It could be argued that Harvey was worse
100%.
We wouldn't have gone down if Neil Young was manager for the duration of the season.
We wouldn't have finished in the top half either, but he'd have eventually settled on a squad that did just about enough.
Jim Harvey's reign did the most damage, for me. Coming in he needed to settle on a squad and system that would start getting some results - but the door revolved at a faster pace than it was doing under Young.
One thing's for certain, Neil Young would not have played Danny Hattersley and Craig Hobson at centre half.
Anyway, massive congrats to Marine. Great club.
I'm sorry but with respect, this is absolute rubbish. Neil Young had already destroyed us with the most bewildering recruitment policy I think I've ever witnessed. He also seemed to move heaven and earth to secure the services of the aforementioned Hobson and Hattersley that had rival clubs scratching their heads.
When he said in an interview that he'd basically keep on recruiting and shipping out until he got it right, that should have been alarm bells - he did the same thing at Stockport too, remember - they'd never seen such an extraordinary turnover of players in such a short period of time.
Jim Harvey had a reputation as a troubleshooter - a Sam Allardyce of this level, if you will - you could argue it was us that finished him off.
I'm not defending his recruitment, it was blatantly horrendous and we'd have done extremely well to finish above 17th, but I'm inclined to believe he would have brought enough ringers in to just about keep us up, in my opinion.
We quite rightly made a change and brought in Jim Harvey, who brought in equal dross and got worse results. When Jim arrived we had every chance of turning things around, it would hardly have been a miracle from that position at that stage. We were only 9 games into the season. Hence why BPA leapfrogged us and stayed up.
Three consecutive draws at the start of NY's tenure, including two against sides that finished firmly in the play-offs, would faintly suggest that squad he put together had enough to scrape staying up in the National League North that season. His side should have beaten Darlington on the opening day and we were unlucky to come away from Halifax with a point only. Arguably a completely different outlook and sense of confidence with two wins to open the season. Alas we didn't, and then the Fylde loss knocked us for a six that we never recovered from.
Not that it matters as we've ended up with a fantastic management duo and play some of the best stuff in non-league on our day. I'm just not having that Jim Harvey didn't play a huge part in our demise that season.