AB/PH comparisons

Quoted from White_shorts

Let's not forget Frank Womack.  He guided the club to fifth in the top flight in 1935 and an FA Cup semi-final in 1936.

I bet he was emotional.

Teardrops am guessing

Quoted from WOZOFGRIMSBY

I bet he was emotional.

Teardrops am guessing

I had to look it up but fair play!

Quoted from GrimRob

When Alan Buckley was sacked in 2000 he was 49. Hurst is 48.
Town had a miracle season 2 years before in 1998. Our miracle season was 2 seasons ago in 2021/22.
Alan Buckley originally came from non-league, as did Hurst - for their first spells.
Alan Buckley was in his second spell when he was sacked, so is Hurst. Both went off to "bigger" clubs and came back having failed.
Both got promotions early in their second spells.
Both managers were generally well-liked with a vocal faction that disliked them.

Of course, sacking Buckley was followed by a spiral downwards into instability, which has arguably only been turned around by Hurst.

How exactly was 1997/98 a miracle season? AB spent (very wisely) over £1 million before and during that season on Donovan, Groves, Nogan, Smith & Burnett. After that you would fully expect us to have a very successful season. What did our rivals spend that season? Apart from Fulham not very much.

And I don’t see how finishing 6th in the National League was a miracle in 2021/22. If anything I would say that final league position was a slight underachievement.

Like any employee AB had objectives and targets in 2000 which he failed to achieve and was sacked.

The same will happen at some point to Hurst whether that be this season or x seasons down the line. I can’t see anyone ever coming in for him, so inevitably his spell here will end with him being sacked.

Quoted from ginnywings

I think Pontoonlew has his tongue firmly in his cheek, which seems to have gone over the head of a few.

Arr , I was always the last one to get a joke , that seemingly has not changed .

Quoted from White_shorts

Pontoonlew was being sarcastic.  

In the 1990s, GTFC was considered second-tier, which helped to attract quality players to our outpost.  Since then, the likes of Hull, Reading, Swansea and Brentford have built smart new stadia.

Feel sad for the younger generation who didn't get to see the 90's teams , I was thinking about it earlier (I'm not sure Buckley was even manager all of the time , Laws for some of the games) .

But we were not just holding our own ,but schooling teams , really schooling them - the West Ham ,Luton and Leicester at home stick out in my mind from the cup - just blew them away ; even Villa & Chelsea we more than held our own against and could have beaten .

Games under the lights especially were special ,and there was something in the air at a packed out Blundell Park .

In the league we dominated teams at home most weeks really , away not so much .

I don't think we will ever see those days again but looking back it really was something ,that at the time we didn't quite realise how great it actually was for a decent stretch .

Quoted from GrimRob

When Alan Buckley was sacked in 2000 he was 49. Hurst is 48.
Town had a miracle season 2 years before in 1998. Our miracle season was 2 seasons ago in 2021/22.
Alan Buckley originally came from non-league, as did Hurst - for their first spells.
Alan Buckley was in his second spell when he was sacked, so is Hurst. Both went off to "bigger" clubs and came back having failed.
Both got promotions early in their second spells.
Both managers were generally well-liked with a vocal faction that disliked them.

Of course, sacking Buckley was followed by a spiral downwards into instability, which has arguably only been turned around by Hurst.

You forgot that under Alan Buckley we were never relegated but under PH we were.

Buckley never took over a side midway through a season needing to rebuild a toxic squad on a shoestring though did he?

Hurst made mistakes that season, no doubt about it.  But it was largely a poisoned chalice.  Hurst, Buckley, even Pep wouldn't have kept us up that season.

Quoted from diehardmariner

Hurst made mistakes that season, no doubt about it.  But it was largely a poisoned chalice.  Hurst, Buckley, even Pep wouldn't have kept us up that season.

There’s no doubt that Holloway and the then board made a needless hash of the summer of 2020, as well as the weeks that followed, but I always struggle to get my head around the idea we were a lost cause when Hurst took over. We were a mess, but a salvageable one.

In Holloway’s final 10 games he took 10 points (the same record we’ll have this season if we lose on Saturday). In his previous 9 games that season he’d taken 9 points, so averaging a steady point per game, and had us six points clear of the relegation zone. This isn’t a defence of Holloway by the way, I hate that cúnt almost as palpably as I love Paul Hurst. We were terrible. But there were several teams even more terrible than us, hence we we had never been in the bottom two at this juncture.

In Hurst’s first 10 games, we took just 4 points (0.4 PPG). In his next 10, that increased to 13 points (1.3 PPG), our best spell of the season in which we only lost 1 game. But it was too late; those first 10 games and too many draws in the next 10 killed us. As we beat Bolton at home at the end of that run, we still found ourselves 7 points and a massive goal difference swing from safety. We won 2 and lost 3 of our last 5, the final of which we were already down.

