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Clearly this is not a story to rival meeting Brian Clough, but the first well-known player I met was Dean Ashton in Zante airport when I was about 11... He was playing for West Ham and it was during the season break. I guess he had been on a bit of lads holiday and unbeknown to me he was very hung-over and struggling as it was 6 in the morning. I think the last thing he wanted was to be greeted by me, an overenthusiastic, football mad child! He was very polite though and answered all my questions, I think my dad was able to eventually usher me away. He then spent the rest of the morning lying on the seats with his cap covering his face...

We don’t know if we ever actually offered him a contract or if he really was a serious target, it's all just speculation... But for arguments sake if he was from what I can interpret from some of the interviews from the board we won’t ever pay over the odds for a player. It’s feels like the club sticks a value on player in terms of what they are worth, so if Carlisle offered more money that’s on them, but we’d see it as overpaying and move onto the next target. We also signed Bedeau, maybe he was our top-target and Thomas was the back-up, we’ll never know! Anyway I’m pretty happy as we’re well covered with players who can play at LCB right now.

Yeah, it’s a very easy story, it's just speculation right now. No-one’s actually been interviewed or even suggested an offer has been made all the writer has done is put Luke Williams and Langstaff together and said, could it happen again? I still believe we've got a very good chance of him staying with us. You can argue that every signing is a risk, but some are definitely more of a risk then others and I’d put Langstaff in the Championship as a bigger risk. There’s no doubt he’s great, but he’s great for us. The teams we play against are far worse than any of the championship teams. Even if he is a “potential target” I think he’d be way down on the list of potential signings. I think Swansea are far more likely to try and sign, for example, a player from the second division in Germany that has scored 20 goals. You’d be more confident he would be a good signing because the level of teams he’d been playing against will be of a similar level to those in the Championship.

Good game this so far between Italy and Albania, in fact the ones I've seen Germany v Scotland and Spain v Croatia were both good watches too! I thought Spain looked a bit disjointed at times but I was impressed how they were able to give up more of the ball but the press the Croatian defence well. They mixed it up a lot more too and I loved the switches of play into the space for the quick wingers to run into. Italy look pretty impressive now, after that awful mistake at the start, they are starting to dominate and create the better chances...

In terms of thinking for the start of next season I’d say we’ve got 18 senior players right now. Luther Munakandafa actually got released and I’m assuming the transfer listed players won’t be here come the start of the season. I’ve also not counted Mahovo & Sanderson, as I think both are likely to go out on loan over the course of the season. So I’d say still needed are 1 GK, 1 CB, 1 RWB, 2 CMs. That would then take us up to 23 (25 with the youngsters). I think the squad is looking good and Scott and Palmer will be like two new signings. For me the questions are more about the system and starting 11 particularly how do we fit all our best attackers in the team but not at the expense of our defence?

I'm not disagreeing with either of you here @Robbie & @Wheelbarrow repair man but isn't the experienced and older goalkeeper Slocombe though? He's 36 and has played nearly 400 games! Surely we don't need another keeper coming in at the end of his career. I'd hope we'd be looking for a keeper in his prime that can potentially be our keeper for a good number of years.

It's not like the club could do anything else whilst he was injured other than help his recovery. They couldn't, knowing he only had a year left, say: "you're on your own pal, good luck" no player would ever sign for us if that's how we treated them! I get it feels like a bit of let down but there's not much the club can do to be honest, the timing of his contract expiring is just unfortunate. If they really wanted Baj to stay they could've improved their offer but obviously feel the money will be better spent elsewhere. Michael O'Connor did the same too, he played the last few games of the season after being out for a year and chose to sign with Lincoln.

I just searched the club to see where they are based (Woking, Sussex in case you're interested) and found out its majority owner is Steve Cook who played with Dan Gosling at Bournemouth. I guess they’re friends and he’ll be playing because it’s local and he still wants to. In terms of being a professional footballer Gosling is all but retired now, it just goes to show how some injuries can have a massive impact. He went from Championship, to struggling in L2 to now playing in a low regional league in just over a year.

Stuart Maynard has been coaching (albeit not full-time) since 2012, so he’s hardly a novice and more experienced than a lot of people think. He’ll have experienced the bad times and good ones as he’s been involved in very successful times at Hemel and Wealdstone. I know this is the highest level he’s coached at but keeping Wealdstone a part-time team in a full-time league with probably one of the lowest budgets for two seasons is very impressive. He’s now also had half a season to experience this league and he's said a lot of encouraging things in his interviews about what’s been missing from this squad and what we need to improve. I think we have to trust the owners and board too, I don’t think they would’ve appointed him if they had any doubts. And so far they've had a very good record when it comes to head-coaches. When was the last time we had our last two head-coaches poached? I think a lot of fans are still used to the long and old regime of sacking a manager every 3/6/9 months because you lose a few games. That won’t happen now. SM will be given time and help to achieve the clubs goal of continued progression.

