StarkMallard

I thought there was going to be a fight when I read the headline! It's too soon to compare. When people wax lyrical about our promotion team of 2010, they should remember that it was Ray Trew who paid for it. If he hadn't, and he hadn't made the right call by appointing Steve Cotterill, we would probably never have won promotion that season. After investing a lot in the ground and the club, his reign slowly degenerated into a circus, there's no argument there. Now Alan Hardy is in charge. He didn't have Ray Trew's advantage of a fully assembled team capable of winning the league, but, like RT, he had a galvanising effect and we finished the season on a high. Like the Trews he also made the right call on the manager. Whether the uptick in our fortunes continues into this season remains to be seen. He also has a bit of a weakness for social media and telling everyone about the wonderful players we're going to sign, and I got a bit of deja vu when I read the story about the revamped Family Stand. Ultimately the most important thing a chairman can do is hire and fire managers, and Alan Hardy is still relatively untested here. Like Ray Trew, he made the right initial call. But what call will he make if we're in the bottom six come November? Will he back the manager or cut his losses? And, when Nolan eventually goes or chooses to leave (hopefully not for a while), where will he look for a successor? Mr Hardy has a lot to prove in many ways. Good luck to him and us!

It was a frustrating evening. I felt we played some better football than against Wycombe and created a lot of chances. Even if we couldn't get a third goal, two should be enough. Even at 2-1 we should be able to close out the game, but for that we need to be able to keep a cool head and retain possession. Collin made a spectacular save at the death but from that position their player should really be scoring. A decent finish from there and there's nothing the keeper can do about it. We also struck it lucky with their penalty call in the second half. That said the game should have been over by then. I'm frustrated but looking at the bigger picture 7 points from 4 games isn't a bad start, especially when you consider the opening day at Coventry. Hawkridge, Jones and Grant give us plenty of creativity, Hewitt has potential in midfield and I'm expecting to see more from Alessandro and Forte too. If our defence can just sort itself out somehow there could be more than just mid-table mediocrity in it this season.

Good interview. It's amazing to think that Accrington have been back for 12 years now. They might not have been one of the division's leading lights, but neither do I recall them being in serious danger of relegation in that time - and that on a shoestring budget. Of course, when you punch above your weight, eventually other clubs will come in for your players, and that makes the manager's job much harder. I've got nothing but respect for them. Hope we stuff them though!!

You notice it on the pitch as well. For all their weaknesses the players work really hard for one another, without exception. Long may it continue.

There you go @Chris, your pressure paid off! And good on him for doing something positive for charity too. Sounds like it'll be a great event.

Looks decent @samwatto2008, but would a central midfield pairing of Grant and Yates leave the defence exposed (I haven't seen Yates play yet)? I think that's why Nolan has preferred to go with a more defensively oriented player like Hewitt or Milsom in there. It's not about picking your best players, but your best team.

I'd be quite happy for Notts to stick two fingers up to the Football League and their stupid competition. Please don't attend this match - spend the money on a League match or in the club shop instead. We must not allow B teams in to our league system through the back door - that's far more important than the result of this match.

But enough about the home dressing room. Here's an EXCLUSIVE glimpse at the new away dressing room!

The red card was incredibly harsh IMO. Those are usually given when a player is clearly through on goal and the last man fouls him and denies him the chance to get a shot away, but in this case the ball was dropping from above safely into the keeper's hands and Hawkridge had no chance of getting there. All the same, we'll be robbed during the course of the season too so we should say thank you very much and take full advantage. Which we did! Strange that Grant was on the bench again, I can only assume that Nolan is trying to assert his authority in some way.

Sounds like a much improved performance, hopefully we can take some of it into the league now and get our first 3 points. On the negative side that's 6 goals conceded in 2 games now, although two of them did come in extra time.

I like the way you obviously have a Nolan sad face / Nolan happy face on file and use them accordingly. I'd like to see more of the happy face please!

Thanks for this. I wasn't aware that you could pay on a match-by-match basis at all, it only seems to have been communicated on Friday, weeks after the annual subscriptions went on sale (hmmm). I was also under the impression you could only watch matches on the app, which was the main sticking point with me (and wasn't cleared up when I contacted them directly either). Hopefully there will be something decent to watch on it soon.

