I would like to think we could again,with Brian and Steve along side him.A touch romantic,i know,but you could do a lot worse.If we are to create youth links again,then Nigel fits the bill.
It could be viewed like academy football,were development of players is seen as the success and not necessarily the results.We would all have to be strong minded to stick with these principles because at our level of football results do become important.
It is a difficult blend to achieve,the mix of local talent with seasoned players.We tried it with Nigel but i dont think we gave it enough time.If we went down this route again,then we would have to give it time.
We’re only making plans with Nigel
We only want what’s best for him
We’re only making plans with Nigel
Nigel just needs these (Pritch and Brodie) helping hands
And if young Nigel says he’s happy
He must be happy
He must be happy
He must be happy, in this league…
With a view to promotion to the Evo-stick Premier of course, with a cunning blend of local youth and experience!!
Here for the Albion…we’re only here for the Albion!!
Eee eye eee eye eee eye oh, up the Evo-stick league we go…
I’m not sure if Nige would want to do it again after last time. He managed us at the wrong time, it would have been hard for any manager to create a squad in the aftermath of Vince leaving. Maybe somebody who knows him personally could give us more info on if he would be willing to?
Spoke with Chopper several times, doubtful would be my opinion. Personally he should have had the time Finley had. Nige would coach us out of this league
Love Nige to bits, but if he were still in charge i think we would be counting our wins on one hand. Brilliant coach, but just not manager material.
Nige went after 10 straight defeats. That’s not 10 games without a win, with the odd draw thrown in, it’s 10 losses.
I dont have the affection for Gary Finley that i have for Nige, but Gary never took us through a run like that. He got us exceptional wins at Marine and BPA. He brought in much much better players than we had under Nige.
I would love to see Nige associated with the Club again (he has turned out for the supporters team since leaving us), but not as manager.
Can’t believe what I’m reading here - Rose tinted glasses or what!
Firstly, Nige Deeley is a fantastic guy, and I believe an excellent coach, but his managerial record at Witton was unfortunately - appalling, and the selection of players on a very large budget was awful. Again I think he relied to much on his Assistant who brought in a lot of ex Leigh players. Where are they now?
To call it a knee jerk reaction after the worst losing sequence in the clubs history is laughable. Regrettable certainly but the board had no choice. If it had been anyone other than Nige they would have gone long before.
GF came in and had a huge task on to change most of the squad mid-season in an effort to stave off relegation by January (thats where we were headed under Nige). He did a fantastic job, until the business end of the season when a combination of the fallout with Black, along with Maylett and Lawless being bloody awful cost us our place in the Premier League imo.
JV got pilloried by many of the same people for ‘bottling’ the league twice - take a reality check and look where those teams that overtook us are now?
Would love to hear the opinion of the 'not so regular posters’on this subject!
I think Nige was a scapegoat at the time, the size of the task was underestimated and the club was in turmoil. Sir Alex or Mourinho would not have won many games with what we had!
Naturally as the manager he was in the firing line but I still believe that Nigel could have been part of long term solution. The are not many lifelong Wittoners with UEFA A Coaching Licenses and therefore it was losing his involvement totally that was the really sad part.
We need to rebuild from the bottom upwards and get some stability and longer term planning into the playing side of the club and I for one would love to see Chopper involved, but whether that bridge can be rebuilt yet is doubtful in my opinion (however Nige is a BIG man so he may be able to swallow his pride)!
Pritch is a similar concern for me, I think he would be a potentially fantastic manager for the club, he has seen it all, done it all, knows what we stand for and how to move us forward, but my biggest fear is the risk of it not working out and love affair ending badly.
…but nor would they have only been left with 2 players from the previous season. With only Pritch and Rod staying on the size of the task was huge. Pritch missed most of the start of the season through injury and in truth Rod didn’t play well at all in the early season.
It’s fair to say that a few of Nige’s signings were shocking, none more so than Gary Burke, however in pre-season you would have thought that Scott Willis and Mark Drew would have been more than capable!
Signing so many new players and expecting them to gel as a team was never going to happen, especially against some better prepared and tough opposition in the Unibond Prem. Nige also picked a poor assistant, the irony been he knew this and decided to make the change just before getting the sack.
Nige, is an exceptional coach and with more patience (less expectation) and better all round support in the role I think he would have built a stronger squad. The outcome was the same, we went down anyway and I would have rather gone down with Nige at the helm than Gary!