Good way to finish pre-season, I'm guessing it'll be similar to Cambridge a few seasons ago where I believe we did the same thing and fielded two separate teams for each game. It makes sense to give the whole squad 90 mins the weekend before the season kicks off, that way everyone (injuries aside) will be ready, fit and in contention to play the first league game. There's room for one more match between the Wealdstone and York game (currently 11 days between the two). I guess that'll be the last game to be announced, maybe Forest or Derby?

I’d have liked to have seen how he’d have got on in L2 with us, but I’m really surprised he’s gone up into L1. He had a terrible injury and only played about 10 mins of competitive football, so I’ve no idea how Burton have been able to judge how he can be good for them when he’s yet to even prove himself in L2. And you wouldn't exactly say he was a guaranteed starter here... It’ll be a big step up effectively going from the NL to L1, but I understand why he’d take their offer over ours (especially if we did only offer him a year) as I think he’ll be doing there what he would have been doing with us; having to challenge to get a spot in the first 11.

Villa signed him for around £900,000 when he was only 17, so he’s clearly a very talented player. Played lots of games even though he’s 24. From what I can gather he’s decent on the ball, strong and quick – sounds pretty much like the perfect CB! Morecambe, considering they seem to be in a bit of state and only have a small budget, seem to recruit very well these past few years. Sadly for them though, their loss is our gain.

I think Macca is a very good choice as captain, like he says in his interview it’s not always about being vocal but by setting the standard with level of performance. And your captain needs to be a player that is basically going to start every game and he is that man. I don’t think it’ll be distraction either, when he’s in the box I think he’ll be fully focused on putting the ball in the back of the net, he’s not going to just start wandering around the box to encourage his team mates! It should also boost the mood the of a few panicked fans that think Macca, JJ and Crowley will all be gone over the summer. I think this is a big boost and almost confirms that he’ll be here next season. A bid might still come in that’s too good to turn down but I’d say there’s an extremely good chance Macca will be here when the transfer window shuts.

Very pleased for him, definitely deserves it, he’s been a revelation since joining us. And pleased for Palmer too, all but confirms he’s over his injury and ready to go for next season – cos we really missed him! Naturally it will get folk thinking that Kyle could be moving on. I hope he stays as I thought he finished the season well, maybe the release of this duty can just re-focus and re-motivate him. I agree he does get a lot of unwarranted stick, the more I think about it (and I could be wrong) but I think playing in the middle is the easiest out of three defensive roles. Brindley looked a lot better in CB then he did at RCB. Even Kyle himself had a very good game there away at Bradford. As the LCB he basically has to play at CB and LB due to our LWB playing as winger!

Yes, I’d love to win the Premiership and be the best team in England! I think it could happen in my lifetime, getting to Prem that is, but I think the current structure and seemingly limitless finances is what will stop us. That would need to change to give us a chance. Right now the gap between the Premiership and Championship is getting bigger and I think we could eventually see pretty much the same group of teams go up and down each season. That would almost make it farcical, but hopefully it would be the catalyst for change. If the league did become properly regulated and financially fairer then we might have a chance. I’m not particularly fussed what happens to Notts though, like others have said just having a club to support and games to go to and discuss is all that really matters. I’ll watch us even if we go the other way and end up in the Northern Prem!

From what I can gather he played a bit at left back too so I wonder if he'd be well suited to a LCB role in our system. It would give some real competition for Kyle Cameron, I think last season this was a bit of an issue too. When everyone was fit, the back 3 pretty much selected itself - not a position you want to be in.

I have no insight as to whether he's highly rated or not but I hope he can help to improve our keepers. This is interesting at the end though; “We’re very happy with the backroom staff we have in place and we’re all really looking forward to pre-season.” And then it gives a full run down of the non-playing staff. Ian Hutton hasn't been replaced, does that mean no strength and conditioning coach (fancy term for fitness coach I believe) for next season?

I think it can potentially be an advantage, assuming that the recruitment side of things are well run and the ideas all align. A head coach then really only has one main job – to coach! Football’s all about trying to get those marginal gains and maybe a coach that is able to spend all his time on the training pitch is advantageous, maybe one extra session might just make the difference... I think a traditional manager can still work as well, but they have an awful lot more to do and it could potentially mean one aspect of their many roles starts to suffer, for example this is from David Artell when he was the manager at Crewe; “I was doing coaching, recruitment, scouting, loan strategies, transfer strategies, individual development and contract negotiations”. He described himself as being “burnt-out” at the end of his time there and Crewe eventually got relegated back into L2. Given what Stuart Maynard has said in interviews he's involved in recruitment, but probably doesn't spend time and effort scouting, rather just gives his opinion on the players the recruitment team has identified. And I’m pretty confident that if SM really didn’t want a player the club wouldn’t sign him (I don’t think this scenario would ever happen though because our recruitment is collaborative and will be about finding players that suit the teams/SM’s style and needs). I think the real issue would arise if the recruitment and head coach had very different ideas about what the team needed to improve… I'm pretty sure there were rumours of clashes between Moniz and Branston a good few years ago!

