After Torquay United retained their National League status after beating Bromley last Saturday, we will now look at where the Gulls' campaign rates alongside their other great escapes of previous seasons.
When United went into their league fixture with fellow strugglers Boreham Wood on February 20th, they were rooted to the bottom of the Vanarama National League with 20 points to their name; they were also 12 adrift from safety and all seemed lost.
The possibility of the Gulls playing in non-league regional football for the first time since the 1926-27 season, the year before they were successfully elected to the Football League, seemed very real indeed.
With a lack of money since Thea Bristow stood down as chairman and closed her chequebook and falling attendances hovering around the 1,800 breakeven figure quoted by new chairman David Phillips, the odds were well and truly stacked against United.
Since Kevin Nicholson's appointment as permanent successor to Paul Cox, they had only shown glimpses of form, in a 4-1 win over promotion chasing Forest Green Rovers on Boxing Day and a brief run in the FA Trophy.
However, they managed to come away from West London with a 1-0 win thanks to a Nathan Blissett effort, which sparked a revival in their fortunes and - 14 games later - they sealed their survival by beating Bromley 2-0 with two games to spare of the regular season. In the process, Nicholson added his name to a list that includes Stuart Morgan, Neil Warnock, Colin Lee and Ian Atkins.
Unlike other great escapes, this season's offering didn't quite go down to the wire in the same way as the 'Bryn the Police Dog' game against Crewe of 1986-87 or the 'do or die' final day clash against of 2000-01.
For pure drama, the Crewe game surely rates as the greatest - especially when you consider the Gulls trailed twice and their second equaliser came in injury time added on after Jim McNichol was infamously bitten by Bryn.
And with the Barnet game, had United lost to their opponents from North London - they won 3-2 with goals from Jason Rees, Kevin Hill and David Graham. Throw in a first half penalty save from Stuart Jones in between the second and third goals and some resolute defending in the final 10-15 minutes, and it made for a nail-biting contest.
Striking parallels can be found between the 1992-93 and 2005-06 campaigns instalments, as they both came within two years of a promotion winning season - the 1990-91 Play-off winning campaign and the automatic promotion season of 2003-04 under Leroy Rosenior - and a year after relegation from League One or its equivalent.
The architects of these escapes - Neil Warnock and Ian Atkins - did so in a short space of time; it took Warnock 17 games after he replaced Paul Compton and Atkins remarkably did so in six following a period of initially working as a consultant to John Cornforth before taking over the reigns himself.
They both achieved these feats by winning away at Carlisle in the penultimate game of their respective seasons. In 1992-93, a 1-0 win secured at a Duane Darby goal and in 2005-06 - a 2-1 win with a header from Kevin Hill and a Jo Kuffour strike proved to be enough; on both occasions plenty of 'backs to the wall defending' was also required to.
When you consider what was at stake in all five of the aforementioned campaigns, the relegations would have occurred had the Gulls not achieved their objectives could have severely hampered the club in the future and the damage inflicted on the club could have proved to be terminal.
Which is especially true of United's escape of the current campaign, as relegation would have seen the club play at a level that they wouldn't have graced since the 1920. Conference South football would have been an incredibly hard sell by the club to a south Devon public that had witnessed the Gulls experience two relegations in the space of three years, with another year of struggle prior to that.
One thing that United's great escape campaigns do all have in common is that they have all left the Gulls' faithful wondering ' how the hell did we manage to get out of this then?'
