The potential has always been there in my view. Nottingham as in the City has a population of 300,000. The wider area 800,000.
For a number of reasons since the end of the Pavis era successive owners until the current ones have struggled to provide the foundations for success. With Scardino and Storrie it was boom and bust. Then the trust which had all on keeping the club ticking over but managed to put out a football league side to their credit. Then Munto again a boom and bust. With The Trews the momentum was there peaking with the Curle season finishing 8th in League One, but as we know it withered away and the decline to the bottom began. With Hardy one of the things he managed to do was improve attendances, but again it was a short lived tenure.
Where we are today has been four years in the making. Despite being in the National League for four seasons it enabled us to win more games in a season than we lost and certainly at home. So people have got used to coming down to Notts and seeing us win. Also it's meant that the image of old men with flasks of tea and blankets in the Pavis has been dispelled by people who have come down saw it's not like that.
Add to this the way we have played football over the past few years which has made us attractive to watch. We get value for money as well as Notts have more of the ball than the opposition generally. It's meant the crowds have also had to learn to understand and appreciate how we play over time. Now it's been backed up with a record breaking season the momentum has shifted from a club that crashed and hit rock bottom, to one that stabilised to one that now is on an upward trajectory.