Marcus Bignot

Quoted from ginnywings

He was like a kid in a sweet shop when he came here.

Bull in a china shop!  

Absolute crackpot but we did, at times, play some really good football & he definitely had an eye for a player.

Quoted from jamesgtfc

I found it odd how Hurst signed Henderson, never played him and then signed him for Shrewsbury in League One where he was his undisputed number one. I think in Hursts' first spell, he had a lot of loyalty towards McKeown who had been his keeper for virtually all of his management career. The Paul Hurst that returned in December 2020 was much more ruthless in that regard.

im sure Hurst was only here for a month longer when he signed Henderson.


Bignot was a loose cannon, hopeless. he spunked the bogle money, Stevenage away we ended up with 5 strikers on the pitch

i never warmed to him, the 5-0 away at Crewe i'd made my mind up and wanted him gone, he treated the senior players at the club with little or no respect, cast Gowling aside and forced him to train with the youth

he was a nob

Quoted from Hagrid

im sure Hurst was only here for a month longer when he signed Henderson.


Bignot was a loose cannon, hopeless. he spunked the bogle money, Stevenage away we ended up with 5 strikers on the pitch

i never warmed to him, the 5-0 away at Crewe i'd made my mind up and wanted him gone, he treated the senior players at the club with little or no respect, cast Gowling aside and forced him to train with the youth

he was a nob

I thought Hurst managed Henderson here longer than he did admittedly but it turns out he signed for us on 31st August and Hurst was unveiled as Shrewsbury manager on 24th October. Let's meet in the middle on that one? 😜

My favourite Bignot memory is that weird media day he did where Mad Gav Gunning admitted to not even liking football and being more of a rugby man. Oh and his Head of Recruitment that was at "The BP" on a Saturday afternoon putting cones out instead of looking at prospective signings.

When you think about some of our recent managers it makes you even more thankful that we have Paul Hurst.

Quoted from aldi_01

At least you share something in common with Bignot…

Fette Schlange nickname is very similar to our thread subject.

Sadly Bignot was never allowed to reach his potential with us because of who appointed him and how he ran the show. No one had a chance under Fenty's stewardship. Hurst only achieved some measure of success in spite of him, not because of him.

Now we're seeing what Hurst can do when he's given a bit more trust and freedom.

I know there were some hammerings in there, but we never went on mad losing runs. Not long after we lost 5-0 at Crewe we beat much-fancied Mansfield 3-0. After losing to Donny we went and beat Blackpool away.

It was a bizarre moment in our history where nothing made much sense. On the one hand you had the revelation of Jamey Osbourne, the next you had Mad Gav Gunning!

There was no structure or ethos to the way he did things. From what I recall, he was under the impression that the season was basically a write-off and he had time to experiment with line-ups, formations and the rest, whereas the board claimed that was never agreed, and his haphazard way of doing things (and managing senior people within the squad) upset the applecart a bit too much and he was out the door as soon as Fenty realised he could bring his mate Slade back.

I remember going to our first home game with Bignot in charge. Think it was 2-2 v Barnet, we were 2-0 up but got pegged back, then Bogle missed a pen in injury time to win it (which would've been his hat-trick).

Considering what had come before under a steady Hurst stewardship, that game felt mental. We were very open and that made me nervous on the back of six years with Hurst!

People say he had an eye for a player, but theres more to recruitment than simply signing talented individuals. If you look at every player he signed, there are some question marks over them all in terms of character, what they've gone on to achieve since leaving us and a bunch of them were midlands based and didn't actually fancy the journey. Screams of a lack of due dilligence.

Adi Yussuf - looked ok, never really had a proper run in the team and has only played national League level since leaving. Now playing in Gibraltar at the age of 30.

Gav Gunning - the less said about him the better

Akwasi Asante - barely kicked a ball for us, was injured most of the time and has played national league north/prem level only since leaving.

Jamey Osborne - looked brilliant on his day, but had injury issues and didn't settle/like the travelling etc.

Chris Clements - actually looked a decent player creatively/attacking wise and scored 4 in 16. Had an alright lg 2 career after us though not played loads of games and is now playing at Nuneaton at the age of 32....was some utterings about character and being overweight from Slade, but on the other hand Clements mentioned he didn't get support after his mum passed away if i recall?

Sam Jones - Now he was a really good signing, though didn't look like he fancied it under Slade and barely kicked a ball after leaving us. Now seemingly retired from the game at the age of 30.

You missed out about a dozen central midfielders who were signed but then barely got a kick.

Forgot about loans, there was just Luke Maxwell who was a midfielder, as you say barely kicked a ball for us and has done nothing since part from play a handful of game for Solihull - now at Kidderminster.

The other you might be thinking about is Brandon Comley who was originally signed by Hurst

He did sign Callum Dyson on loan who was decent to be fair - had a good partnership with Sam Jones. Unfortunately retired from injury after signing for Plymouth after his loan with us.