Magpie Circle Altrincham Preview

[upthemaggies]

This is the same Paul Mace that was a board member during the most unsuccessful period in the club’s history
.

I wouldn't have thought the collapse under Hardy had anything much to do with Mace. The problem at board level was Hardy no longer having the funds and Fletcher apparently being in charge of recruitment, Mace was presumably on board to represent supporter interest as well as his connections and I'm pretty sure he stepped down within a few weeks of Hardy exposing himself, when things seriously began to go wrong.

What he's said in this podcast is not what I want to hear, it's not what any Notts fan would want to hear, but it makes a lot of sense. We shouldn't fall into the trap of smearing the 'whistle blower' in the misguided belief that it invalidates the claims.
Burchnall is a very bizarre appointment. He could still come good, but there's a very sound reason why fans are beginning to freak out and IMHO Mace's podcast does as decent a job as anything else to explain why that is happening.

[countygump]

I can't remember which one it was but he was basically saying how he'd questioned signings for KN and whether KN actually wanted them etc. etc. It was quite a recent episode though. Perhaps with Nicholson and Bish.

He speaks about decisions that were made when he was a board member quite often. He described the squad at the time as the most toxic that had ever been assembled, how that squad was 'assembled' for KN rather that being chosen by him, there are loads of examples. He often says that at the time he was a 'non executive member' of the Notts board and for all the influence that he actually had there, he might well not have bothered being there.

[countygump]

I wouldn't have thought the collapse under Hardy had anything much to do with Mace. The problem at board level was Hardy no longer having the funds and Fletcher apparently being in charge of recruitment, Mace was presumably on board to represent supporter interest as well as his connections and I'm pretty sure he stepped down within a few weeks of Hardy exposing himself, when things seriously began to go wrong.

What he's said in this podcast is not what I want to hear, it's not what any Notts fan would want to hear, but it makes a lot of sense. We shouldn't fall into the trap of smearing the 'whistle blower' in the misguided belief that it invalidates the claims.
Burchnall is a very bizarre appointment. He could still come good, but there's a very sound reason why fans are beginning to freak out and IMHO Mace's podcast does as decent a job as anything else to explain why that is happening.

It's the typical reaction of blaming the messenger, because you don't like the content of the message, UTM.

[Woodypie]

I’m surprised you gave it half an hour
I’ve got better things to do than listen to a Liverpool fc fan rambling on about the mistakes that Notts have made.

It is a hard listen (hesitation, repetition and pessimistic) but has some truth in it. I don't think failure to get promotion this season or having to compete with Grimsby and Southend will lead to relegation next. However, the owners' flawed recruitment strategy and appointment of an untried coach might. They need to stop treating Notts as an experiment and concentrate on tried and tested means to win promotion - experienced staff and players at this level.

[freemuzzy]

I concur with a lot of things written above.

In my view we’re very fortunate to have a dedicated podcast to discuss/listen to matters just on our club, and I really enjoyed the interview episodes both with legends from our history and players/managers from the more recent era (Moniz, Tempest, Aborah etc - all a surprisingly good listen).

But the ones that discuss the current state of play definitely fall into the talkSPORT ‘extreme’ opinions type model, possibly not helped by it being the same guest (Leigh) every week, who shares the views of the presenter.

Of course, things aren’t great but some of the opinions shared every week are ill-informed and frankly border on xenophobic at times.

For example, Leigh constantly mentions that we don’t have enough experience in the side when we probably have more EFL appearances within our squad than any other in this league, while Paul Mace said on a recent episode that no-one has ever been promoted from the National League playing good football.

Every week Rodrigues and Sam are held-up as signings that have spectacularly failed (which in itself is debateable), but no other signings are ever mentioned. The dismissal of IB’s previous achievements because they have come outside of this country is also lazy in the extreme.

It’s slightly concerning as a lot of fans are taken in by this narrative, which isn’t all that helpful.

[60YearsAPie]

I enjoy the programmes that have past players on. The likes of Bob Worthington, Brian Stubbs, Raddy, Tommy Johnson, Mark Draper, all the other ex-players and managers. Great listens, even with having to put up with Mace’s awful delivery style and annoying habit of saying everything twice.