This doesn't make for good reading. I didn't watch the stream as I was out and about with visitors. I won't be making my (live) ifollow debut until the Wycombe match. How did you watch it @Super_Danny_Allsopp? The decision to leave Grant on the bench surprised me, I haven't seen Walker play yet but I assumed Grant would have been one of the first names on the teamsheet. There have been a lot of harsh words aimed at Jones for his performance. While he clearly had a stinker, comments suggesting we should release him straight away are going too far. You can't judge a player on one performance. How many Notts fans were there in the end? 1500+ is a fantastic following. What did you think of the place? I've never been a fan of the Ricoh myself, much too far out and an absolute pain to get to.

Here are some stats I just dug up about him.

Good luck to all of them! I'm a bit sceptical though. Bird will need time and patience: let's not forget he's only 18 and has a lot of developing to do. It would be unrealistic to expect him to slot into the first team straight away. Trouble is, if we have more than one centre-half out injured or suspended, he'll be on the pitch whether he's ready or not. I haven't seen Pindrich play, but there are some stats on Transfermarkt. In the season before last he played 28 times and kept 16 clean sheets in the Czech second division, which isn't bad at all. He also doesn't seem to be one of those players who change clubs every season (he played for MFK Karvina for five years). But I question the wisdom of having three senior goalkeepers, one of whom won't even be making the bench. Collin, Fitzsimmons and the youth lad would surely have been enough. We could have put the money towards strengthening another area of the squad where we actually need it.

Danny Allsopp - scored a hat-trick on his debut. Returned on a permanent contract the following season and is still one of the best Notts strikers of recent years. Hayden Mullins - an important player in our escape from relegation under Shaun Derry when he arrived on loan from Birmingham. Steve Finnan - joined on loan in 95-96 and was a key player in our run to the play-off final that season. Joined permanently the following season and struggled a bit (like everyone else) until Fat Sam arrived.

This is excellent news and a big vote of confidence in Kevin Nolan. It might also be a positive sign for any players currently wondering to sign on the dotted line.

I have no problem with this in principle, after all Notts aren't AH's only business interest. However, what would happen if Ilkeston made it to the first round of the FA Cup? Two teams with the same owner playing each other could be a problem with the FA and UEFA.

My nephew had a Spurs kit from Puma and I did notice it was a tighter fit around the belly than most Notts shirts I own. Mind you, some of our old shirts resemble tents. Luckily I don't need an awful lot of "beer belly room", it just needs to be long enough. I'll be parading mine around Germany in a few weeks

No doubt a fair few of you will be the proud owner of a shirt now. What are your opinions of it? What is the fit like?

I forgot about him! According to Wikipedia we let him go in 1999 and he went to study at South Notts College and play for Dunkirk. That's well before Charlie rejoined us.

I take your point, but according to Wikipedia Terry Hawkridge played his youth team football at Barnsley and Tranmere. I think it was about when we scrapped our youth system. It's quite rare for us to release a player only for him to make his mark elsewhere. Two do spring to mind - James Walker, a keeper we released as a 19-year-old in 1993 and went on to make over 400 appearances for Walsall. Another is a striker who went on to play for Rotherham whose name escapes me. But the vast majority end up in non-league. Even if a player does make the grade after being released by a club, that doesn't necessarily mean that the club made the wrong decision. In some cases it's the wake-up call a player needs to kick on and be successful. One problem nowadays is that young players have their heads turned by big clubs before they're even in secondary school. The Drapers and Johnsons are now more likely to end up at the big academies and many of them end up in the Football League after being released by a top club.

All sounds very positive, but what happens on the pitch is what matters. He does contradict himself a few times - at the start he says there isn't much going on, but later he goes on to say we have plenty of irons in the fire. Maybe I should just relax more, I have the impression KN talks faster than he thinks. The comments on Curtis Good were interesting too. He was very non-commital. To me it sounds as if Good is one of our targets, but quite low on the list. I'll reserve judgement whatever happens. Normally you'd expect a player of his age to have had loads of loan spells, but Good hasn't been out on loan in years. That could indicate that he was on the verge of a breakthrough, but he didn't quite make it. But I'd still prefer someone a bit more seasoned to organise the back line.

Good luck to him, hope we can get the best out of him! It would make sense @Piethagoram, Arsenal will probably want him to try his hand in a higher division.

Hughes was just a joy to watch and a real one-off. Alongside his talent (he made it all look so easy) it was also so evident that he loved playing. Many players would lack the motivation to go back to non-league after such a career - but not him! Had it not been for his conviction there is not a cat in hell's chance a player of his calibre would have been playing in the lower divisions.