Alan Hardy: Folding Notts County Ladies "one of the toughest calls I have ever had to make"

Alan Hardy has claimed that he did everything he could to try and keep Notts County Ladies afloat, but ultimately the numbers did not add up and so had to go ahead with "one of the toughest calls" of his career.

The Lady Pies folded last Friday, just two days before the start of the WSL Spring Series one-off season, prompting backlash from the team's players and fans.

Hardy dedicated his weekly Nottingham Post column to the club, writing: "It would be remiss of me not to focus this week's column on Notts County Ladies and the gut-wrenching and sad decision I had to take regarding their future.

"It is one of the toughest calls I have ever had to make because there were livelihoods at stake, and good, good, people at the heart of a fantastic club.

"I tried everything I could to find ways of maintaining the Ladies team here at Meadow Lane even though we would be regarded as the underdogs in a league including Arsenal, Man City et al.

"I revisited the numbers time and time again in what was a pretty exhaustive process and it gave me many sleepless nights.

"But the truth of the matter is the numbers just didn't stack up no matter how hard or how many times I looked at them and tried to make them work.

"I even enlisted the help of a marketing consultant, a lady who is well known within women's sporting circles.

"She held a senior position with Sport England and came on board for three months in order to build some momentum in terms of generating funding to help us avoid this scenario.

"We put a lot of irons in the fire and we thought there was more than a good chance of a strong outcome, but it turned out that every iron we pulled out turned cold.

"It was therefore extremely sad, and I was truly devastated to admit defeat.

"Unfortunately, we don't have the luxury of what the Premier League clubs have which is the access to vast sums of money which they can afford to invest."

To read Alan Hardy's Nottingham Post column in full, click here.

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