As for his match previews, although I’ve watched most of them in the past, I think this will be the last one. As someone else has said, he seems to be doing a hatchet job on the current owners and coach, which I don’t think is very helpful. And how can you take seriously a guy who comes on with a mop of hair like Leigh’s, who then spends most of the programme scratching himself.

I was starting to think that Mace must have a hidden agenda, believing him, wrongly it seems, to be a mate of AH. I’d much sooner listen to the lads’ views on Notts County Talk.

[TSANHO]

Whatever is said on the podcast, by whoever it is, is all just conjecture....one only has to open their eyes and ears to realise this guy hasn’t got the foggiest, and is well and truly out of his depth now. Are the club really going to trust him to rebuild this team when he’s shown absolutely nothing in the way of getting anything out of ‘the strongest squad in the division’.

People allude to the start of the Allardyce tenure, but although losing there were at least signs the squad was gelling and coming round to his ideas. IB has made us worse and has very little good feeling left amongst the fans, made worse by his bizarre blinkered post match interviews.

What happens when he’s sacked early next year having signed a load of light weight players, it’s just so predictable. I’m afraid the owners have got this one badly wrong.

[laddo]

Agreed, I've only seen a few because although they can be very informative and thorough the delivery is painfully and unnecessarily slow and deliberate which makes its a hard watch as Woody previously commentated. It's great to have a dedicated show such as this just needs mixing up a little , no scrap that a lot!

During those viewings the one issue that sticks out is there is next to no debate between Paul and Leigh, no contrast, no counter argument not even an alternative view.

As Freemuzzy said the views are the same, so too much back patting and soundbite seeking rather anything being challenged. When we were putting in poor perfomances under NA they collectively defended them even though we looked unconvincing. Now he's gone and poor perfomances have pretty much continued they are attacking IB collectively. Same unbalanced biased script, needs freshening up a little.

You can't take the opening summary of IBs past achievements seriously IMO.

How he thinks getting NA is going to help matters for the club and fanbase going forward I have no idea.

[drillerpie]

I've just had a listen as other posters commenting on it made me curious, but only got 13:50 into it and hard to turn it off. I was tempted to turn it off about 30 seconds in after Scoop's mouth breathing intro, and the other guy's fake belly laugh.

Scoop: I've had my haircut.
Other guy: HAAHAAAHHAAAAHAAMUAAAHHHAHAAHAHAHAHMUAAAHHHHHAAAAH !!!

Anyway the whole tone of the podcast seems like a total overreaction. I think both of them could've quite easily done a similar hatchet job on NA - let's face it, all the same raw material was there; unconvincing interviews showing lack of confidence and intensity? Yep, NA had that in spades.

Dubious presentation of poor results to portray them in a better light? Yep, when we were creating 1 chance roughly every hundred minutes in league games and rolling over pub teams in the cup, NA would often talk about 'only x losses in x games'.

Less than convincing stats from previous seasons? Yep, NA had those too.

Last week Scoop was literally squealing his frustrations about Enzio being deployed in defence (I agree btw), but who started that little experiment? NA spent almost his entire time at the club restricting Enzio's play and burdening him with extra responsibility. Never saw Scoop give him a hard time about it at press conferences either.

Don't get me wrong, IB was a left field appointment both in terms of timing and profile, and he may well turn out to be crap, but nobody's going to convince me that until 8 games ago we were basking in some kind of footballing nirvana with NA.

I don't know about Magpie Circle, I'd call it a Circle Jerk of people with a totally jaundiced attitude towards the new manager and to some extent the owners, trying to foment a fan rebellion out of nothing. Completely unfair and uncalled for IMO, and makes NCM seem positively reasonable in comparison.

And what was all that catastrophism about having trouble selling season tickets? I'd imagine any Notts fans willing and able to go to Meadow Lane from a Covid perspective will be all over it when football reopens.

It actually makes me want to buy 10 season tickets and give them away, not out of altruism but just to spite that guy there.

I'm sorry sad sacks but Nice Guy Neal is gone, and he's not coming back. Don't worry you'll still get your Merry Christmas text, but you're both going to have to make your own sandwiches on matchday from now on. Deal with it.

[Woodypie]

To be fair, Driller, if Notts had appointed Alan Birchenall as coach it wouldn't have been much more curious.