ANOTHER weekend, another reminder of the state of North-East football. What has gone wrong in recent years and when will we ever have a return to joyous times, relatively speaking?

To see all five of the region’s professional clubs struggling for one reason or another yesterday further outlined there remains plenty of room for improvement across the board.

At this stage of the season it is difficult to be excited for the final four months of the campaign.

Newcastle United might offer hope that they can finish off their push for automatic promotion.

But having allowed a healthy advantage to the play-offs reduce to just six points after winning just one from six, now is not the time for Magpies fans to be banking on Premier League football again.

Yesterday’s pitiful FA Cup exits for Newcastle and Sunderland at West Brom and Portsmouth mean there will be no North-East representation in the fifth round this year; no wonder many of us actually supported Leeds on Saturday night.

But with little to be excited about in the clubs respective leagues, it is going to take a monumental turnaround in the coming weeks for this season to be saved.

Darlington are right to be planning for the Blue Square Premier, while Hartlepool are dropping increasingly closer to League One’s bottom four, with frustrations growing among supporters towards Chris Turner.

But while Quakers and Pools’ movements in the transfer market this month are restricted, it is an indication of the struggles higher up the league ladder that Newcastle, Middlesbrough and Sunderland are all finding it hard to strengthen their squads this month.

And a failure to do so is likely to leave Chris Hughton, Gordon Strachan and Steve Bruce battling to revitalise a group of players being stretched because of injuries and suspensions.

It is not, though, just about personnel. I was at the Riverside Stadium yesterday and it is going to take a lot more than a few new faces to lift spirits by the River Tees.

With fewer than 17,000 turning out for the visit of promotion hopefuls Swansea – with many believing the record low was ever lower because many season ticket holders had not turned up – there’s an air of acceptance on Teesside that the club is going to be stuck in a rut for some time. The extent of such feelings date further back than just two wins from 13 under Strachan.

Just seconds before Willo Flood equalised with his freakish cross, two long-serving Boro fans sat in front of the press box stood up and walked out stating ‘we’ve seen enough of this rubbish and we’re off for a pint’. That arrived 35 minutes from time.

It is safe to assume most Sunderland fans are showing more patience, with the chairmanship of Niall Quinn buying Steve Bruce more time to get things right, with further changes expected to be made.

But boasting a win over non-league Barrow as their only victory in ten outings, with just four points separating the Black Cats from the bottom three, Wearside folk are growing concerned that another relegation fight could be on the cards this season.

As for Newcastle, they might be top of the Championship but we all know there remains unrest among supporters towards the Mike Ashley regime. It is difficult to imagine promotion leading to a sustained spell back in the top-flight.

To have not a single victory to show – or more worryingly four defeats – from five matches yesterday, surely things are going to improve again soon.

As a supporter of football in the whole of the North-East I certainly hope so because two seasons of disappointment can’t be good for any of us.