Three Notts anniversaries in 2021

I hope the club somehow manage to celebrate the anniversaries of three remarkable achievements in 2021: 50 years since the Division 4 championship; 40 years since the promotion to Division 1; and 30 years since the promotion back to Division 1. Let’s also hope fans are allowed back into grounds next year and we get to honour those great players.

For me, the biggest achievement of the three was Sir Jimmy and Sgt. Wilko’s efforts to get us back into the top flight for the first time in over 50 years in 1980/81. That sounds like an awfully long time, but we’re now approaching 30 years outside of the top league.

And while I’m getting nostalgic, 2021 will also be the 40th anniversary of Notts CCC’s first championship win in over 50 years. Lovely piece on that here, which takes me back to sitting the top deck of what was then the West Wing Stand when we clung on for a draw against Sus***:

https://thecricketpaper.com/features...hamshire-1981/

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by nw6pie

I hope the club somehow manage to celebrate the anniversaries of three remarkable achievements in 2021: 50 years since the Division 4 championship; 40 years since the promotion to Division 1; and 30 years since the promotion back to Division 1. Let’s also hope fans are allowed back into grounds next year and we get to honour those great players.

For me, the biggest achievement of the three was Sir Jimmy and Sgt. Wilko’s efforts to get us back into the top flight for the first time in over 50 years in 1980/81. That sounds like an awfully long time, but we’re now approaching 30 years outside of the top league.

---

Perhaps the biggest achievement was actually to keep us in the top flight for more than one season. Neil Warnock of course repeated the feat of getting us to Division One but couldn't keep us there like Jimmy and Howard did.

I'm too young to have watched the early 80's success even though I've seen the TV footage. I saw my first live game in 1989 at the start of the Warnock era. For those who do remember the Sirrel/Wilkinson times, is the consensus that Larry Lloyd's management (compared to that of Sirrel and Wilkinson) cost us our top flight status, or was it just the case that the bubble was always likely to burst eventually because we just didn't have the resources to sustain the challenge at that level?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jackal2

Perhaps the biggest achievement was actually to keep us in the top flight for more than one season. Neil Warnock of course repeated the feat of getting us to Division One but couldn't keep us there like Jimmy and Howard did.

I'm too young to have watched the early 80's success even though I've seen the TV footage. I saw my first live game in 1989 at the start of the Warnock era. For those who do remember the Sirrel/Wilkinson times, is the consensus that Larry Lloyd's management (compared to that of Sirrel and Wilkinson) cost us our top flight status, or was it just the case that the bubble was always likely to burst eventually because we just didn't have the resources to sustain the challenge at that level?

---

Lloyd was at fault, very strange appointment because he'd done nothing to suggest he could manage a top flight club. Think he'd struggled to keep Wigan in the 3rd tier and that was it, madness. Fword connection and the hope that he would attract extra fans is the only reasoning I can think of. We didn't sell anybody the summer he arrived but brought in a few internationals, sadly one of those internationals was Seamus McDonagh, which didn't help, Wilkinson was a master tactician, a huge and unnecessary loss over £250 quid or something ridiculous like that, Wilko was willing to extend but Dunnett held out over that tiny amount. *big sigh*

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jackal2

Perhaps the biggest achievement was actually to keep us in the top flight for more than one season. Neil Warnock of course repeated the feat of getting us to Division One but couldn't keep us there like Jimmy and Howard did.

I'm too young to have watched the early 80's success even though I've seen the TV footage. I saw my first live game in 1989 at the start of the Warnock era. For those who do remember the Sirrel/Wilkinson times, is the consensus that Larry Lloyd's management (compared to that of Sirrel and Wilkinson) cost us our top flight status, or was it just the case that the bubble was always likely to burst eventually because we just didn't have the resources to sustain the challenge at that level?

---

Great point about keeping us up in 1982 and 1983. Couple of factors for me in the decline:

1. Losing Wilkinson. Strange as it may sound nowadays when he's perceived as an old-school, long ball type, he was ahead of the curve with his coaching ideas at Notts. Kept us up comfortably in those first two seasons, playing some sublime football along the way. (We all remember the one-touch goal at Ipswich, but I remember absolutely battering Liverpool for the first 45 minutes at Meadow Lane when we should have gone in 3 or 4-0 up. Phil Neal v John Chiedozie was like Wile E. Coyote against the Roadrunner).

