Yates and Grant for £100k - says AH

[The_Don_ORiordan]

'Character is fate'. I believe it was Thomas Hardy who first said that.

Heraclitus I think coined it. But no doubt thinking of Michael Henchard, it would be apt by Thomas Hardy.

[upthemaggies]

Just looking at the stats for when we were last in the top 3 of the 4th tier......

Still in an automatic promotion place with 9 games to play on 10th March 2018. The two sides directly below us - Mansfield and Wycombe - were our next two opponents at Meadow Lane with 2nd bottom Chesterfield in-between. We took 2 points from 9 in those three games. Doomed Chesterfield - who beat us - had 9 more games after playing us, they won 1 and lost 7 including home defeats to the aforementioned Mansfield and Wycombe.

Chesterfield away was probably the turning point in terms of Alan Hardy being a potentially successful chairman. He must have known then that the most likely closing chapter for that season would end with play off defeat and he must have known that he wouldn't be able to sustain another challenge without putting the club at huge risk. The average attendance for the following season was only 600 fewer (7.9k down to 7.6k) so unless he was expecting another big increase (to say 9k), a financial crisis was inevitable regardless of results.

His biggest mistake was probably not being honest with himself and the fans. He could have took the pressure off Nolan, made mid-table the goal and put the club up for sale summer 2018. He MUST have known we were in trouble then. To carry on as if we were dead certs to go up after the way we collapsed in the latter half of 2017/18 and that the fan-base would continue to grow at the same rate was madness.

[the_anticlough]

Most of the football world thinks Nolan was sacked prematurely...
What was it, 6 games? Obviously a mistake in hindsight, his squad would've started to gather points (for no better than mid-table probably)....but at least half of us fans were with Hardy. It was very disappointing that he didn't have his players ready to go for the start of the season...and this was connected with the poor end to the 2017/18 season and a poor brand of football, plus the apparent cliques. So yes, a mistake in hindsight but I still understand why it happened.

[i961pie]

Most of the football world thinks Nolan was sacked prematurely...
What was it, 6 games? Obviously a mistake in hindsight, his squad would've started to gather points (for no better than mid-table probably)....but at least half of us fans were with Hardy. It was very disappointing that he didn't have his players ready to go for the start of the season...and this was connected with the poor end to the 2017/18 season and a poor brand of football, plus the apparent cliques. So yes, a mistake in hindsight but I still understand why it happened.

It is impossible to say it was a mistake in hindsight? We could have lost the next six games, we will never know only guess.

[upthemaggies]

It is impossible to say it was a mistake in hindsight? We could have lost the next six games, we will never know only guess.

Lost the next two, then drew the two after that, so we probably can say that we wouldn't have been any worse off had Hardy hung on four games longer.

FWIW Nolan did oversee a credible 3-3 draw at Middleborough during that opening month which went to pens and it was three days later on the Friday night he had the one really bad defeat (0-4 to Yeovil at home). Of the other three defeats (all away), two were lost in injury time by the odd goal and the other was to the eventual champions Lincoln City whilst the one other home game was drawn to Colchester who finished 8th.

At the time Nolan was sacked, all of the teams we'd played apart from Cambridge were in a play off position (the points they took from us being a very big reason for that but none apart from Cambridge made a bad start otherwise).
It's still 1 point from 15 though. Even if you're only looking to stay up, that's going to set the alarm bells ringing and we were automatic hopefuls at that stage. Weren't we favourites for the title with the bookies?