A slow death and a rebirth ... the story of Rotherham United's 2024/25 campaign

Steve Evans was cowed and shaken as he answered questions for the final time as Rotherham United manager.

It was March 29 and the League One Millers had just been taken apart at AESSEAL New York Stadium by a team in the bottom four.

The heartbeat of the club had been fading dangerously for months, now the damage was terminal.

Normally, the Advertiser and Radio Sheffield would conduct separate interviews after home matches. We took pity and did it together, sparing him the agony of explaining himself twice.

In a small room off the players' tunnel at New York, the Scot made a last appeal to keep his job. But it was over. He knew the sack was coming, we knew the sack was coming, everyone knew the sack was coming.

As he spoke, red-faced and blue-shirted, the club were already sealing the deal with someone else and the announcement came the following day.

Evans gone, Matt Hamshaw here. Chalk-and-cheese characters, chalk-and-cheese impacts at the club both profess to love.

The former had been a mass of accusations, a bundle of soundbites. He pledged that Rotherham would contend for promotion, he condemned Cameron Humphreys for ‘under-eights defending’, he described Jonson Clark-Harris as the League One coup of the transfer window.

The latter – the local lad, the boyhood fan, brought in with eight games of a dismal campaign remaining – turned up with a conscience and a plan and simply promised to restore order.

“It isn't about me, it's about the players. I can guarantee hard work, desire and commitment. We need to get back to the days when New York was rocking because when it is, it is some place to play in.”

The pain first kicked in on an August opening day in Exeter where the away end was bursting with bodies and optimism that Evans could repeat his Millers feats of a decade earlier

What followed was a defeat and the first of many altercations between boss and officials.

The campaign began to unfold. At best, Rotherham were stuttering and only twice before the turn of the year did they win two successive league matches. At worst, they were a shadow of the side they should have been.

The club's biggest-ever League One playing budget had gone on 14 signings, none of whom were truly realising their potential.

Too many of the players weren't having the boss and the boss wasn't having too many of the players.

Too many of said players were injured.

And so November arrived ... Barnsley. Bleak, brutal Barnsley. There was a no-show on the pitch, a derby defeat, ructions in the dressing room and fury among the travelling faithful.

And so November continued ... Crawley Town. Cringing, crushing Crawley. There was another non-performance, another loss, tension in the press conference and only the loyalty of chairman Tony Stewart kept the manager in a job.

How the club needed a fresh face, a new approach. Someone who might say this after succeeding Evans perhaps:

“I want to put an identity on the team, I want to have a way of playing, I want a determination and a focus on making sure we're on the front foot and aggressive, that everything within the club is set up right, that we have structure.”

In January, there were few incomings – just three loan arrivals, none costing a fortune in wages – and the manager wasn't a happy man. He'd overspent in the summer and wasn't being let loose again.

Yet, suddenly, there was a spark. Rotherham saw in the new year with a deserved victory at Lincoln City, fought their way to an even more creditable draw at Huddersfield Town and were genuinely excellent in home triumphs over Bolton Wanderers and Charlton Athletic.

In the last week of the month, they went to Burton and led in the opening seconds. Maybe, just maybe, Evans was going to deliver on his word after all.

Six minutes later, it was 1-1. By the final whistle, it was 4-2 to the home side, and the short-lived dream was over. How grimly appropriate that when the wheels came off it was at a stadium bearing the name, Pirelli.

The Millers lumbered on: not enough training, not enough direction, no set-pieces, declining displays and fewer wins. The cutting edge was on the boss's tongue, not in his team.

As late as March he was claiming that a play-off place was still within reach, but the maths didn't match the spin and he departed having never made the top half of the table.

Hamshaw's appointment – first temporary, quickly permanent – changed the landscape. There were affectionate hugs from workers at New York who remembered his decency from a previous successful stint as a coach and immediate evidence on the pitch that players were listening, liking and learning.

“He's a Rotherham man, he knows the club inside out,” said midfielder Liam Kelly. “He's been a breath of fresh air. He's got the lads really motivated. At one point, confidence was on the floor. He's given us a lift, he's given us organisation.”

He's also given the club four wins and two draws in a rousing run-in and a reason to be cautiously excited about the prospects for next year. This term brought a 13th-placed finish but top-six form at the end.

Meanwhile, by the time the axe fell on Evans, the League One coup of the transfer window had scored four times in open play.

Clarke-Harris was in the side for that final match. Crawley away had been gut-wrenchingly awful, Crawley at home was even worse.

The atmosphere was the most toxic I've ever experienced at New York as the Millers were embarrassed 4-0 by opponents who would go on to be relegated.

Fans' unrest that had been creeping up the thermometer for months hit boiling point and the kind of invective to which the beleaguered boss had subjected his squad rained down on him.

He removed himself from the technical area and took refuge in the recesses of the dugout as the second half and his Millers career petered away in ignominy.

The supporters were loudly, fiercely in unison: “We want Evans out.” Finally, so, too, did the chairman.

The new man was in, hard at work on set-plays, busy bringing out the best in the players, saying the right things by speaking from the heart. Whereas his predecessor's tub-thumping had appeared opportunistic and disingenuous, Hamshaw's felt and sounded real.

“This is our club, this is the fans' club, and we have to wear that badge and represent it in the way that it should be. The club is the heartbeat of the community. Never say die, never give in.”

Whatever comes next, it will be more purposeful, more considered, more real, more Rotherham than what went before.

The manager is dead. Long live the manager.