2015/16 Prediction League; Game 26 v Notts County (home)

Div3North · 07-01-2016, 23:08

Accrington Stanley

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Notts County

2015/16 Prediction League; Game 26 v Notts County (home)

“Luton Town avoid calamity by not appointing Calamity”

For those who saw it, it seems that Luton - having sacked John Still, who promptly returned to the Daggers to replace the sacked Wayne Burnett who had replaced John Still when he (John Still) went to Luton (who have just sacked him, see above)

– were considering appointing, in his stead, former England leg end (sorry, legend

) David “Calamity” James as their new Manager. They didn’t, though – they’ve just appointed Brighton first-team coach Nathan Jones instead, thus (it might be thought) having avoided the calamity of Calamity ……….. Of Nathan Jones – who was once on Luton’s books, having signed from Merthyr Tydfil, but who made zero appearances for them - Luton CEO Gary Sweet said;

• “The board believe Nathan will modernise our club's football culture, blending the elements of our footballing heritage with a modern, forward-thinking philosophy. As a club we realise a change of thinking will not happen overnight, but we are already excited at the prospect of Nathan's ideas and vision for Luton Town."

Based on that, I gave him about four months

………………. And while we’re on “New Managers”, Newport say that their manager (John Sheridan) has not been the subject of any approach whatsoever by Notts County (who haven’t got a manager – see “Ricardo Moniz sacked” a couple of weeks back

), so he should be sitting in his office overlooking the River Trent in the next few days

………You heard it here first!

Their pre-season started spectacularly, with wins by 8-0 and 9-0 ……..it probably spoils it a bit if I then tell you that that was away to Arnold Town and Rolls Royce Leisure

, but you should never let statistics get in the way of a good story

…..they won twice more as well, but then played League teams (Port Vale away and the Iron at home) and they lost both of those 2-1 ……They haven’t fared too well in the Cups, either; beaten 2-0 by Salford on TV in the 1st Round FA Cup match

; they beat Mansfield 3-1 in the Football League Trophy, but then got thumped 5-1 at the Blades

; and in the League Cup they beat Huddersfield 2-1 away in Round One, before losing 5-3 at Villa in Round Two

. In the League they’re currently 17th (P24 W8 D6 L10 GF37 GA44 for 30 points and a -7 GD); they’re level on points with Exeter (GD -6) and Luton (see “Manager” above – GD zero), and one point behind Morecambe in 13th (31 points, GD +1) and Crawley (31 points, GD -12, which is the worst in the League apart from the bottom four

) ……..they’ve won twice in their last eight League fixtures (Nov/Dec/Jan)

, beating Newport (see “Manager” above) 4-3 and Barnet 4-2; against that, they’ve drawn against Morecambe and at Wycombe (two Desmonds, or – if you prefer – two 2-2s

(but not an arabesque in sight

)); further, against that, they’ve lost four - 2-1 against the Cobblers, 3-1 at Cambridge, 3-0 at Carlisle (well, at Preston but against Carlisle) and 4-2 at home to Oxford (who scored in the 90th and 92nd minutes, which is a real bummer

) ………… eight games, eight points, thirty-six goals in all ………………. Don’t think they can claim to be the form side of League Two, but the neutrals probably enjoy going to their games; where else do you average 4.5 goals a game!?

Now in their 153rd season, they came back to League Two at the end of last season, one of the victims of Colchester’s Great Escape

(although, with one point from their last 30, Colchester look a good bet to join them here next season!

