Reply With QuoteAny chance anyone can post an overview, need to subscribe to the digital version of the times and its a paid subscription. Read the opening paragraph and it does look like it could be an interesting read.
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A very interesting and informative article appears in the Times today which clearly explains the position Notts once again find themselves in. Very well worth a read, and would be I tested to read comments.
Hall Of Fame
Any chance anyone can post an overview, need to subscribe to the digital version of the times and its a paid subscription. Read the opening paragraph and it does look like it could be an interesting read.
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Sorry. I don't have a link.Originally Posted by ncfcog
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There's only four comments been posted so far to this article. Here's one of them:
"I am a neutral and was at the game Saturday and County were very poor indeed. The first 20 minutes were not too bad but once they fell behind it was as bad a performance as I have seen from any team. Players weren't running, were ducking out of challenges and seemed totally out of ideas. They had no shape in defence, no energy in midfield and up front were playing hoof and chase with nobody doing the chasing. The future looks grim."
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Daily Mail article?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...are-abyss.html
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Is this the same piece as the Times one?
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They're talking about us on talkSport now.
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Well it shows that people not connected with Notts County care about our league status,surely someone can come and save the day.........again..
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Finally managed to read the Times article, was a fair reflection on the current state of affairs at the club and for once penned with a degree of knowledge about how we ended up in the situation we find ourselves in.
New Member
Notts County seek 24th manager in two decades
Gregor Robertson
The Journeyman visits . . . Notts County
When Cheltenham Town’s third goal went in at Meadow Lane on Saturday a chorus of “You’re not fit to wear the shirt” rained down upon the Notts County players clad in those famous black and white stripes. Paul Hurst, the former Ipswich Town manager, was among those in the crowd to watch managerless County’s 3-0 defeat, but so pitiful was their performance, against a team without a win in nine league games who leapt out of the relegation zone at the expense of their hosts, that it will be a brave man, quite frankly, who accepts the challenge of arresting their decline.
County’s dismissal of Harry Kewell last week, after 74 days in the job — part of a brutal 24-hour EFL managerial cull — leaves the club on the hunt for their third manager of the campaign in a remarkable regression from last season. This time last year they dispatched Saturday’s opponents 3-1 and were top of the League Two table, looking destined to leave the division by the preferred route.
Kevin Nolan, the manager, was being touted by Alan Hardy, the owner, as an England manager in the making and the duo, who struck up something of a bromance, had a gentleman’s agreement that Nolan could leave if a big club came calling. After suffering play-off semi-final heartache against Coventry City, however, and the considerable squad overhaul that followed in the summer, only one point from County’s opening five league games moved Hardy to show the former Bolton Wanderers forward the exit door. Hardy, the founder and chairman of the office interior design firm Paragon and owner of Nottinghamshire Golf and Country Club, said that he sat at the back of the Derek Pavis Stand and cried for two hours after that.
It was a decision seen by many as harsh but Kewell was described as the “long-term” solution and awarded a three-year contract. In the Australian’s first league game, however, he was shown a red card for an altercation with the officials during a 5-1 humbling against Exeter City. And but for three wins in a week at the beginning of October, little improved, with the 4-0 mauling by Barnsley in the FA Cup first round nine days ago proving to be the final straw.
Those close to the club speak of Kewell’s failure to connect with players, staff and supporters, yet it is hard not to feel a degree of sympathy for the former Leeds United and Liverpool winger, who arrived after the transfer window had shut and was limited to signing a handful of free agents to buttress a dreadfully imbalanced squad.
He did, however, last a little longer than some of County’s recent appointments. Jamie Fullarton, who arrived in January 2016, lasted only 69 days. Mark Cooper succeeded him but left for Forest Green Rovers after three wins from ten games in 48 days had kept the club in the Football League. Indeed, the next County appointment will be their seventh in three and a half years, and their 24th since Sam Allardyce left for Bolton 19 years ago, which is more than any other club in the past two decades.
