Most of us would, I'd suggest, based on what I have come to know of the traditionally parochial Novocastrian psyche.

And all of us should.

This week's revelations that the Jets are in danger of folding, if a proposed sale of the embattled franchise to football group FC32 falls through, have come as no surprise. But it should also prompt some collective soul-searching as a community.

Why is it that a city the size of Newcastle has struggled for so many decades to keep its national-league teams afloat?

KB United were the first casualty, more than 40 years ago, and at various other times the city has been unable to field a team in the top-flight competition.

But this is not a problem unique to soccer.

Over the years, the Newcastle Falcons and Hunter Pirates basketball teams, Hunter Jaegers (netball) and Hunter Eagles (baseball) have all ended on the scrapheap.

Even the Knights, despite remarkable home-ground attendances, existed on the breadline for 24 years before the failed Nathan Tinkler takeover, which ultimately left the club destitute and forced the NRL to salvage it, during an interim-ownership phase that lasted three years.

The Knights were then lucky enough to enter into a marriage made in heaven with the Wests Group, which should ensure all their financial woes are a fading memory.

The Jets are still searching for a similar saviour, or saviours.

The four owners of fellow A-League clubs who have bankrolled the Jets for the past three years have clearly had enough, and if takeover talks don't culminate in an ownership transition in the near future, it appears the competition will proceed next season without a Newcastle presence.

In the corridors of power, there will be no qualms if ruthless decisions need to be made.

Australia Professional Leagues (APL) chairman Stephen Conroy said this week that the game can no longer afford to bail out financially stricken clubs, and the Jets would appear even more expendable now that the new Auckland franchise is full steam ahead, preparing for its inaugural campaign.

Swapping Newcastle for Auckland would leave the A-League with a 12-team competition (potentially 13, if Canberra's entry is confirmed) and create a ready-made pool of players. And as was shown more than a decade ago when North Queensland Fury and Gold Coast United were declared defunct, sometimes desperate times call for desperate measures.

While the Jets have managed to survive, if not exactly prosper, since the demise of former owners Con Constantine, Tinkler and Martin Lee, it's hard not to reach the conclusion their time is almost up.

If the worst-case scenario was to unfold, how many tears would be shed?

Perhaps not as many as were shed at McDonald Jones Stadium on May 5, 2018, when Newcastle were beaten 1-0 in the A-League grand final by Melbourne Victory, after a video-referee howler.

The crowd on that bittersweet May night was a sell-out, 29,410, more than five times this season's average attendance of 5459.

Where have the other 23,951 gone? I wonder how many have never been back since to cheer the Jets on.

Nonetheless, as they showed both at that grand final and during the 2007-08 championship-winning campaign, as well as one-off occasions such as David Beckham's visit in 2011 and various Socceroos and Matildas fixtures, Novocastrians will turn out in large numbers to watch the world game.

They are only too happy to jump on the bandwagon when the Jets are flying high.

Unfortunately those seasons have been too few and far between.

But even a team struggling on and off the pitch is better than no team at all.

It will be a sad day for this region if the Jets are forced out of the A-League, 19 seasons after helping found the competition. We can only hope their fate is not already sealed.