I was certainly not a fan of Ardley's and after a while became disillusioned with Burchinall, but what slowly became apparent was that they both were trying to play attractive and technical football rather than achieve promotion at all costs.

Whether the owners thought that instructing the manager to try to play a la Man. City was the way forward in the National League with non-league footballers or not is not in my ken. What is in my ken is that the goalie rolling the ball out to 5th division defenders, expecting them to accurately pass the ball out to equally talented midfielders who must control the ball while being bullied by hefty animals, ignored by incompetent referees, is a risky operation. It only takes one miss-placed pass between defence and midfield to put an enemy high press in a good mood and get their party started.

We saw this season how vulnerable to the high press we were. A high press just needs numbers in the opposition half pressuring a defence into a making a mistake so why didn't Notts try it instead of a slow passing game? Could it be that our manager had instructions to play a certain style?