Yates and Grant for £100k - says AH

[BigFatPie]

And Hardy,s biggest mistake of all appointing Neil Ardley

This is, surprisingly, correct.

[Old_pie]

This is, surprisingly, correct.

In what role did AH appoint Neil Ardley? Chef at the Nottinghamshire?

[irishpete]

And Hardy,s biggest mistake of all appointing Neil Ardley

He probably had no choice but to appoint Agent Ardley. Hardy did an interview (BBC Red I think )after appointing Kewell & saying that the shortlist of managers we're not up to much, yet it was his shortlist & not something you say in public. No doubt word soon got around in football circles

[queenslandpie]

Its very clear that there was an extremely poor culture under Hardy at Notts especially after he got arrogant and thought he would walk the division. I know a few people who have worked with Hardy and for him, and they all say that one thing he was good at was putting quality 'Yes men' around him. In his later years he was apparently surrounded by very manipulative people such as the CEO he employed at Paragon who took the company under. His biggest mistake list is funny and to me he's the Donald Trump of Nottinghamshire.

[upthemaggies]

Its very clear that there was an extremely poor culture under Hardy at Notts especially after he got arrogant and thought he would walk the division. I know a few people who have worked with Hardy and for him, and they all say that one thing he was good at was putting quality 'Yes men' around him. In his later years he was apparently surrounded by very manipulative people such as the CEO he employed at Paragon who took the company under. His biggest mistake list is funny and to me he's the Donald Trump of Nottinghamshire.

The basic question Hardy needs to be asked is "How would sticking with Nolan have saved Paragon from going under and impacting on your ability to fund Notts?"

The only semi-sensible answer he could give was that he was anticipating an increase in gate receipts on the back of another promotion challenge. The problem with that though is, I believe we had a big increase in season ticket sales which were frozen or on offer, which explains the extraordinary loyalty shown throughout that doomed campaign, so how many extra pay on the day fans would we have needed? The 7,3k average was not enough to avoid a meltdown, how many would it have taken just to stabilize for another year?

I distinctly remember him at the time Kewell was manager being interviewed by Clem from the BBC for Football Focus and Hardy was making very strong hints then that he needed help "There's no money in Leagues One of Two, we need financial support" was how he phrased it I think.

Almost every club in L2 had lower gates than us though, some less than half including the team that went up as champions the season we lost in the play offs. and they are now 6th in League One. Smaller clubs have not been in the mess we've been in, those of comparable size are practically all at least one division above us, quite a number of them higher.

I would put it to him that he was out of his depth and that he left it too late to put the club up for sale. He could have departed being pretty well thought of if he'd been honest about the situation summer 2018. He did do good things but completely ruined it. The staff going unpaid and the ex-cons being entertained as potential buyers was a disgrace.

[queenslandpie]

The basic question Hardy needs to be asked is "How would sticking with Nolan have saved Paragon from going under and impacting on your ability to fund Notts?"

The only semi-sensible answer he could give was that he was anticipating an increase in gate receipts on the back of another promotion challenge. The problem with that though is, I believe we had a big increase in season ticket sales which were frozen or on offer, which explains the extraordinary loyalty shown throughout that doomed campaign, so how many extra pay on the day fans would we have needed? The 7,3k average was not enough to avoid a meltdown, how many would it have taken just to stabilize for another year?

I distinctly remember him at the time Kewell was manager being interviewed by Clem from the BBC for Football Focus and Hardy was making very strong hints then that he needed help "There's no money in Leagues One of Two, we need financial support" was how he phrased it I think.

Almost every club in L2 had lower gates than us though, some less than half including the team that went up as champions the season we lost in the play offs. and they are now 6th in League One. Smaller clubs have not been in the mess we've been in, those of comparable size are practically all at least one division above us, quite a number of them higher.

I would put it to him that he was out of his depth and that he left it too late to put the club up for sale. He could have departed being pretty well thought of if he'd been honest about the situation summer 2018. He did do good things but completely ruined it. The staff going unpaid and the ex-cons being entertained as potential buyers was a disgrace.

You are most certainly not a million miles away but there are a few inaccuracies in there. For the most part you are correct. Anyone that believes what Alan Trump says should probably buy their own breakfast.

[Old_pie]

The basic question Hardy needs to be asked is "How would sticking with Nolan have saved Paragon from going under and impacting on your ability to fund Notts?"

The only semi-sensible answer he could give was that he was anticipating an increase in gate receipts on the back of another promotion challenge. The problem with that though is, I believe we had a big increase in season ticket sales which were frozen or on offer, which explains the extraordinary loyalty shown throughout that doomed campaign, so how many extra pay on the day fans would we have needed? The 7,3k average was not enough to avoid a meltdown, how many would it have taken just to stabilize for another year?

I distinctly remember him at the time Kewell was manager being interviewed by Clem from the BBC for Football Focus and Hardy was making very strong hints then that he needed help "There's no money in Leagues One of Two, we need financial support" was how he phrased it I think.

Almost every club in L2 had lower gates than us though, some less than half including the team that went up as champions the season we lost in the play offs. and they are now 6th in League One. Smaller clubs have not been in the mess we've been in, those of comparable size are practically all at least one division above us, quite a number of them higher.

I would put it to him that he was out of his depth and that he left it too late to put the club up for sale. He could have departed being pretty well thought of if he'd been honest about the situation summer 2018. He did do good things but completely ruined it. The staff going unpaid and the ex-cons being entertained as potential buyers was a disgrace.

Wasn't there talk that Paragon were about to land a large contract around the time "little Willy" made an appearance? Either that scared the customers off or they had carried out some due diligence and saw that Paragon were going down the drain and pulled out. Notts were never going to save Paragon, it relied on a successful Paragon to keep Notts afloat.

[magpie_mania]

A big mistake I think that he made was that he was too certain that the Championship was ours after the play-off failure.

He also (to me) put too much emphasis on big crowds. Yes we did average over 7K but how many of those were free tickets? We had 18,000 for 1 game, but that was at £2.That in itself bumped the average up by around 500.

I think the whole sorry situation (and I was disappointed for him how it ended to be honest - I do think he wanted the best for Notts) can be summed up in that he was out of his depth.

[ncfcog]

A big mistake I think that he made was that he was too certain that the Championship was ours after the play-off failure.

He also (to me) put too much emphasis on big crowds. Yes we did average over 7K but how many of those were free tickets? We had 18,000 for 1 game, but that was at £2.That in itself bumped the average up by around 500.

I think the whole sorry situation (and I was disappointed for him how it ended to be honest - I do think he wanted the best for Notts) can be summed up in that he was out of his depth.

No sympathy from me. His own advisors told him not to do it but he couldn't resist his moment in the limelight. Deluded was exactly the right turn of phrase from OP in post #1 and it was this egotistical delusion that forced him down a catastrophic path of disaster for himself, his employees and the club itself.

[upthemaggies]

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.