I thought when Stuart Maynard first came in, even though we didn’t really turn the form around, I was actually quite encouraged in some of the games (even if we lost). At Mansfield and Wrexham, both tough away games I thought we actually deserved something from those games and played pretty well. I agree he shouldn’t shoulder too much blame for the defence, he tried a couple of different things and I thought we looked more solid but the continuous individual errors and inability to defend our own box was our downfall and that is more down to the players. I’ve probably been just as critical of our attacking play at times because I thought we’d been way to slow, predictable and not been brave enough to try more through-balls/crosses. I thought we were a lot more threatening with Jatta on the pitch because we actually crossed the ball more often. Hopefully this continues into next season. If we keep our better players over pre-season, improve the defence/keeper and Scott, Palmer and Baj are back up to speed and haven’t suffered from their injuries, on paper Stuart Maynard will have very good squad. And for that reason I think he’ll be for the whole season, unless it’s a disaster and we’re close to being bottom of the league (but given the quality of the squad I think that’s unlikely to happen). Even if we were hovering around mid-table for most of the season I don’t think that would get him sacked. I get the impression the owners will give a head-coach “extra-time” in the hope things turn in our favour. I’m thinking about what happened with Doncaster last season, they had a decent squad (so should we come the start of the season) but were poor/average until the last 1/3. It shows sacking manager isn't always the answer. I'm not going to lie and say I don't have doubts considering his tough start, but I hope he's over that now and he's a massive success for us!

Białkowski ???????? Johnson ???????? Rodrigues ???????? McGregor ???????????????????????????? Grealish ???????????????????????????? I've exploited the loan system! And what do you call a false 9 in 5 a-side team? A false 5? ????????

I’d guess he’s just one name on a long list, if it’s even true! No-one knows anything about our transfers these days. We’d been “linked” with a few players before our first signing but absolutely no-one on social media knew anything about Platt. Weirdly that only game Sharman-Lowe played was the first game of last season (Bromley lost 2-0 away at Halifax) he was dropped and didn’t play another league game for them. Seems pretty harsh on a young keeper, I just watched the highlights from that game, he makes a bit of misjudgement for the first goal but nothing else really of note. So that probably destroyed his confidence. No-one really knows what's happening with Brooks either, I wouldn’t be surprised if he got loaned out again. Last season he didn’t really play that many games, only 12 appearances for Rochdale and 4 for Cork.

The not coming to an agreement could simply just be him wanting to stay and the club wanting to get rid! Interesting he’s only commenting now, we’ve known he was going weeks ago. Anyway, as has already been mentioned, those two vital goals in the Boreham Wood game will always make me think fondly of him. Oh, and I'm still impressed by your ability @Chris to shoe-horn in a dig at Richard Duffy! You never miss an opportunity! ???? ????

So Stuart Maynard clearly left on good terms to be welcomed back! We could do a tour and visit the clubs that some of our previous head coaches/managers are at now. Swansea, Wolves (Ian Burchnall & Shaun Derry), Yeovil (Mark Cooper), Oxford (Craig Short) and FGR (Steve Cotterill). Not sure the budget would stretch to reach Yokohama Marinos (Harry Kewell) or Zurich for Ricardo Moniz! Back in the real world, surely we’ll get some fixtures against teams that are pretty close to compensate for the fact there are no home games. Maybe we’ll even get another game against Forest, it’s pretty close even if it is out of the city…

A very short statement, if I had to guess the reason I'd say Pete Wild thinks more money is needed to progress the team and they either don't have the ability (or want) to increase their funds. Barrow are overachieving in L2, if they've sacked him just because they missed out on the play-offs it's very short-sighted. They average about 3,700 fans which at a quick glance puts them 19th in the table. They don't exactly generate a massive amount of income compared to the other teams in this league, they probably need 3 home games to match the income from just 1 of our home games. I think they'll do well to find someone as good as Pete Wild, he'll get another L2 job quite quickly. The managers Barrow had in-between him and Evatt shows what a good job he did.

An aerially dominate CB, that’s a very good start to this season’s transfer business and clever/reassuring to announce a defender first too. From what I can gather the main criticism seems to be that his passing from the back wasn’t great and he hit a lot of balls into touch. Could this be more down to Bradford’s style of play and the instructions he was given? He must be able to play a bit as this was very much the style for Barrow under Ian Evatt. In team that has clear patterns to move the ball around from the back he’ll probably look a lot better. Interestingly, against Bradford at home he got subbed on at half-time and we didn’t score again. He didn’t play when we beat them 3-0 either, maybe it would’ve been a different result if he had played! Kind of supports that post above from BantamDan, which is very interesting. He did play the majority of the games for Bradford when they finished in the Play-offs the season before too. Maybe there is such a thing as the “Matty P effect” after all... I think he could be a player that Bradford will miss more than they realise.