Nige’s squad included;
Smith; a decent enough goalkeeper at Unibond level and another at Newcastle
Gaghan; arguably one of the best players in Unibond North last season, 33 goal’s and Warrington supporters player of the year
Donnelly; just captained Newcastle Town, 113 points, 26 point lead, dropped 10 points all season
Schwarz; part of the Kidsgrove team to make the play-offs
Skelton; ever present in the Newcastle Town midfield during their amazing season
Lugsden; scored double figures for Buxton who featured 8th in the Prem
Building a team takes time and we must give the new gaffer a minimum of one complete season.
Yes and even if we had gone down with Nige at the helm we would have had more chance of getting back up again than with GF having to build ANOTHER whole new team. Oh and next season ANOTHER manager, ANOTHER whole new team, how many times!!!
So now your argument Rabbit is that it was a squad of good players that lost 10 games on the run? So again you would be asking questions of the manager!
Appreciate your point on having to build a squad from scratch, but this is non-league football and is a fact of life at this level. Did Gary not have the same problems last pre-season? He built a completely new squad in the summer (and another 3 during the season!!!).
Nige would have taken us down, probably never winning another game. And the outcome would have been that he would have gone in the summer, so he may as well have gone when he did, at least it didn’t get to the point where he was facing abuse week after week or facing the kind of feelings that Gary did for the last few months, Nige’s tenure was short and sweet (kind of). What i do regret is how it was handled, there should have been a bit more dignity. It was all very cloak and dagger.
The highlight’s of Nige’s reign were Prescot away and Bamber away in the cup i feel.
Finley never got any abuse at games - Nigels treatment at FC United was not nice and I doubt very much that he would ever want to come back here again.
Smith; a decent enough goalkeeper at Unibond level and another at Newcastle
Gaghan; arguably one of the best players in Unibond North last season, 33 goal’s and Warrington supporters player of the year
Donnelly; just captained Newcastle Town, 113 points, 26 point lead, dropped 10 points all season
Schwarz; part of the Kidsgrove team to make the play-offs
Skelton; ever present in the Newcastle Town midfield during their amazing season
Lugsden; scored double figures for Buxton who featured 8th in the Prem
Brilliant -
So to sum up - it included 5 players who dropped down to play at a lower level of football and one who is playing at the same level.
Add to that a number who have dropped off the radar, (Thacker,Ben Thornley, Settle, Willis) and the argument becomes ridiculous!
Rabbit you’re spot on with a lot of your posts, but way off the mark with this one I’m afraid!
Lets get a positive thread going instead and stop wasting our time talking about one of the poorest Witton teams there’s been.
The point, Mr Anonymous, is that the axe fell too quickly (think of it a bit like replacing Martin Jol with Juande Ramos - Jol has since gone on to prove what a good coach he is at both Hamburg and Ajax)
I agree that there is no point looking backwards but by the same token unless you learn from previous mistakes then you will likely do the same thing again. We opted to go for a coach whose approach was to sign mercenaries as they dropped down the leagues rather than stick with one that could actually coach and school players.
Unlike a few others I personally don’t believe that the entire responsibility for our disarray was down to Nigel and that he could have been part of the longer term solution rather than a scapegoat. If only a few of those that say what a great guy he is had of supported him rather than turning against him then maybe a way could have been found to keep him involved.
…and five of those six players will be playing at our level next season!
for god’s sake get real. yes nigel is a top man but he presided over witton’s worst ever run of games and the “football” played under him was totally abysmal. so let’s put an end to this topic for nigel’s sake.
Alex Ferguson always says that chairman never give managers enough time to build a side - who would argue with the master ?
Whoever comes in as manager is not going to have much money - it will probably be our lowest budget ever. So we must have patience and be prepared to stay in this league for maybe a season or two now.
Mr Wincham Rabbit (Is that what it says on the electoral register?)
…and five of those six players will be playing at our level next season!
Brilliant…
Which is still lower than the level we were competing at!!!
If we’d been building a team for Unibond North - which It probably looked like!! then the argument may have hade some credence, and lets dispel the other myth, we didn’t have a load of young players being schooled and progressing, a number of them were football mercenaries as you put it being paid very well.
Agreed, lets move on and hopefully learn by past mistakes - although whoever comes in would I am sure be shown the door after 10 straight defeats at any level of football.
