Jolley Appreciation Thread

This is a thread for happy memories. Highlights for me were the home win against Notts County, and strangely the defeat at Palace, so tense for 85 minutes just waiting for the inevitable goal and not daring to believe. I was so proud of the team that day how they held on for so long with 10 men.

As an exile, I loved the improved connection between the club, manager, fans and community. I loved seeing someone clearly intelligent responding to questions and acknowledging the good and the bad in our performances. I loved the confidence that gave me in our long term future, even if the short term was rocky. I loved the promotion of youth, and use of loans to help bring players on. I loved having a manager who's mistakes are those of inexperience, rather than incompetence or stupidity.

I never expected huge, immediate improvement, and I absolutely expected some major set backs with such an inexperienced manager, but I was enjoying the ride, and hoped to enjoy it for much longer as he, and we, improved and learned together.

Absolutely gutted.

Thanks for keeping us up when we looked doomed.

Thanks Micheal Jolly for turning things around, I thank you for what you have done and wish you had a little more time.
Wishing you good look for the future unless you play against us of course.  UTM

Quoted from drbell

As an exile, I loved the improved connection between the club, manager, fans and community. I loved seeing someone clearly intelligent responding to questions and acknowledging the good and the bad in our performances. I loved the confidence that gave me in our long term future, even if the short term was rocky. I loved the promotion of youth, and use of loans to help bring players on. I loved having a manager who's mistakes are those of inexperience, rather than incompetence or stupidity.

I never expected huge, immediate improvement, and I absolutely expected some major set backs with such an inexperienced manager, but I was enjoying the ride, and hoped to enjoy it for much longer as he, and we, improved and learned together.

Absolutely gutted.

my thoughts entirely.many thanks michael, and i wish you happiness and success in whatever you choose to do next

Thanks Mike, good luck for the future, you tried but you hadn't got what it takes to manage Town, I'm sure you will be  success elsewhere.

I don't know what your payoff will be but hopefully enough to buy a razor and an iron for your shirt collar ready for your next interview at RBS or Lloyds

Quoted from Ipswin

I don't know what your payoff will be but hopefully enough to buy a razor and an iron for your shirt collar ready for your next interview at RBS or Lloyds

Have a day off.

Will always be grateful that we never dropped back down to the National league in his 1st season.

Seemed like a good guy who connected with the fans well.

Good luck to him in the future pretty sure we will see him back at BP against us in the future!

All I can say is thanks for the last 10 games of 2016/2017 and keeping our league status...thanks for the palace experience and giving our youth a chance.
Nice try MJ, you dipped your toes into managing an EFL team and gave it a go, unfortunately your lack of experience and inability to learn from mistakes cost you your job
If I could give you any advice, look at this opportunity you are given, disect where it went right and wrong and do something you never did whilst here...learn from your mistakes...

Yeah, thanks MJ for keeping us up when we looked doomed and for steadying the ship.

Good luck for the future.

Whatever peoples views on him now are, he does deserve credit for keeping us up when he first came in.

The repercussions if we'd been relegated to non-league again would've been disastrous.

After 6 years last time, I dread to think how long it would've taken us to recover and get back up again.....if at all.

For an appreciation thread a lot of the x men are out and about ( though Swin deserves his of course for his vitriolic swipe at MJ.....as Johnny Boy once said, just couldn't help himself    )

My appreciation goes first and foremost to keeping us up after those dark days at the start of 2018... we were doomed until his efforts turned around the sinking ship with the icing on the cake being the Matt winner against Notts County

Last season there were highs and lows... of course there would be with a club that lacks any real direction and ambition

Against the odds though we had a great run in the cup.... a stand out performance in the first round and then two away days that allowed the travelling Black & White Army to express our passion for the club

The home league game against Tranmere was a stand out for me too... struggled to get to the game but made it just after they'd taken the lead and then we put on a brilliant display

This season's 5-2 at home to Port Vale was almost as good.... even during that game though there were cat calls questioning what MJ was doing. Maybe the writing was on the wall because he clearly never won over ALL the fans

Chelsea away and the Matt Green goal will live with me for a long time...then his team followed up that game by claiming the last victory he would oversee. The FL team of the week award he got was richly deserved

"In Jolley we trust" was something I bought into.... maybe I was looking through Black & White specs but I still believe there was better to come.

