According to Robert F Kennedy there is an ancient Chinese curse, which translates as “May you live in interesting times”. It’s safe to say that he probably wasn’t thinking about Notts County FC when he said this, but these words are likely to resonate with Magpies fans at the moment.
So much seems to have happened to us so quickly that it’s hard to work out what to cover first. So, for once I’m going to try and segment this column into a series of subjects and tackle them one at a time.
Charlie out!
I was sad to see Ian ‘Charlie’ McParland get the boot in October, though not many true Notts fans will have been surprised. For football fans outside the club, the move had all the signs of being a typical cynical move by rich new owners wanting their own man in charge. After all, we were in the top six and only four points off the top spot when it happened. Was he given enough of a chance?
Those who watch Notts regularly will know that as a manager Charlie was a bit Jekyll and Hyde – with some really strong qualities and some really weak ones. His major plus points were that he had a great eye for young players, he believed in playing attractive football and that he knew Notts County inside and out. Most of us loved him dearly because of these three points! However, his major weaknesses were that he was terrible at dealing with the press (which was okay when we weren’t the most talked-about football team in the country) and he didn’t seem to have it in him to change the teams tactics during games at all. This last point was particularly frustrating for us fans watching the clock count down in the dozens of games where we were drawing or losing, with ten minutes to go and had several fresh attacking players on the bench. He didn’t like using subs at all, did our Charlie and frankly he rarely bothered to do so unless someone got injured.
So, overall a fond farewell to the man who statistically has one of the worst managerial record in the football league (in the two seasons he spent with us in the basement division we finished in 21st and 19th place – with a bigger budget than most of our competitors). As a player he was a legend for us – as a manager he was in equal parts brilliant and frustrating. I’ll always remember him fondly for games like the 5-0 demolition of Bradford on the first day of this season and the 3-0 beating of the same side last season. I’ll try and forget games like the 3-0 home defeat to Dagenham on the last day of the season and going out of the FA cup to non-league teams for each of the last two seasons.
Hans Backe!
Okay, so we don’t know a lot about Hans at the moment other than that he’s mates with Sven, he’s won a few titles in Denmark and his name sounds like something a German police officer would shout at you.
However accusations of ‘jobs for the boys’ are already surfacing among Notts fans who would have plumped for someone with more English League experience. This is understandable, but it happens across the board - when Charlie joined he filled the entire boot-room full of his former Notts team mates like David Kevan, Michael Johnson, Tommy Johnson and Mark Draper (who, believe it or not is our Kit Man these days) and we weren’t complaining much then.
The appointment of Backe at least proves that we are aiming towards a higher class of nepotism at Meadow Lane these days. Backe has managed in Sweden (Djurgårdens, Hammarby, AIK and Östers) Norway (Molde and Stabæk), Greece (Panathinaikos), Denmark (Aalborg and FC Copenhagen), Austria (Salzburg) and been Sven’s assistant at both Manchester City and Mexico. Beats the hell out of our previous Director of Football Howard Wilkinson appointing his mate Steve Thompson (who, prior to his appointment, had been working as a builder) anyhow.
A quiet word for some of the other supposed contenders for the role too - I would have liked to have seen Peter Taylor, Steve Coppell or Alan Curbishley take on the job. But my heart belongs to Neil Warnock! He might be one of the most hated men in football, but if he’s been at your club you probably love the man like we Magpies do! Sorry we didn't get the reunion with you Neil! It could have been sooooo beautiful!
The Sol Campbell saga
He arrived amid a tabloid fanfare and immediately became the highest profile signing we’d made since Tommy Lawton in 1947 (thirty-two years before I was born). He brought with him three Premier League titles, four FA Cup wins and 73 England caps. He signed a five-year deal at our club and was probably paid more in a week than some of his team-mates earned in a year.
He stuck around for five weeks, played just one game, looked unfit and totally disinterested as our defence capitulated against a weak Morecambe attack. Then he decided it wasn’t for him and buggered off. Since then it seems that everyone has an opinion on the Sol Campbell – Notts County saga. Have a read of the thoughts of Andy Cole, Paul Ince and Stan Collymore for examples.
The truth about why Sol left us (or even joined us in the first place) is unlikely to ever come out in full now – particularly if rumours that the club trying to issue a gagging order are to be believed. However, Sol has already ‘spoken out’ to one tabloid and it turns out he wasn’t happy because we promised we’d also sign Roberto Carlos and Benjani... poor lamb.
The most disappointing thing for most Notts fans was that we never got to see him play at Meadow Lane. I saw him come onto the pitch briefly before one home game and that was it. The video of him being at fault for both goals in the 2-1 defeat against Morecambe and breaking the toe of striker Emmanuel Panther with a late tackle will probably be a collectors item in a few years time.
Ownership of the club
The ownership situation of our club has been of particular concern amongst the tabloids in recent weeks, with a series of exposés that did little to further inform the readers and fans about what was actually going on.
Perhaps the most vociferous of all of these was Guardian journalist Matt Scott, who has probably single-handedly halved his newspapers circulation in Nottingham with a series of spectacular-sounding scoops such as how our owners were about to go under, how Roberto Mancini is to be our new manager and how the owners at Notts refused to talk to him.
As recently as the end of last season, we were a club owned by a fans trust with a board and club falling apart at the seams and a team that could barely score a goal. The fact is nowadays, we fans don’t know the financial ins and outs of our club like we used to. This is a cause for some concern, but then again knowing we were a few months from going under because we couldn’t afford to invest in the youth team and because attendances had got to their lowest levels in decades wasn’t much fun either.
Everybody has an opinion on us nowadays and people are entitled to them. But as much as I agree that money has ruined football and that we are now part of that horrendous machine, I’d prefer us to survice than go under (which was a definite possibility last season). If the Football Association really does want to support lower league clubs and the communities that thrive from then they need to change their own money-grabbing approach to the beautiful game radically.
New players
All football fans enjoy watching skilful players at their club and we’re bringing in some great ones at the moment.
Matt Ritchie is a young left winger on loan from Portsmouth who we Notts fans already knew about after watching him destroy our defence with three goals in two games against us for Dagenham and Redbridge last season. He announced himself at the Lane with two goals in the 4-1 routing of Northampton. Hopefully we’ll sign him up permanently in January.
Daniel Jones is a tall left back on loan from Wolves. He started off well with convincing performances against Port Vale, Lincoln and Cheltenham, but his form has tailed off a little in recent matches. He also incurred the wrath of the home fans by booting a ball into the Sirrel stand in frustration against Torquay – and accidently smacking it into a young fans face. However he looks strong going forward and if he gets his defensive form back on track he’ll be worth a permanent contract in January too.
Ade Akinbiyi is a journeyman striker who has been transferred for fees totalling £11.5million during his career. He was once voted as the sixth-worst striker that the Premier League has ever seen in an article by the Daily Mail but then again Andriy Shevchenko is in that list too and would destroy teams at our level. Adi has only made one brief appearance for us at the time of writing (during the 2-0 home win against Crewe) and looks like he needs more fitness for the fans to see the best of him. But he’s got the rest of the season to make an impact after signing on a free from MLS team Houston Dynamo.
Perhaps most shocking of all is the revealation that Jorge Andrade is currently on trial with us. As replacements for Sol Campbell go he sounds rather decent - with 51 caps for Portugal under his belt and his previous clubs including Porto, Deportivo and most recently Juventus. When the Notts fans sing "it's just like watching Juve" we didn't expect it to happen this literally.
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