We might just be starting to click into gear ... David Rawson's Rotherham United fan column

There’s a murmur, a slight tremor on the surface, as long-abandoned machinery starts to move again. Gears, long starved of lubrication, feel the first touch of oil, start to mesh together. Power begins to flow through the mechanism a little more easily, making it seem less forced into action and slightly more smooth, turning a little more freely, moving with its own momentum.

Even running at full tilt, the machine is unlikely to be beautiful to watch in operation. But it might be an awesome sight with the power that it might generate, the relentless driving force it might bring to bear. At its best, it might be close to unstoppable in its effectiveness.

As a spectacle, Cambridge was as bad a game of football as I’ve ever seen. Strong wind, a slippery, water-deadened pitch, two teams focused simply on doing nothing more than the most basic elements of play. The worst, most fantastic, goal to win it.

The gears growled and griped, but still drove the machine on. And on. Cambridge dropped deep, deeper and then too deep. The machine ingested the win. New flywheels engaged. A few rattles subsided.

Running a little more smoothly, the machine trundled through the first half against Reading. It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t good. It wasn’t fun to watch. Pistons pounded and bashed away. Reading blocked the paths that the mechanism tried to drive down, sneaked on tiptoes through the spaces it didn’t cover, took the lead. The machine sputtered, misfired. Internal pressure started to build to unpleasant, nearly dangerous levels.

And then, suddenly, it roared into life. Surging with raw power, it ground forwards and ground Reading down. The goals were inevitable, the driving forward force undeniable. Cogs that had seemed out of sync meshed.

There were still coughs and backfires. Some parts still look slightly rusty, in need of reconditioning or replacement. But at least it looks more like a single, coherent mechanism.

Seven points from the next nine and it will start to loom in the mirrors of the teams at the top, beginning to eat up the ground between it and them. Nine from nine and it will be right among them. The machine’s capable of both.

It could still stutter and stall. The core power unit isn’t quite fully operational. The mechanism still only works one way, does only one thing. But it’s doing it better.

It might just be starting to move.