At this time of the year life at the Chron takes on a definite 'phoney war' feel. News rumbles on but is reported by a skeleton staff.

Any breaking stories will be covered by a duty reporter who will almost certainly rather be somewhere else, ideally with the heating on and one hand in the Roses tin.

On Sport it's slightly different because the festive fixture list is always busy, but around this time of year we usually get by on doing the games and that old staple of the final week of the calendar: the review of the year.

Discounting the final few weeks, where everything seems to have unravelled in terms of the stadium redevelopment plans, 2008 has been a pretty good year to be a Cobblers supporter.

The stand-out, truly memorable results have to be the Carling Cup win at Bolton Wanderers and the eventual defeat on penalties to Sunderland in the following round.

These were great nights that will not be forgotten by anyone.

But it's not all been about the razzmatazz of cup football - there has been substantial progress made in the league too.
The final placing of ninth in 2007-08 was the furthest the club has finished up the league ladder for a decade, their place in the third tier of English football fully established.

If the current budget and squad is kept in place there is no way relegation will be an issue in the immediate future.

The key part of that sentence is the first half. Of course, keeping the entire squad intact is virtually impossible at any football club; players leave, get better offers, get injured, whatever. People move on.

But the budget is a different story. When I sat down with the chairman David Cardoza about a month ago to put the Chron readers' questions to him, he remarked that Stuart Gray was the manager who deserved the most money to spend but who had been given the least.

Given the borough council's continued foot-dragging, and the revelation earlier this month that the club might have to wait until 2026 before any retail plans for the Sixfields site would be given the go-ahead, one can only see Gray's budget getting smaller.

So while history will judge 2008 as being a very good year, it may also be the big turning point in the recent fortunes of Northampton Town FC.

It's always good practice to end an interview, especially one which has been quite fraught, with a positive and that policy will be applied to this final column of the year.

2008 has been good on the whole and while the future looks uncertain (not just for the football club but for the entire country) I am sure the Cobblers supporters will go into it with typical stoicism.