) having finished two points below Colchester and Crewe, but with a better GD than both. They’d changed managers, having sacked Shaun Derry on 23rd March and appointed Ricardo Moniz (see “sacked” above) two weeks later ………..possibly in consequence of going down, 14 players left the club; they released six, including CB Hayden Mullins (Palace, West Ham, Pompey, Birmingham but currently, I think, club-less) and Sierra Leone international defender Mustapha Dumbaya, once of Donnie, Pompey (snap!), Crawley and Potter’s Bar Town , who then joined Partick Thistle ……six more went on free transfers, forward Garry Thompson going to Wycombe, DM Drissa Traore going to Swindon, and the other 4 going towards oblivion, joining Torquay, Lincoln, Halifax and Southport; finally, two left by MutualConsentingAdults, the better known being CF Billy Daniels, who joined Nuneaton …….

In came, believe it or not, 19 new players

; among them were CF Izale McLeod

, most recently of Crawley; ex Huddersfield and lots of others striker Jon Stead – one of the “nearly men” of football

; FB Gill Swerts (33), who was born in Brasschaat (we get plenty of that on the terraces

) and who has spent his entire career out of the UK (Feyenoord, Vitesse Arnhem, AZ Alkmaar, NAC Breda) added his name to the school register; so did Surinam-born LW Genaro Snijders, who left OSS – a Dutch League Two side which was previously known as TOP, then TOP-OSS – arrived in the Midlands; and Ghanaian/Belgian born Stanley Aborah completed the immigration flood, Notts Co being his 10th club (the others including Ajax, Den Bosch and Ferencvaros - Puskas’s

team in Hungary, if I recall). Aborah has previously been on the books of Gillingham, back in 2010; he played one game, it seems ………. They also had a couple of loanees, the better known being Nick Barmby’s son Jack (21), an attacking MF who came, presumably saw, and might have conquered for all I know

, but who’s now gone back to Leicester.

In Modern Times (post 31.7.2006) we’ve met twice in the FA Cup (2011, when we lost 4-1, and 2014, when we won 2-1 after a half-Desmond at Meadow Lane); in the League, we lost both games in 2006/07 (3-2 and 2-1) and both games in 2007/08 (2-0 and 1-0); in 2008/09 we shared the spoils – two one-all draws; in 2009/10 we won 2-1 away, and lost the reverse fixture 3-0: and back on 22nd August 2015 we drew 1-1 again (Matt Crookes equalising on 90 minutes) …………. Won one, drawn three, lost five ……….. pants!

If you add the Cup games to the League games, their record is P29 W10 D6 L13 GF46 GA58 (they’re conceding two a game

………..) Leading scorers are the aforementioned Izale McLeod with 8, the also-aforementioned Jon Stead with 6, and Liam Noble (24, ex- Sunderland and Carlisle) who has 8 goals and two red cards ……………

Second on their all-time goal-scorer’s list is Tony Hateley, immortalised in the song, “Have I told you Hateley that I love you?”

with 114; on the “most appearances” list is Scotsman Don Masson, whose name you may remember, with over 450; in the last three years they’ve had four full-time and two pairs of caretaker managers; they won the FA Cup in 1894, beating Bolton 4-1 at Goodison Park (and didn’t win it in any other year); their record League win was 11-1 against Newport in 1949 (and now they’re thinking about pinching their manager!); and their record Cup win was 15-0 against Rotherham Town in 1885; they have a performance analyst called Craig Cope (don’t know the name of their kit man); Juventus, looking to change their pink shirts

which faded in the wash

, took advice in 1903 and settled – through a friend of an English player they had, it seems - on Notts County’s black and white stripes (you can guess who the friend supported!); it is claimed that

• “Juve have worn the shirts ever since, considering the colours to be aggressive and powerful"

So now you know!

Deadline for entries is, as always, scheduled kick-off time, which is 3.00pm on Saturday 9th January ……………..They have, recently, 8 points from 8 games, several thrashings, and a habit of conceding goals a-plenty; let’s see if we can tap into that, shall we Lads? Don’t forget, there look like being two starting spots in the line-up in the not too distant future up for grabs! First player to 30 goals gets to start up front next season!

Good luck to everyone!

………….. Keep the Faith!

(Keep the Players, come to think of it

) ……….. And thanks for playing!