50 years ago

[maddogslater]

21 09 1974, watched my second Notts match.
0 0 home to West Brom, Masson missing a penalty, west Brom playing in their usual change strip of yellow and green stripped shirts with pale blue shorts.

[upthemaggies]

21 09 1974, watched my second Notts match.
0 0 home to West Brom, Masson missing a penalty, west Brom playing in their usual change strip of yellow and green stripped shirts with pale blue shorts.

Jack Dunnett might have made one of the biggest mistakes he ever made the following week by telling The Daily Mirror that Notts could be forced to sell Masson and Needham due to the dip in gates and financial losses, "We will survive, but it may mean we will drop down to the Fourth Division by selling - and that is why I want our supporters to be warned.'' He appealed to the Nottingham public for gates of 14,000 to meet expenses, but very possibly as a result of people becoming demoralised by his outburst, the gates dipped further until we started hosting the bigger teams in the division after Xmas. Notts still finished above Fword that season who had 12,800 average gates over the river with Notts just behind on 12,414. So for Dunnett to be complaining about our crowds in those circumstances seems surreal.
If he'd taken Hardy and the bros approach, praising the fans who did turn up instead of castigating them, he might have kept the momentum going long enough to beat Fword back into the top tier.
All said with hindsight of course, but that quote in bold was just staggeringly ill-judged.

[upthemaggies]

This was a year later, 20th September 1975. Notts were in 1st place in tier 2 at the time, Dunnett begins this article by saying that no fans can be more dedicated than any of the directors and then goes on to say that the gate against Sunderland in the League Cup, 10.384, was "disgraceful".
Sirrel quit for Sheff U a month later.

[Masson4]

The club achieved a lot whilst Jack Dunnett was in charge but my memory is that he was never that popular and seen as a skinflint. It's hard to argue with his record but he could be difficult to warm to. He chose well in in bringing Sirrel to the club from Brentford where he himself had been and deserves credit for that. It's a matter for conjecture what would have happened to the club if he hadn't.

Dunnett had already had trouble with supporters in his days at Brentford when he proposed a merger of the club with QPR - again threatening this because of low gates. A consortium bought out his shares, allowing the club to survive.

[since41]

The club achieved a lot whilst Jack Dunnett was in charge but my memory is that he was never that popular and seen as a skinflint. It's hard to argue with his record but he could be difficult to warm to. He chose well in in bringing Sirrel to the club from Brentford where he himself had been and deserves credit for that. It's a matter for conjecture what would have happened to the club if he hadn't.

Dunnett had already had trouble with supporters in his days at Brentford when he proposed a merger of the club with QPR - again threatening this because of low gates. A consortium bought out his shares, allowing the club to survive.

We had great time under his stewardship even if he was careful with the purse strings. I remember a supporters night in the Meadow Club when he was answering fans questions one guy asked him if he was going to answer as Chairman of Notts or as a politician he said once a politician always a politician.
He put Notts back on the map for sure great times to be a pie.
And He still owes Durham 10 quid 😊

[upthemaggies]

The negativity from up above - putting a dampener on success - continued under Pavis, though that mostly came from Neil Hook. The most shocking example being straight after we won our first play off final in 1990. Many of us I'm sure were watching Central News with a VHS in the recorder waiting to capture a memento of one of our finest hours (no highlights were shown of play off finals in those days), yet the report was set up for Hook to whine about "the cost of promotion" and how they'd have to spend money doing up the ground to meet 2nd tier standards. By the end of it I was left fearing a relegation straight back down again and some of our star players having to be sold. I doubt anybody in two minds was swayed into buying a season ticket after watching that.
Turned out that we went straight up again, but the gates were poor, 17th best in tier 2 and less than 100 higher than the division's most unfashionable club Port Vale who finished 15th.

The most obvious thing to do to attract support in the 1970s was to get shown on TV as often as possible, to advertise the club and get your players faces known, Hereford United literally got themselves voted into the football league on the strength of a TV appearance. That is not an exaggeration. What could have been done for Notts support if the victory over Everton had been shown on "Sportsnight"? Yet Dunnett made it clear TV cameras were not welcome. How did he not recognise that the biggest gate we had under his stewardship (home to Aston Villa 72, over 34k) would have been due to the anticipation created by the MOTD classic in the reverse fixture at Villa Park earlier in the season.

What both Dunnett and Pavis did get right was bringing in the right manager, who overcame the lack of resources and poor support, which underlines just how important the man in the dug out can be. Very frustrating though that the owners didn't capitalise on their achievements with better PR.

[lunaspie]

We had great time under his stewardship even if he was careful with the purse strings. I remember a supporters night in the Meadow Club when he was answering fans questions one guy asked him if he was going to answer as Chairman of Notts or as a politician he said once a politician always a politician.
He put Notts back on the map for sure great times to be a pie.
And He still owes Durham 10 quid 😊

How much did Nemane owe Durham ?

[durhampie]

We had great time under his stewardship even if he was careful with the purse strings. I remember a supporters night in the Meadow Club when he was answering fans questions one guy asked him if he was going to answer as Chairman of Notts or as a politician he said once a politician always a politician.
He put Notts back on the map for sure great times to be a pie.
And He still owes Durham 10 quid ��

I think i will dig him up and remove his gold teeth, and sell em on eBay.

[maddogslater]

Very interesting UTM, I remember Dunett moaning and asking fans to turn up for a Tuesday night fixture around 76 against Hull city, over 17000 turned up and we lost 1 2 to lowly Hull.
I don't suppose you have the MOTD highlights from a 1 1 draw at Brisbane road where Masson equalised with a thirty harder, was also featured on the beginning of the program with the oh what a goal, goal, goal.

[Med Pie]

21 09 1974, watched my second Notts match.
0 0 home to West Brom, Masson missing a penalty, west Brom playing in their usual change strip of yellow and green stripped shirts with pale blue shorts.

Can someone refresh my memory, I seem to remember going to an away match in the league cup (probably) when Don Masson made his return debut. I've got either S****horpe or Crewe in my head?