There’s no doubt that Hurst came in and tried to do the right things, to bring in better players and better characters. And to a large extent, he did (Stefan Payne the obvious exception). But he simply didn’t have the time or the points cushion to complete the kind of transformation he attempted, and what happened is history.

In a parallel universe he brings in fewer players and sticks more with what he had, and we stay up. But then we wouldn’t have had those memories…

Quoted from Poojah

There’s no doubt that Holloway and the then board made a needless hash of the summer of 2020, as well as the weeks that followed, but I always struggle to get my head around the idea we were a lost cause when Hurst took over. We were a mess, but a salvageable one.

In Holloway’s final 10 games he took 10 points (the same record we’ll have this season if we lose on Saturday). In his previous 9 games that season he’d taken 9 points, so averaging a steady point per game, and had us six points clear of the relegation zone. This isn’t a defence of Holloway by the way, I hate that cúnt almost as palpably as I love Paul Hurst. We were terrible. But there were several teams even more terrible than us, hence we we had never been in the bottom two at this juncture.

In Hurst’s first 10 games, we took just 4 points (0.4 PPG). In his next 10, that increased to 13 points (1.3 PPG), our best spell of the season in which we only lost 1 game. But it was too late; those first 10 games and too many draws in the next 10 killed us. As we beat Bolton at home at the end of that run, we still found ourselves 7 points and a massive goal difference swing from safety. We won 2 and lost 3 of our last 5, the final of which we were already down.

There’s no doubt that Hurst came in and tried to do the right things, to bring in better players and better characters. And to a large extent, he did (Stefan Payne the obvious exception). But he simply didn’t have the time or the points cushion to complete the kind of transformation he attempted, and what happened is history.

In a parallel universe he brings in fewer players and sticks more with what he had, and we stay up. But then we wouldn’t have had those memories…

You are right about Holloway overall but we made a reasonable start to Holloway's second season and had points in the bank, we then hit a wall and started to go backwards. We fell down the league quite alarmingly. So your stats are correct (probably, I haven't checked) but they mask what was happening on the pitch.
The poor run under Holloway seemed to coincide with the news that his mate (I think) had committed suicide and I always suspect that that had a far greater effect on Holloway than he let on.

Quoted from Poojah

There’s no doubt that Holloway and the then board made a needless hash of the summer of 2020, as well as the weeks that followed, but I always struggle to get my head around the idea we were a lost cause when Hurst took over. We were a mess, but a salvageable one.

In Holloway’s final 10 games he took 10 points (the same record we’ll have this season if we lose on Saturday). In his previous 9 games that season he’d taken 9 points, so averaging a steady point per game, and had us six points clear of the relegation zone. This isn’t a defence of Holloway by the way, I hate that cúnt almost as palpably as I love Paul Hurst. We were terrible. But there were several teams even more terrible than us, hence we we had never been in the bottom two at this juncture.

In Hurst’s first 10 games, we took just 4 points (0.4 PPG). In his next 10, that increased to 13 points (1.3 PPG), our best spell of the season in which we only lost 1 game. But it was too late; those first 10 games and too many draws in the next 10 killed us. As we beat Bolton at home at the end of that run, we still found ourselves 7 points and a massive goal difference swing from safety. We won 2 and lost 3 of our last 5, the final of which we were already down.

There’s no doubt that Hurst came in and tried to do the right things, to bring in better players and better characters. And to a large extent, he did (Stefan Payne the obvious exception). But he simply didn’t have the time or the points cushion to complete the kind of transformation he attempted, and what happened is history.

In a parallel universe he brings in fewer players and sticks more with what he had, and we stay up. But then we wouldn’t have had those memories…

It's very difficult to argue against the points picked up under Holloway and then those that Hurst didn't get, especially first of all.

But the only way I can try and describe it is that Holloway was in a moving car with his foot on the pedal that's motoring along ok, but ahead of it the road is about to end with a sheer cliff drop into the sea coming up.   As Holloway jumps out the car, Hurst jumps in with his first task of trying to perform an almighty doughnut turn  to keep us out the sea and also moving along the road at the same time.

Of course that turn is even harder because Holloway's crap is still in the car and it's impacting on the weight distribution of what Hurst is trying to achieve.

I don't think it's as simple a case that had we continued to do the same we would have continued with picking up a point a game and stayed safe.  The rot had set in and Holloway, the flipping charlatan that he was/is, got out at the right time.  Points are points, regardless of when you pick them up.  But his final seven games saw us win 1, draw 1 and lose 5.  That win came against a Scunthorpe side that were only saved from relegation by the fact that we ran out of time.

Holloway's last game in charge was the 2-1 home defeat to Bradford.  We went into that game with Montel Gibson and Ira Jackson Jr up  top, Elliott Bennett on the wing, Luke Spokes in midfield and Danny Preston at left-back.  It was only a few games previous that Holloway had dropped his first choice 'keeper for the goalkeeping coach, who then let a pea-roller through his legs away at Southend.