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It has been two years since I came to Rotherham to watch their team play.

Then, my conclusion was that Rotherham United were stuck in a cycle decided above their heads, caught between the Championship and League One, six promotions and relegations on the trot. They either had to invest lots of money to compete as a smaller-town club and risk sustainability, or play it safer and see other clubs who aren’t doing the same thing pass them by.

Rotherham roughly chose sustainability, although even that means losing millions per year nowadays in an environment that has become a crucible of desperation.

“It has been well-documented throughout the football world that costs associated with the running of clubs continue to rise, but we remain committed to our promise that any and all decisions must be made with the sustainability and long-term future of Rotherham at the forefront,” read the club statement after annual losses of £4.6m in League One were announced earlier this year. Even that was well below the average.

They never really had the money and it is expensive even half-trying. And so, as yo-yos tend to do, Rotherham’s years of constant flux ended at the bottom. They went down, then they went down again. I arrive in town with the Millers 17th in the fourth tier having won four league games in nine months.

Still, could be worse. Sustainability is a maxim here for good reason. Owner Tony Stewart took over in 2008, with Rotherham on minus 17 points in League Two.

Between 2006 and 2009, this was the natural home of crisis and angst in English football – two administrations and 37 docked points in total.

But to throw your hands into the air and declare this collapse as Rotherham merely being caught in a tide is a little one-eyed.

Instead, when a club oscillates between promotion and relegation what happens is this: everything budget-related becomes overly focused on the pitch because you are either spending to get up or stay up. Off-field work becomes neglected. Every season is season zero.

At the same time, the tendency is to cycle through managers because every campaign has intense pressure upon it and standing still isn’t an option.

In less than three years, Rotherham have employed Matt Taylor, Leam Richardson, Steve Evans, Matt Hamshaw, Lee Clark and now Alex Bruce. Only one manager in the last 11 years has reached 60 matches.

Recruitment inevitably becomes chaotic because each manager has their own ideas and demands.

Before you know it, the entire club are chasing their tail. The food chain made life harder for Rotherham and it is no fun dreaming of competing with Sheffield United and then going back to Doncaster Rovers. But nobody pretends that the club didn’t begin to eat away at itself, too.

The great shame is how this has eroded some of the goodwill towards Stewart. He has been a magnificent owner by any possible measure: saving the club from extinction, bringing them back to Rotherham, financing the move to the New York Stadium (which is – in this humble opinion – the best new-build ground in the EFL), overseeing the overachievement to make the Championship a possibility. He is a pillar of their history and deserves a statue, quite frankly.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t carry much weight when a club are relegated twice in three seasons on your watch.

At 81, Stewart probably is weary and he conceded several years ago that he had fallen out of love with football a little. Most agree that it is time to step aside, and maybe there has been a little too much gatekeeping and holding on to what has been so precious if the money and fire just isn’t there anymore.

However, Stewart also wants to sell to the right people and benevolent billionaires desperate to lose money every year through owning a fourth-tier football club in a struggling northern town with plenty of local competition aren’t exactly knocking on the door. It comes back to everybody’s favourite football phrase: be careful what you wish for. Its usage isn’t inappropriate here.

In the main – and this is hardly unique to Rotherham – it is the younger supporters who express their frustration towards Stewart most outwardly. This usually provokes an angry response from neutrals: entitlement, impatience, obsession with money.

If any of that is true, it is the fault of the culture, not the cohort. Younger supporters are indoctrinated by transfer and desperation culture and its excesses extend far beyond football. They also need to feel connected to the club and (again, not unique to Rotherham) see very few of their own faces at fan forums or in supporters’ trusts.

If clubs want to engage a younger audience long-term, they need to take that audience with them along the journey. There are too many other options for them not to.

All of that sounds broadly depressing. A club in its lowest position for 17 years and in a state of civil instability and unrest as the next saviour is sought to steer the ship on and oh yes it would be helpful if they were super-rich, local and generous. Few think that likely and so equally few are actually sure what will happen next.

But there is a different story to tell here, too, and it is a conversation that merits repeating at most clubs in provincial towns where supporters feel a little restless or glum.

It raises questions about what football clubs are actually for in 2026 and how, if the climate itself is draining and beyond financial reason, we should shift our stance when looking at them.

Rotherham do wonderful, year-round work in a town that has its issues with deprivation and poverty.

They are a vital social institution and nowhere else in the area do so many people come together in one place. On every other day bar Saturday, people come here and are looked after. On every other day bar Saturday, outreach programmes go out to meet the people.

The New York Stadium is a supreme feat because it is a new ground that retains the feel of an old one.

The noise hangs inside (I also accept that I came on a good day: home win via a last-minute winner). Everybody here is so friendly that it catches you off guard, even as someone very used to attending football matches in northern Football League grounds.

There are 9,291 in attendance for a lunchtime kick-off that is live on television – it is the biggest attendance in League Two that day.

They watch a Rotherham team play directly under Bruce, working tirelessly to win the ball back in the style of Paul Warne and Steve Evans so long before him. And that is the football these supporters want because they believe it reflects the place and believe reflecting the place is how you create identity.

There is a goal to cheer, a missed penalty to grimace at, a late equaliser to persuade them for a moment that the entire week is ruined, several minutes for them to calm down a touch and then a late, late winner that proves that the entire week is saved.

It is not always like this. It hasn’t been like this often enough. But when it is like this there is nowhere else they would rather be.

As I walk back to my car after the game, I stop – as I have every time I’ve been here – to look at Millmoor.

Until last week, the old place still stood and occasionally hosted children’s or charity matches. But the demolition has finally started in earnest. It is a sea of mangled metal and piles of rubble, with one section of near pristine seats still in place as if people could still buy tickets to watch the machinery at work.

Rotherham left here in 2008 because their old owner – and stadium landlord – kicked them out. They were forced to move to Sheffield and never again called Millmoor home. It was a rupture in the club’s history that reflected the worst of times.

Most will miss it when it is gone, but nobody believes that the new home isn’t worth it.

You see, everybody was there for a reason. They embraced one another as they arrived because these familiar faces mean more than they will ever know. They embraced when the goals went in because they give hope that this season might just be different after all.

They gave it to the away end because Chesterfield are local and wouldn’t have it any other way. And at the end they vowed to meet again in 10 days or a fortnight to do the whole thing again. As if there’s any chance they would do anything else.

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It is not defeatist to consider that to be a victory of its own. It is an act of permanence and permanence in a climate of transience is a marker of success. Rotherham face an uncertain future, with or without a new owner, but having a future is the important bit.

It’s really hard to remember all that in the maelstrom of transfer windows and promotion desperation, and this is never meant to sound preachy or unambitious.

But I also think it’s true to the point that it’s almost all that matters. Rotherham may not be exactly where they want to be. But never overlook the impact of simply being.