2. Losing Raddy Avramovic and replacing him with a clown (McDonagh). Raddy wasn't perfect by any means, but he was Mr. Reliable compared to "international goalkeeper" McDonagh, who ended up being Mr. Liability.

3. Jack Dunnett realising that the crowds weren't turning up in big-enough numbers and therefore not signing the likes of Glenn Roeder. Who knows what might have happened if the Roeder fund had hit the magic number and we'd signed him permanently? Still, when you look at some of the crowds we got in those years (under 10,000 against the likes of Man. City, Everton and Aston Villa), you can see his point.

Of course, we were competing with Brian Clough across the river at the time. What's surprising, though, is that their crowds weren't that impressive either. Here are the two clubs' attendances from 1981-1984:

Us:
1981-1982 - 11,613
1982-1983 - 10,266
1983-1984 - 9,463

Disciples of Satan:
1981-1982 - 19,937
1982-1983 - 17,851
1983-1984 - 17,698

In other words, at its narrowest in 1982-83, the difference was about 7,500 (compared to over 20,000 last season).

4. And yes, Larry Lloyd was an idiot - though we must be one of the few teams to beat a team 6-1 in a season and still get relegated.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by nw6pie

Great point about keeping us up in 1982 and 1983. Couple of factors for me in the decline:

1. Losing Wilkinson. Strange as it may sound nowadays when he's perceived as an old-school, long ball type, he was ahead of the curve with his coaching ideas at Notts. Kept us up comfortably in those first two seasons, playing some sublime football along the way. (We all remember the one-touch goal at Ipswich, but I remember absolutely battering Liverpool for the first 45 minutes at Meadow Lane when we should have gone in 3 or 4-0 up. Phil Neal v John Chiedozie was like Wile E. Coyote against the Roadrunner).

2. Losing Raddy Avramovic and replacing him with a clown (McDonagh). Raddy wasn't perfect by any means, but he was Mr. Reliable compared to "international goalkeeper" McDonagh, who ended up being Mr. Liability.

3. Jack Dunnett realising that the crowds weren't turning up in big-enough numbers and therefore not signing the likes of Glenn Roeder. Who knows what might have happened if the Roeder fund had hit the magic number and we'd signed him permanently? Still, when you look at some of the crowds we got in those years (under 10,000 against the likes of Man. City, Everton and Aston Villa), you can see his point.

Of course, we were competing with Brian Clough across the river at the time. What's surprising, though, is that their crowds weren't that impressive either. Here are the two clubs' attendances from 1981-1984:

Us:
1981-1982 - 11,613
1982-1983 - 10,266
1983-1984 - 9,463

Disciples of Satan:
1981-1982 - 19,937
1982-1983 - 17,851
1983-1984 - 17,698

In other words, at its narrowest in 1982-83, the difference was about 7,500 (compared to over 20,000 last season).

4. And yes, Larry Lloyd was an idiot - though we must be one of the few teams to beat a team 6-1 in a season and still get relegated.

---

A pure hunch on my part, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was more of a booze culture at Notts after Lloyd's arrival, or at least a more jokey atmosphere with less emphasis on discipline.

Anyway, it would be nice to imagine a mix of 71 and 81 players making a guard of honour on the final home game of this season for this season's champions as they re-emerge from the dressing room after the game to collect the trophy. I'm having trouble picturing the manager to the side applauding though.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by upthemaggies

A pure hunch on my part, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was more of a booze culture at Notts after Lloyd's arrival, or at least a more jokey atmosphere with less emphasis on discipline.

Anyway, it would be nice to imagine a mix of 71 and 81 players making a guard of honour on the final home game of this season for this season's champions as they re-emerge from the dressing room after the game to collect the trophy. I'm having trouble picturing the manager to the side applauding though.

---

To be fair, there was a big drinking culture before LL arrived, led by Rachid, Killer and Pedro. I went to school with the brother of one of them, and he used to recount how he would help himself to £20 notes from his bro’s trousers left out after a big night out. Players must have got paid in cash, because there were wads of money to choose from.