Notts County 2 - 0 Swindon Town

Could any Notts County fan honestly believe that, just a few weeks ago, with the Magpies at the bottom of the table and needing nothing short of a miracle to stay in League One, would find themselves going into the final game with their fate in their own hands and needing just one point from the last match to guarantee survival?

No, I couldn’t either.

There’s optimism and there’s delusion, and anyone claiming that Notts would stay up when we were down and out, particularly after that 6-0 defeat away at Rotherham, was dismissed as living in cloud cuckoo land.

But as things are going, Notts now stand a real chance of surviving, because today, we secured another three points after seeing off Swindon Town 2-0 at Meadow Lane.

Shaun Derry lined the home side up in a 4-4-2 formation, with Mustapha Dumbuya returning to the starting XI in place of Callum, and Curtis Thompson lining up alongside Gary Liddle in midfield.

Notts began the game on the front foot, with both Jimmy Spencer and Haydn Hollis heading wide within the first few minutes.

Not even ten minutes had elapsed when the Magpies were in front, and the goal came from arguably this season’s hero, Alan Sheehan.

Following a tee-up from Jack Grealish, the left-back rifled a terrific low shot past Wes Foderingham and into the bottom corner to send the Meadow Lane faithful into raptures and, crucially, ease some much-frayed nerves.

The Robins, however, nearly struck back immediately when Nathan Thompson found Alex Pritchard, who carved out some space for himself on the edge of the box and curled a dangerous effort just wide.

In the 26th minute, Michael Smith came close for the visitors, but his close-range volley was off target, before Troy Archibald-Henville nodded the ball wide just eight minutes later.

Towards the end of the first half, Spencer set up Ronan Murray, whose first-touch effort curled just wide.

Following the break, Murray had another opportunity to score, but his effort was deflected by Foderingham’s leg and out for a corner.

The ensuing set piece led to controversy when Liddle was felled in the box, but no penalty was given.

The Robins then sent the Magpies fans into a panic when Massimo Luongo marauded into the box, but the Australian fired into the side netting.

Towards the end of the game, Swindon fell down to nine men when Archibald-Henville was shown a straight red card for an off the ball incident, which led to a fracas in which Nathan Thompson was given a second booking.

After the frankly shocking announcement of nine minutes of injury time, Notts soon eased the nerves of everyone in the ground (including the Robins fans who were finally put out of their misery) when Jamal Campbell-Ryce broke following a counterattack from a Swindon corner, and set up Callum McGregor who, following Foderingham's last-minute foray into the Magpies box, had to do nothing more than roll the ball into an empty net.

So there we have it. Our fate is back in our hands, but as good as today was, it’s not over yet. The final game of the season will be very tense, but who knows, we will have to wait and see!

Watch this space, fellow Pies fans!