Another season bites the dust… and I’m particularly glad to see the back of this one to be honest. After starting out quite well – narrowly losing our first game to then promotion-favourites Bradford City, the team followed up with an eleven game unbeaten run. Okay, so we actually drew nine of those eleven games and hence found ourselves in mid-table but we were playing attractive football and the fans were happy. We even knocked Doncaster Rovers, who play two divisions above us, out of the League Cup.
However, this was to be the high point of the season. If you’d told us then that at the opposite end of the season we’d find ourselves in our annual battle against relegation from the Football League we probably wouldn’t have believed you. Surely things were looking brighter this time around? How wrong we were…
It’s easy to look back in hindsight and point out where things went wrong – but some of it is just blindingly and frustratingly obvious to all fans. When we signed up two veteran goalkeepers (Russell Hoult and Kevin Pilkington – combined age of 71) on long contracts - using up a significant amount of our wage budget on one position was clearly a risk. The fact that Hoult (believed to be the highest earner at the club on around £2.5k per week) then got injured towards the end of 2008 and didn’t play again made it a costly error. Then when Pilkington got injured as well we had to loan a younger model in, Josh Lillis from Scunthorpe. After a few performances he looked like the best of the three – leading fans to wonder why we’d spunked so much of our playing budget on the old guys.
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Richard Butcher - best of a bad bunch.
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Our central midfield has been a mess for years. The only player who has played for us there with any real distinction in the last few years is Richard Butcher. Not a great midfielder by anyone’s standards – but he does have a handy knack of scoring goals and has got more for the team over the last two seasons than any other two Notts players combined. However after starting the season with five of them to choose from (Neil Mackenzie, Jay Smith, Gavin Strachan, Adam Nowland and Butcher) our manager eventually realised how crap they all were and released the lot of them (including Butcher). So now we have to rebuild that part of our team from scratch.
In truth we haven’t seen a decent striker at the club in ages - since the days when we had Allsopp, Stallard and Heffernan (over 5 years ago now) to choose from. We had early season hopes that Delroy Facey and Jamie Forrester might help to fill that gap. But even when he first came to us Forrester looked like he was ready to retire from league football – in his prime he was a good player, but we got him two years too late. As for Facey, he’s become something of a favourite to a minority of fans, but I find him too frustrating to watch. In terms of his physique he should be fighting big centre-halves to get the ball. But the fact that he’s gone through the whole season without being injured or suspended is telling - he just doesn’t get stuck in enough and therefore isn’t using his natural talents as a player properly. Shooting is clearly not one of these talents and his fairly meagre goals tally for the season (9 in total after starting most games) means we ought to be looking to replace him too. But he is part of the squad for next season and hence he deserves our support for now. The other three strikers on the books (Canham, Fairclough and Weir-Daley) barely got a look-in. Weir-Daley eventually got released and we brought in Jonathon Forte on loan who was either absolutely on fire (first-half hat-trick against Barnet) or disinterested (most of his other performances).
So big changes are needed all-round, basically. At the start of this season we were told it was to be a season of consolidation where we would build for the future. While we have done this to an extent by bringing in a few better players (Thompson, Hamshaw and Clapham all look the part) you can’t help feeling that we missed an opportunity to bring in and bleed some young talent that might take a season to settle. Aside from left winger Miles Weston, who had such a good season he’s seems to be holding out for a bigger club before he signs a new contract, we don’t really seem to have any.
Our manager Ian McParland has stated in the press that he’s now looking for younger players. About bloody time Charlie! This is also an area he is undoubtedly familiar with as his best (and probably only) managerial success came in a brief stint over the river guiding a young Forest team. However, his record at Notts has been truly appalling and despite his hands being tied by an ineffective board behind the scenes, the results must improve if he wants to stay in the job. The one thing I do have confidence in him for, however, is that he has a good track record for signing players – particularly youngsters.
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Alfie Potter - wing wizard who has knocked us
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Players I’d like to see us sign? Well we don’t have a lot of money to play with so I’ll try and concentrate on players I’ve seen who could come cheaply or on a free. In goal Barry Roche (Morecambe), Wayne Henderson (Grimsby) both looked better at the lane than what we have. In defence we need a new centre-half (maybe Ian Breckin –recently released from Forest), right-back (Phil Picken from Chesterfield or Brendon Maloney on a season’s loan from Forest). In centre-midfield we need both a hard tackler and a creative player (Sergio Torres from Peterborough) as well as back-up. On the wings we need cover – and a new left winger if Weston goes (maybe Franz Burgmeier from Darlington or Alfie Potter from Peterborough). Up front we need at least two new strikers capable of scoring 10-20 goals (Rene Howe from Peterborough, Pawel Abbot from Darlington, Ryan Lowe from Chesterfield or Billy Clarke from Ipswich). There are hundreds, if not thousands, of players being released by league clubs this summer and it’s important that we pick the best ones from them.
Probably the most memorable events of the season have been off the pitch. Firstly we had the sad deaths of two Notts legends in Jimmy Sirrel and Jack Wheeler. It would have been nice to see the current team perform particularly well in honour of our greatest management partnership ever (think Clough and Taylor but in black and white). Sadly this appeared to be beyond them.
Then, behind the scenes our club looks as rocky as ever. Chairman John Armstrong-Holmes dangled a carrot of serious investment for 8 months up to the recent Supporters General Meeting. Then a week or so after his position became secure for the time being the investors have ' a re-think'. Not good enough frankly. Either way it’s clear that we’ve got to improve next season to get some of our jaded fans back into the lane more regularly (this writer included). If we don’t get any money in over the summer it’s clear that Charlie’s job will be harder than it already is. As always he get’s my full support, but I won’t be posting off the cheque for my season ticket until I see something more substantial than the usual spin.
YOU PIES!
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