Of all my time in football, the toughest periods have come when we have been losing, and losing regularly. Because those defeats inevitably lead to instability, unhappiness, bickering and, often, sackings of key people at the club, whether they be the head coach, chief executive or, at the end of the season, some teammates.

All the camaraderie and team spirit that is built up during periods of success just melts away as the losses pile up.

Keep battling: the Demons have faced lots of tough times in recent years. Credit:Getty Images

These thoughts occurred to me in the past week as the Brisbane Lions lost their chief executive; Mick Malthouse and Damien Hardwick continue to wear flak for Carlton and Richmond’s mediocre start to the season; and even top-line players such as Marc Murphy, Dane Swan and Aaron Sandilands have copped it in the neck for a slump in their usual output.

This cycle follows a time-honoured pattern: a club descends into a spiral of defeat and everyone is then on the warpath, looking for scapegoats. During my career I’ve been involved in a club that has been caught in that death spiral and it resulted in the sacking of our senior coach. It was a disastrous period. As the pressure mounted, it could be seen in the coach’s face and was reflected in his behaviour on a daily basis. Here was guy under major stress. The leader of our club was in a dark place - how could his mood and demeanour not somehow be transferred on to the playing group? As a player, every day at the club became a chore. We weren’t just not winning, we were getting smashed most weeks.