We'll never know of course but for all those who wanted him on his way, as they say, just be careful what you wish for

UTM GTID ATAW

Quoted from gaz57

Thanks Micheal Jolly for turning things around, I thank you for what you have done and wish you had a little more time.
Wishing you good look for the future unless you play against us of course.  UTM

I can't see him pulling his boots on in the future!  

Quoted from gaz57

Thanks Micheal Jolly for turning things around, I thank you for what you have done and wish you had a little more time.
Wishing you good look for the future unless you play against us of course.  UTM

Had he turned it round that much. I thought his record of winning points was similar to Russell Slade.

Will always appreciate him keeping us up and away days at Palace & Chelsea but, in reality, the promised development hasn't happened and the seeming improvement in the squad hasn't brought the results that threatened.

I can't put my finger on what might have happened but I'm sure we'll soon find out. He hasn't been the club's best manager but he certainly hasn't been the worst.

Wish him well for the future.

We would be in the national league (probably North) if it wasn't for him

Thank you Michael
Harsh sacking imo
But that’s the football world

For giving youth a chance.

Michael Jolley's achievement of keeping us up in 2017-18 cannot, in my opinion, be overstated. When he took over, we looked like a dead team walking. We had done for months. To turn it round from the position we were in deserves enormous credit and continuing gratitude from all associated with our club. Had we gone back into non-league football again, I dread to think what the consequences might have been.

On a more personal note, some of the football I've seen from us in the past year or so (the 5-2 against Tranmere, the Palace cup game and others) have been a source of real comfort to me during some very difficult times. For that, I will always be grateful to him.

Thanks MJ for keeping us up when we looked doomed.

I hope you get another chance as a manager somewhere but look back what you have not done well and learn from your mistakes and you will do ok.

Palace away - I really thought after that we had something special going on.

Good on the bloke he saved us from the drop.

Good luck to him.

Agree with most of what’s been said.

Sad that the little red crossing brigade took their fingers off their tiny little dicks to express themselves in their usual fashion.

As others have said without him we would be non-league. The relief of scoring that last minute penalty against Chesterfield was incredible. Had we lost that game there's a good chance we would be where they are now. Anti-Fenty feeling was building at the time so JF should be forever grateful that he took a lot of heat off him. I don't think we were in danger of relegation this season with him in charge but with Fenty's history of recruitment I'm now not so sure.

I can’t quite believe we’re here so soon after the Port Vale home game. I thought we were challengers that day. And that was Jolley’s doing.

He left us in a better position and with a stronger, younger squad than he inherited. I don’t think you can ask for much more from an inexperienced manager with moderate budget. He goes with my best wishes, not many ex town managers I can say that about.

Good luck to the guy, came with little experience and left with plenty. 😎
UTMM

For those who do Twitter michael jolley 07 has his full statement and there are now nearly 200 tweets thanking him.don't think too many managers get sacked with that level of goodwill from fans

Slade would have got one tweet, with two words.

As others have said thanks for keeping us up in that first season. Really hard to imagine where we would be if that miracle had not been performed. A shame that it ultimately did not work out.

Some people forget how excrement we were when he came in. Slade and Fenty had put us in pole position for the drop and to be honest, the job MJ did to bail us out was superb. We were in a bad patch but I think Jolley warned the right to see out the season will a team he only assembled a matter of weeks ago.

Not only kept us up but in my opinion put us in a much better position for future success by clearing out the dross and converting an oversized squad of mainly past it journeymen into a balance of proven performers and promising young talent. And Moses Ogbu who I can’t categorise but is definitely not a past it journeyman.
I know that players like Hanson and Green have not fulfilled their early promise but I don’t think anyone can fault their effort, and based on early season performances it was looking very promising.
To those who say that he doesn’t learn from his mistakes I would point to the fact that he seemed to have addressed last season’s lack of pace and power with his summer recruitment.
Ironically I wonder if the lack of depth due to a smaller, higher quality, squad has bitten MJ on the backside by forcing him to play players out of position. Probably a bit of that and a lack of experience resulting in a temptation to experiment a bit too much.
Whatever the truth I would ask those saying he hasn’t taken us forward to think about which players he inherited that they would prefer to have over the current squad.
IMO a case can be made for pretty much every player in the squad apart maybe from Cardwell and Ring. When he took over I’d say there were at least half a dozen passengers and very few you would be enthusiastic about retaining.
And that’s about management, not coaching.
I was certainly not enjoying the performances of late but was hoping that the January window would give him the chance to use the Chelsea money to plug a few gaps and create a balanced squad.