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Kevin Nolan: The owner said I’d manage England: then he sacked me
Play-offs in May, out of work at Christmas; it has been a bizarre year for Kevin Nolan
It is August 15 and Kevin Nolan is talking commitment. His back aches from unpacking boxes at the house he has bought, but after 19 lonely months in a rented apartment, his wife and children are moving up. He is relishing the prospect of doing the school run again, some home-cooked food, that precious normality. “When it’s all sorted, I’m sure Notts County will see a better version of me,” he says.
County reached the Sky Bet League Two play-offs in May, and “the city just stopped for the club,” Nolan says. “You realise the effect you have on people. You’ve got to buy into what they are. That’s why I’ve moved my family here, why my kids are going to school here, why we’ll stay.” He is sipping from a mug, which has ‘GAFFA, TEA STRONG WHITE WITH NO SUGAR’ stencilled on the side.
An hour earlier, Nolan’s players stretch on the pitch at Meadow Lane. The previous night, they lost on penalties to Middlesbrough in the EFL Cup, but a young side performed with vigour. This morning there is a mix-up over training facilities and the manager is “like a bear with a sore head”, says Alan Hardy, the club’s owner, who strides onto the turf to envelop Nolan in a hug.
A couple of days on and Hayley, Nolan’s wife, Jasmine and Sonny, their kids, are in situ, albeit sleeping on mattresses. Six days after that, five league games into the season, comes an awkward discussion. Last year, against the odds, Nolan had kept County in the Football League and, not too long ago, Hardy predicted he would “go on to manage England”, but this is August 26 and this is football, brutal football. Daddy has been sacked.
It is December and Nolan is blowing into the same mug, gaffer of a smaller realm. His house, ridiculously close to County’s stadium, feels like home. Christmas trees are up. He looks fit, slimmer. “On the happiness scale, I’m delighted, because I was a part-time dad and now I’ve got my family back,” the Scouser says. In one of those little quirks, Sonny, who is eight, recently signed for Nottingham Forest.
But, but, but. “There’s no secret,” Nolan, 36, says. “I want to be get back in. I watch the results come in and it aches.” He has just turned down the AFC Wimbledon job — “a fantastic opportunity, but it didn’t feel right,” — and is waiting for the “next adventure, mission”. As he was as a footballer, so he is now. “I’ve always wanted to prove people wrong,” he says. “It’s not a vendetta. It’s motivation.”
This is an interview of two halves, reflecting a frenetic game of fractured logic, risk, reward and panic. Nolan can say “it’s funny now”, when he contemplates that strained talk with Hayley four months ago, her entire life uprooted, although nobody was laughing then. “There was a lot of anger,” he says. “We thought we were building something here. Building a club.”
When Nolan was appointed in January 2017, County had lost ten league games in succession and were a point above the relegation places. They finished 16th. Last season, they hovered around the top, ended up fifth and then were beaten by Coventry City in the play-off semi-finals. By any standards, it was a headlong rise, but Nolan had always warned that, “at some point we’ll hit a bumpy road”.
“What upset me was that Hayley had spoken to Alan on many occasions and he’d said, ‘Come up, support Kevin, we’re taking the club forward’, and that gave her a comfort blanket, knowing we were part of it, that we belonged,” he says. “It makes it hard when you walk in the door after a few days, no beds, no carpets. Put it this way, it wasn’t the best conversation.”
For Nolan himself, it was “total shock and surprise and I felt very hurt”. County had not won, but there was mitigation. “When I sat down with Alan and his board the first time, there was a lot of chat about what would happen when we went through a tough period, about them not being a club that wants to sack managers, wanting to be stable, to have faith in what they were doing,” he says.
“We’d had a tough start, but there was never any worry on my behalf, because I thought we were doing it right. After Coventry, they told us how they wanted to bring the average age down, bring through youngsters so we had more saleable assets. We said there would be tough times because of that. We shed enormous experience, lost 14 players, brought in ten. We had to let them grow.”
It is August and Nolan is saying precisely the same thing. “It’s a massive turnaround from six months ago,” he says. “Even six weeks ago. We can’t expect it to gel immediately; you’d be a fool. We’re a team in transition. It’s about sticking to my guns, my staff following through. We’ve come such a long way in a short space of time. It’s mad. I feel like part of the furniture already. I’m excited.”
