Originally Posted by
upthemaggies
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.