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We never lost at Wexham - we might have got stung though! I'm glad they got a ground sorted out after that nonsense with the council.

When are Northwich Victoria going to get a ground by the way?

Looking a bit different to my poll! I still worry that we will tail off towards the end of the season with a part time squad so I think the play offs may be beyond us this season, though it's certainly a possibility in the next few years if we continue to progress towards full time. There's often not very much between 8th and 15th, so a lot will depend on injuries and keeping our key players. Personally I will be delighted with a first top half finish since 1995, and a solid base to build on for next season.

I fancy a crowd poll would look different now too. Better than what I feared so far. Fingers crossed it holds up.

If Stockport were going to go for someone like Phil, I suspect they wouldn't have got the Brighton youth manager (or whoever it was). In the past, non-league managers have found it hard to get a job at a football league club. If he did manage to get us into the FL, that would put him in a stronger position to get a job at a third division club or whatever. I'd like to think he will want to stay for now and try and take this club further while that is a realistic possibility, though I remember one preview of the season mentioning him leaving the club as a potential problem for us. One thing's for sure, success gets you talked about.

Quote from: HashtagAlty on October 09, 2021, 10:17:50 PM

As I said tonight as long as Phil doesn't get ideas above his stations going got a glamorous Jon and the board don't get too fixated on Phil the god, we're on to a good thing here and both can grow together.

All I wanted was to be competitive in every game at conference level, right now we are. Long may it continue.

I think this can be loosely translated as “please never leave us, Phil”

I can see why he left Nantwich as he seemed to have taken them as far as they could go, but hopefully, with the exciting developments on and off the pitch at Alty, he will be tempted to stay and be part of something special over the next few years. You think about the circumstances in which he came to this club though, I'm sure he's realistic about how things could change, and will keep his feet on the ground and not think he is untouchable.

I am sat contemplating the current management team and comparing them to the many i have seen over the years .

For me personally the best managers I saw us under have been John King, Graham Heathcote and Phil Parkinson ( I enjoyed others at times of course IE Bernard and Lee etc)

Thinking of the year that I was convinced we were going to get promoted under King we had a significant budget then when I think of Graham and Phil we were and are to a larger extend underdogs

I'm not getting carried away as the season is barley underway and a lot can happen but the transformation under Phil and Neil is incredible really from the depths he took us over at

Every year we have seen a step up

And of course couple this with the pitch work and fan zone work etc and significantly increased attendances by the home support in particular it's quite nice to be a lifelong Alty fan again

Long may it continue

Up the reds

Still, it takes more than a good budget to be successful, as York have tested to destruction. I'm sure there was one season that we looked like we were headed for relegation, Kingy came in and we ended up finishing 10th! I must say though, 'Cote did well to do what he did at a time when he did not have an assistant manager for a spell, and a total staff budget of 1,800 pounds per week.

(P.S. I like a nice drink of lemon barley, they should sell it at the snack bar I reckon!).

Surprised it didn't happen before to be honest, though sackings of managers do seem to happen to often. If all the struggling teams sack managers, there will still be three teams going down at the end of the season.

That story about their chairman joining the fans reminds me of a recent story about the Forest Green Grass chairman, who chose to sit with the fans at Carlisle because of their shirt and tie policy in the boardroom - apparently when Carlisle visit the New Lawn, he is going to insist on a trainers and jeans policy in their boardroom!

Surely it must be our most Northerly competitive fixture ever, unless we played at Alnwick or possibly Morpeth  - probably unlikely with the way the Cup and Trophy are set up in the early stages.

It sounds like Ashington getting into the League was approximately equivalent to Mossley getting into the league - which of course presumably would have happened in 1979 if they had had the same ground grading rules as when Ashington got in (and automatic promotion).

On a side note, I'm glad to see that they've finally sorted step 4 out for this season, allowing teams to progress from the Northern League on a regular basis. The ones which have come up such as Marske mostly seem to be doing quite well and getting fairly decent crowds  - and on Saturday, Ashington (who I was slightly surprised to read used to be in the same league as us) got a bigger crowd than any team in the league above, and you've got Spennymoor Town now getting more than Darlington!. Hopefully this will strengthen the non-league game in the North of England going forward and allow more Northern League clubs to progress through to the National League in the future. Worth remembering Morpeth, who we played a few years ago, got the 4th biggest crowds in the NPL in 2019-20.