Quote Originally Posted by upthemaggies View Post
I'm having a hard time trying to imagine how it would have worked out any better if we'd gone up. The adulation for Hardy would have inflated his ego to a whole new dimension, we'd have likely spent a lot more money on players to try and compete at that level and ended up suffering a similar scenario to the Scardino/Storrie era. The best you can say is that we might have avoided non-league by imploding in tier 3 rather than tier 4 but if points deductions had come into play I'm not so sure.
I we had gone up it would have meant Hardy had got it right, would it not? Apart from using hindsight there is no reason to think we could not have had a successful campaign in L1. Nolan would have done his job proper, the players would have proved themselves capable and all would have been jolly. Roses strewn in our path on our way to Hardy's promise of Championship footy within his stated aim of five years...if only...