft goals away all season and never seemed to learn any lessons, we often seemed not to work as hard as the opposition and there was too few consistent team selections in an effort to get the balance right. One thing we really need next season is a strong, on-field leader in the mould of John Archer or Bill Green, though we've been saying that for years.

John's man of the month