Gavin Gunning said that his Swindon Town team will be out to avoid being tarred by having the club’s lowest-ever league finish.

With nine games left to play in League Two, Swindon presently sit 18th in the table, having picked up 44 points so far this season.

The club’s worst performance in a Football League season to date was during the 198/84 season when Town finished 17th on 58 points in Division Four under manager Ken Beamish.

This means that Swindon must climb at least two places and pick up 14 points during the run-in to avoid the fate of claiming the unwanted title of the worst season the club has ever had.

Gunning said although he was not previously aware of the looming threat of that unfortunate piece of history he would endeavour to prevent the club from experiencing new depths.

He said: “I didn’t know about that but that wouldn’t be where we are looking to finish anyway, so I would be hopeful that we are not finishing below 17th.

“I have taken over in a tricky situation and we have gotten more points than the games before we took but it is still not as many points as we should have and I would like.

“The performances have been a lot better, but nobody cares about that, everyone wants to win, and I want to win.”

During his time in charge, Gunning said that he felt that the general level of performance had improved, but if they were to get the results to avoid finishing beneath the 1983/84 side then improvements to the players' mental performances would need to be made.

He said: “I think that since I have come in we have had some tough games and it has been good that we have gone toe to toe with big teams in the league, I think we have had two poor performances that weren’t up to scratch.

“We have been beaten in a few of them where we weren’t quite in the right mental state to stay switched on for the 90 minutes and then you get hurt.

“Against Newport, the two goals weren’t great from two long balls over the top and at the weekend we don’t mark in the box.

“That is football sometimes but if you are a player, you should be shattered mentally and physically, more so mentally because you are concentrating on everything.”