Charlton were mauled 4-0 by a Leeds side that were on a different planet to them at Elland Road on Wednesday evening.
Eyes and ears quickly focused on events elsewhere, but they offered little to ease the angst Addicks supporters were going through.
Luton overcame an early set back to beat Blackburn, and Barnsley scored a stoppage time winner for the second successive game to claw their way to survival.
The Tykes now face an anxious wait to see if Wigan’s points deduction will be overturned on appeal.
There are valid reasons for claiming the Addicks should not have been relegated – admitted refereeing errors in the Birmingham and Wigan games, the plethora of late goals conceded for example – but a lack of quality ultimately cost Charlton dear, as Lee Bowyer alluded to in his post-match press conference.
So in little more than six weeks time, they will start their seventh season in League One in the last eleven years.
Hopefully the ownership farce will have been settled by then, the manager will have a decent budget to work with, and the club can make a realistic challenge to make a quick return to the Championship. But right now, things look bleak.
An understandably frustrated Bowyer had this to say after the final whistle:
“I’m not happy, we’ve been relegated. I just said to the players that it isn’t because of tonight’s game. It’s because since coming back from lockdown we’ve been the better side most of the games and that is what has cost us.
“We should have been safe before we came here tonight but we weren’t, so I’m disappointed obviously getting relegated is never a nice thing to happen. I’m not in a good place at the moment.
“I’m hurting because I don’t like losing games and the way we’ve gone down, the way we’ve been relegated that hurts me even more. We should have won games, we should have had enough points to keep us in the division easily – that’s what hurts me.
“Like today, they were a different level to us, by far and that’s why they are going up but in the other games that hasn’t been the case, that is what hurts me more than anything because it was in our hands and we didn’t grab it.
“We didn’t grab that chance to put ourselves safe. Even with all the other crazy stuff that has been going on and, at times I just felt like this job was impossible, even when you’ve had all that, you’ve still got the chance of staying in the division and we never grabbed it. That is what hurts me more than anything.
“We still fought to the last day and we should have still been safe, I believe that, with the group of players we have got, we should have still been safe but that didn’t happen.
“The chances we created in the games of late, we should have won at least two of them, probably three of them. Decisions that went against us. Alan Wiley apologised to me again on Monday but I said to him that big decisions can cost us points and that is what’s happened.”
Nobody would blame Bowyer if he walked away. But he is a fighter, he loves the club, and if he is given a realistic chance of taking it back up, he would stay.
But for that to happen the ownership needs to be settled quickly and satisfactorily. The least Bowyer deserves is a decent chance to be competitive.
Here is what he had to say about his future:
“I don’t think it is the time to talk about whether other clubs are interested in myself. I’ve been loyal, I could have left on more than one occasion and I’m glad I stayed.”
So this extraordinary season ends. In heartbreak. The summer will be short, very short, but an awful lot has got to happen to put the good ship Charlton Athletic back on an even keel. Hopefully, Captain Bowyer will still be at the helm come September.
But we need a few days to lick our wounds and reflect. With a bit of luck, our Charlton world will look a better place than it does right now.
Charlton: Phillips; Matthews, Lockyer, Pearce (Morgan 46), Sarr, Doughty; Cullen, McGeady (Williams 46), Field; Davison (Aneke 46), Bonne (Green 78).
Subs (not used): Amos, Purrington, Oshilaja, Lapslie, Hemed.
Leeds: Meslier; Ayling, White, Cooper, Dallas; Struijk, Harrison (Stephens 72)Hernandez (Shackleton 61), Klich (Bogusz 72), Alioski (Poveda 61); Bamford (Roberts 46).
Subs (not used): Miazek, Douglas, Davis, Casey.
Goals: White 14, Dallas 28, Roberts 51, Shackleton 66.
Booked: Struijk 87 (foul).
Referee: Geoff Eltringham (Tyne & Wear).
Attn: N/A.