In that time, County have endured a string of owners upon whom history is unlikely to look kindly. From the well-intentioned but ultimately inadequate supporters’ trust to the Munto Finance fiasco, which heralded the arrival of Sven-Goran Eriksson, Sol Campbell, Kasper Schmeichel et al, to the trigger-happy Ray Trew, who got through 11 managers in seven years before Hardy rescued the club in January 2017.
Hardy, like Trew, stepped into the breach when County — who still haemorrhage more than £2.5 million a year — were on the brink, and for that he retains much goodwill. He has refurbished parts of Meadow Lane, reduced ticket prices, held regular “community days”, given away free strips to schoolchildren and has tried his utmost to engage with the city,
all while watching attendances grow.
His commitment cannot be questioned but the wisdom of some choices and actions is another matter. He rarely strays far from front and centre when the cameras are rolling. He is a considerable presence on Twitter, where last week his travels to a series of “exciting interviews” were well documented, often accompanied by a selfie at a train station, when the rate at which he was getting through managers this season had left many fans a little queasy. Furthermore, the cynics among the club’s faithful would not be too surprised to see a third high-profile former Premier League superstar installed in the dugout at Meadow Lane.
The appointment of the experienced Paul Hart, the former Nottingham Forest manager, as technical director in September was, however, undoubtedly an astute move. Steve Chettle, the former Forest defender, stepped up from his development squad role to take charge on Saturday but could not hide his displeasure at a performance that prompted the local paper, the Nottingham Post, to hand down marks of two out of ten for every outfield player.
County have conceded a whopping 39 league goals and possess the most porous defence in the top four divisions. It was little surprise, then, when an unmarked Luke Varney headed in the first-half opener, before again being left in unmanned acreage to drill home Chris Hussey’s second-half corner — an uncomplicated routine in which the ball was rolled across the box towards the vacated space around the penalty spot. County’s defence was again absent when Tyrone Barnett bundled home from close range.
“We’ve just had it out in the dressing room,” Chettle declared. “We need to stand up and be counted as men and, if it means that we have to point the finger at times, so be it. That’s been done, hopefully in a way that people will listen. It needs to be sorted out quickly because we’re in a bit of a predicament and it’s turning into a bit of a scrap.
“There are some good players in there. We’re missing some ***** players: Jon Stead, Kane Hemmings, who are an integral part of the team at the top end of the pitch. But we need to stop conceding goals. It’s very simple.
“They’ve got to be men about this. This is a tough profession. There’s people shouting and screaming; there’s 6,000 people here today saying it’s not good enough and we have to accept that. Because they’re entitled to their opinion and, when you perform like that, you have to listen. There is time left, which is on our side, but today we have gone into the bottom two for the first time in a very long time and we’ve got to do something about it very quickly.”
Good luck, then, to whoever is tasked with keeping the world’s oldest League club in the Football League.
THE LOWDOWN
Moment in Time: Promotion to the top flight for the first time in 1981
With the same manager, Jimmy Sirrel, below, trainer, Jack Wheeler, and chairman, Jack Dunnett, Notts County rose from the Fourth Division to the First Division in a little over a decade. The Magpies’ ascent to the top flight, where they remained for three seasons, was completed with goals from Trevor Christie and Rachid Harkouk in a memorable 2-0 win against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge in the penultimate game of the season.
Cult Hero: Don Masson
“The Don” captained Notts County to three promotions in 1971, 1973 and 1981, scoring 92 goals in 442 games over two spells totalling a decade. An elegant midfielder who was capped 17 times for his country and played in the 1978 World Cup in Argentina, the Scot is regarded as County’s greatest player and has a lounge at Meadow Lane named in his honour.
Greatest XI
As chosen by Mick Chappell, Notts County club historian
Albert Iremonger
Pedro Richards
Craig Short
David Needham
Ray O’Brien
Iain McCulloch
Mark Draper
Don Masson
Tommy Johnson
Lee Hughes
Tommy Lawton
You're welcome
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