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Life as a Notts County supporter is rarely easy. At times you can be forgiven for wondering why you became a Magpie and for wishing you’d chosen to support a club that seems less doomed to failure.
But then you realise that doing so would be like trying to ditch all the beloved and obscure pieces of your music collection in favour of the Girls Aloud discography just because they chart higher. It would be soulless basically…
On the pitch over the last month we’ve looked okay. Not great admittedly, but not as bad as we are used to in recent times either. But off the pitch the last month has seen the club in a right mess!
First we get the ‘revelation’ from the Evening Post that it’s apparently dangerous to stand in parts of our relatively empty stadium. Accusations of sensationalism and not reporting all the facts made by our Chairman seem quite valid. But it all still resulted in the closure of the top half of The Kop, until they get the issue sorted – despite the fact that the in over a decade not one incident has ever happened because of it. On balance the result might not actually turn out to be a bad thing as it makes fans sit closer together and create a better atmosphere – but it’s still rather questionable as to whether the ends justifies the means.
Then we get news about a potential investor being interested in the club – which is something all Notts fans can agree is necessary for us to progress up the leagues! But it’s followed very swiftly by accusations from the Supporters Trust of the Chairman withholding important financial information from other members of the board and a thus a potential vote of no confidence in him. This ultimately led to a meeting that decayed into even more mess and proved that, despite obvious good intentions, those currently involved behind-the-scenes really aren’t the best people we could hope to have running things off the pitch. Although they are clearly all we do have for now!
Whatever happens with all this mess, it’s clear to me and most of the other 5000 or so regular visitors to Meadow Lane that it all does needs to be sorted – preferably outside of the press – and that fans need to be kept informed a little more about what is actually going on. All we want is to see signs that our club is progressing and every time the Evening Post starts to dig into yet another horror story a part of us all wonders if it’s really worth the hassle! Especially when we see other struggling clubs around us like Bournemouth on the brink of major financial investment.
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| RIP Jack Wheeler 1919 - 2009 |
Then we lost 2-0 away to Bury, which was disappointing, but not unexpected as they’re riding high up there in the play-off zone. This was followed, however, by a great 3-1 win at home to Bradford City (who are also in the promotion mix) where their defence just couldn’t cope with the speed of our attacking play from the likes of Weston, Forte (who is back on loan from Scunthorpe and scoring for fun) and Forrester. In that game I saw some of the best counter-attacking play from us in years and actually walked away feeling great about my football team!
Sadly since then we’ve lost another two on the bounce by narrow margins - 1-0 away at Darlington and 3-2 away to Shrewsbury. Just as our home form starts to pick up our away form totally deserts us.
We’ve known for several months that it’s highly unlikely that Notts County will go up or down this season, so the results don’t matter as much as usual from now until May - but as fans we’re also seeking signs that the club could mount a serious promotion push next season. If nothing else, all the boardroom wrangling at least deflects attention from the manager and the players for now – and all the moaners who want to sack yet another man in charge at the lane have something else to bicker about.
The final word this month goes to Jack Wheeler, a loyal Magpies servant and right hand man of Jimmy Sirrel, who died last month aged 89. A Public church service to celebrate his life will be held at St Mary's Church in the Lace Market on Thursday 19 March at 11am. Our thoughts go out to his friends and family. May he rest in peace.
Notts County Official Website
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