STAR TREK was boldly taking television viewers where no man had gone before.

But for the Town faithful of 40 years ago, it was a reluctant trip into uncharted territory.

The proud club had never been outside the top two divisions in their 65-year existence.

And just three years earlier, they had swept to promotion from the original Division II (now Championship).

Now, having dropped out of the top flight 12 months earlier, they were falling towards another relegation.

It ended up being by the narrowest of margins, but it made no difference – Town, once league champions three years running, were in Division III.

A run to the FA Cup quarter-finals apart, the 1971-72 campaign had been grim, with only six league wins, the last of them in November.

Town, managed by Ian Greaves, had finished rock-bottom, relegated with Nottingham Forest, and lost four key players.

David Lawson departed to Everton, the £85,000 fee being a record for a British goalkeeper, Trevor Cherry and Roy Ellam to Leeds (for £100,000 and £30,000 respectively) and, finally, crowd favourite Frank Worthington to Leicester.

That £70,000 transfer didn’t take place until after the 1972-73 campaign began, with a proposed £150,000 switch to Liverpool being thwarted when the frontman failed a medical because of high blood pressure.

Greaves had made an audacious attempts to bring Manchester United and Scotland ace Denis Law back to the club where he began his career, and sign West Brom striker Jeff Astle.

Neither came off, but the boss did land experienced Sheffield Wednesday midfielder Graham Pugh for £60,000 and Manchester United frontman Alan Gowling for £67,000.

Greaves still had a string of players with plenty of top-flight experience in keeper Terry Poole, who was working his way back to fitness after a broken leg which kept him out for the entire 71-72 campaign, full-backs Dennis Clarke and Geoff Hutt, midfielders Jimmy Nicholson, Steve Smith and Terry Dolan, wingers Dick Krzywicki, Bobby Hoy and Les Chapman and frontman Jimmy Lawson.

Like all relegated sides, Town harboured hopes of an immediate promotion, and made a promising start, with three wins in the first six games, during which young striker Dave Smith showed up well alongside Gowling.

The latter was to prove a success at Town, top scoring in each of his three seasons, but his 72-73 tally of 17 was almost half of Town’s total of 36.

Greaves attempted to boost his firepower by bringing in Phil Summerill from Birmingham for £40,000 (his only other recruit during the season being Mansfield centre-back John Saunders for £20,000), but the boss was unable at half a slide down the division.

In all, there were only eight wins, just one of them away, 2-1 over Portsmouth at Fratton Park in match four.

Town’s 2-0 home success over Pompey in their 42nd and final game lifted them to third-bottom (two went down).

But Cardiff, a point behind, still had two games to play and picked up a 1-1 home draw against Sunderland, who had just lifted the FA Cup at the expense of Leeds.

Cardiff ended up on the same 33-point mark as Town, and with a superior goal average, condemned to Leeds Road side to the drop alongside basement team Brighton.

Ironically, Town had pipped Cardiff on goal average top land the first of their three league titles in 1923-24.

Portsmouth, Carlisle and Preston were all breathing big sighs of relief as Town, whose average gate came in at just 8,175 as opposed to 23,228 two seasons earlier, were left to contemplate their spectacular fall from grace.