It is a bone of contention among many Town fans whether their play-off semi-final defeat translated into a successful season or a failure.

Whilst many were hoping for promotion from Sky Bet League Two, either automatically or via the play-offs, a healthy dose of context and a look back to the start of the season, when Town was under a transfer embargo and managerless, would not go amiss.

But thanks to a new study from Sky Sports, we can tell exactly whether the Robins over or underachieved this season, and how they compared to their rivals.

The Ultimate League 2021-22 has ranked the top 96 clubs in England by factoring in the finishing position of each one over the past 50 years. It only features teams who have spent at least ten seasons in the Football League in that period.

Swindon are one of England’s biggest underachievers. They finished sixth in League Two - or 74th in the pyramid - this year, 22 places behind their 50-year average rank of 52nd.

But their historic position makes them League Two’s second ‘biggest’ team and put them ahead of arch-rivals Oxford United and Bristol Rovers.

The Us ranked 55th over the last 50 years, although they overachieved in this campaign. They finished 52nd in the pyramid whilst narrowly missing out on the League One play-offs.

Rovers, meanwhile, were ranked 58th in the last 50 years. This year, they finished 71st, an underachievement of 13 places in their promotion-winning season.

Unsurprisingly, Liverpool, Manchester United and Arsenal take the top three spots, closely followed by Tottenham, Everton, Chelsea and Aston Villa.

However, Manchester City, current Premier League champions, are only ranked eighth. As recently as 24 years ago they found themselves in the third tier of English football.

Port Vale, who beat the Robins in the play-off semi-finals before going on to win promotion at Wembley, finished 73rd in the pyramid this year. That is an underachievement of 11 places in comparison to their historic rank of 62nd, and below Town’s historic rank of 52nd.

Oldham Athletic were the biggest underachievers in their relegation campaign, but also the ‘biggest’ club in League Two.

Their historic position of 46th is a massive 45 places higher up the pyramid than the 91st place they actually ended up.

Newport County were not included in the rankings as they have only been back in the Football League for nine seasons, whilst this year’s League Two winners, Forest Green Rovers, have only been in the Football League since 2017-18.