We lost against Chesterfield, Barnet and Morecambe and drew games we had no right not winning against Cheltenham and then at home against second from bottom at the time Torquay in front of the Sky cameras after taking a 2-0 lead.
He was lucky to even start the season as manager after his previous two seasons in charge.
McParland seems like a decent bloke and he clearly loves Notts but his time as manager was shocking, we played some really ineffective football.
The argument of Mcp having an eye for a good player is the biggest Notts County myth going. Only one of his signings previously to munto made a valuable contribution to the title season and that was John Thompson. If a manager was savvy enough in the transfer market I'd expect a few more gems to be making the club some monies in the market. Ben Davis the only one of the top of my head. Previous to munto every transfer window there was another lame duck being signed to cover for an injured / useless player that would play 5 games before they were replaced by the next injury prone player. This approach doesn't strike me as successful in the transfer market. More a throw a dart blindfolded at the list of available players approach. Playing wise 4/5 halves of good passing football in 90 games in charge doesn't constitute to playing passing football.
I have to disagree. With the budget he had, he kept us up with some decent signings. He bought in Russell Hoult, who basically was a massive upgrade on Pilkington, Butcher who was decent for our budget. I mean, when you are working with a tiny budget, he did well with what he could afford
I don't think our budget would be that tiny compared with other clubs in our division. I'd guess we'd still have a top half budget so would expect to finish in the top half of the division. Therefore his first full season has to be called unsuccessful in my book. Signing player after player to cover for your lack of ability to spot the correct player in the first place would quickly swallow your "tiny" budget. Other "smaller" clubs in the division seem to sign performing players. Why not a club like notts with great selling features like a nice ground good central location etc..,
I completely agree with you and think some people forget how poor we were back then. We were under the Trust ownership and had been close to being wound up in the years previously. The club was effectively on it's knees. Isn't that why we had to give up our supporters trust shares to Munto to save the club?
The Academy was closed down and the club shop stripped almost bare if I remember. As I've said before McParland got that going again which was a good thing.
People criticise McParland for the two seasons before Munto for signing dross, but that is all that we could afford as we had no money so go what nobody else wanted. In fact I'd go as far to say he did a good job keeping us in the football league with how poor a player we could afford and what we had resources wise.
The 00's apart from 2009 were a dark period of the clubs history.