In those circumstances, it feels like “a slap in the face,” when Hardy does the deed, saying “performances throughout 2018 have not been good enough”. The chairman would later admit that after making the decision, he “cried for an hour”. It is December and Nolan is impassive. “He did what he thought was right and has to take ownership of it,” he says. His face cracks into a smile. “I was more worried about telling my missus.”
Harry Kewell, Nolan’s replacement, lasted 14 games. Then came an incredible report that Nolan might go back. Really? “Me and Alan had a chat,” Nolan says. “That was it. At no time in my eyes was it an interview and I didn’t go and see him because I wanted the job back. I don’t think I needed to sell myself. People can probably read between the lines, but it never got to dotting the i’s or crossing t’s.”
He was flattered by Wimbledon’s approach (just to confuse matters, Neal Ardley had left Kingsmeadow to succeed Kewell). “I had to be honest with them,” Nolan says. “It would have been tough. I would have been a long, long time away from my family again and it would have taken a lot of hours to get it to where it needed to be.” He is an all-in kind of fella; all or nothing.
There can only be delicacy in what happens next, even if Nolan worked wonders at County and can hardly be judged on his first, brief managerial role under Francesco Becchetti at an unhinged Leyton Orient. “I wasn’t bruised when I lost my job there,” he says. “I just thought what a pillock the man was.
“When you lose the second one, people question it — why has he gone? — even though I think I was very successful. To leave the way I did, I don’t think reflects badly on me. I hold no grudges, Alan did what he did for the betterment of the club and has to live with that. Moving forward, I’ve got to have that ‘I’m 110 per cent in here’ kind of feeling.”
He has enjoyed cheering Sonny from the sidelines and has watched games at Forest, but Nolan cannot bring himself to haunt his peers. “I don’t think it’s right that people go and sit in stadiums when managers are under pressure, waiting for the axe to fall,” he says. “I’ve been very wary of that. Maybe I’ve got to learn to do it. Maybe that comes with experience.”
It is August and Nolan is surveying the home dressing-room at Meadow Lane. It is an immaculate space, black with yellow trim, framed pictures of players behind their pegs, lighting, which can be altered to suit the mood. A club crest hangs beside the door, surrounded by painted words such as trust, discipline, togetherness and bravery, final messages to carry to the tunnel.
“There was a real sense of dejection when I arrived,” Nolan says. “Not many sides lose ten games on the spin. It was a broken club. On its knees. After training sessions, balls, bibs, equipment would be left out in the corridor. We didn’t have a full-time kitman or anywhere to store boots. The pitch was in disarray. We didn’t have any of these facilities, but we’ve reshaped and remodelled it.”
Sometimes clubs need a shake and Nolan has always been a leader; captain at Bolton Wanderers, Newcastle United, West Ham United. The appeal of Notts County was a “sleeping giant, the world’s oldest league club. There were things I didn’t like but it happens; people lose interest, desire. With me and Alan, there’s a big desire. We won’t get carried away, but this stage wouldn’t be out of place in the Championship”.
It is December in Nottingham. County lose 2-0 to Mansfield Town on Saturday; they are second-bottom. Nolan is sad about that but there are no regrets about moving here, in spite of how things turned out. “It’s a fantastic city,” he says. “It’s been nice getting out, seeing the world. Family time, making new friends. And I still speak to the majority of the squad. I’ll always be there for them.”
That itch, though. Nolan thinks he has shown he is “a good person who can do good things, that I’m an asset for a club. That’s what I want again.” He looks at Eddie Howe, Sean Dyche, Paul Tisdale, English managers who, given time, have done extraordinary things at whatever level. That is the ideal. It is what he thought he had at County. “We just had to keep believing in each other,” he says.
Time? For most managers, the notion is risible. Nolan is reminded about Hardy’s words, that bold link with England. Eight months later: binned. “Yeah, it was a surprise when he said that,” Nolan says, chuckling. “Very nice, of course. But I remember saying, ‘Listen, that’s a long way off. You never know what’s around the corner’. And by God, I didn’t know what was around the corner.”
41.7% Nolan’s win percentage in his time in charge of Notts County
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