League 2 General Chat Thread

[Si Robin]

I think the most important thing was that we were a team from the ground up and not a collection of individuals only interested in self gain.

The fans bought into Gary Johnson and the board trusted that he knew what it took to get up. His man-management that season was phenomenal. He brought in experienced National League players who deserved a chance in the Football League and promised them at least a season if we did go up - the likes of Kyle Storer and Danny Wright - good players who'd played in decent teams but hadn't quite made that step up. He then supplemented it with some of the best loans I've ever seen at Cheltenham - Dillon Phillips, Rob Dickie and Cameron Burgess who have all played Championship football at least since then - and young players who were hungry like Jack Barthram, Billy Waters and Jack Munns.

Finally, when we needed that extra bit of fire-power up front, he brought in Dan Holman in January who was the best forward in the league that year. His signing basically confirmed promotion for us and it's criminal that he was unable to make the step up to League Two having broken his foot in pre-season and never really recovering.

The problem was, we were too loyal to those players and Gary Johnson started thinking he was bigger than the club. This meant a couple of years of struggle on promotion rather than pushing on and it all had to be completely refreshed again with Michael Duff coming in.

 

[Luke Imp]

Dan Holman, there's a blast from the past!

 

[Si Robin]

He picked up an injury in the last pre-season game but was allowed to play the first few games of the season anyway. He looked really lethargic in those games and it turned out he'd fractured a bone in his foot.

He simply never recovered from that - scored a couple of goals over the next 18 months then was loaned out to Boreham Wood. He struggled there and was let go and ended up retiring at something like 28, before playing for Gary again at Torquay a couple of seasons back, but as a shadow of the player he was.

 

[Son of Cod]

Even being one of the victims of Grimsby's play off epic I quite enjoyed it. A momentus effort across the games against us and Notts.

Coming from behind in the final against Solihull who we'd lost twice to in the league was also no mean feat. One of the most ridiculous parts of it all that barely gets mentioned is that we took McAtee off in normal time of all three matches. When we were losing at Notts, 4-4 at Wrexham when he'd been the best player on the pitch and when we were heading towards extra time himself having equalised in the final. Massive balls from Hurst to do that and bonkers that it paid off each time. I genuinely can't see that run ever being beaten in the NL playoffs in terms of difficultly of matches and effort exerted.

And yep, you lot have not exactly had a tough time since that happened either!

 

[GTFCfish]

Coming from behind in the final against Solihull who we'd lost twice to in the league was also no mean feat. One of the most ridiculous parts of it all that barely gets mentioned is that Hurst took McAtee off in normal time of all three matches. When we were losing at Notts, 4-4 at Wrexham when he'd been the best player on the pitch and when were heading towards extra time himself having equalised in the final. Massive balls from Hurst to do that and bonkers that it paid off each time. I genuinely can't see that run ever being beaten in the NL playoffs in terms of difficultly of matches and effort exerted.

And yep, you lot have not exactly had a tough time since that happened either!

Another thing McAtee did that never gets mentioned is in the final about 5-10 minutes to go he stops a certain Solihull goal, They have a free kick that hits our wall and deflects then their guy smashes it towards goal and McAtee sticks out a leg and deflects it wide, without that the force he hit and how close in he is there is no way Crocombe is saving it.
Don't think I've ever seen it mentioned but if that goes in were still in non league.

 

[Grimsby Road]

Another thing McAtee did that never gets mentioned is in the final about 5-10 minutes to go he stops a certain Solihull goal, They have a free kick that hits our wall and deflects then their guy smashes it towards goal and McAtee sticks out a leg and deflects it wide, without that the force he hit and how close in he is there is no way Crocombe is saving it.
Don't think I've ever seen it mentioned but if that goes in were still in non league.

loved it thay when we signed Mcatee in an interview that Scunny chairman said something like 'with all due respect Grimsby are a small non league club ' or something along those lines - funny how things turned out

 

[The_Viking_Magpie]

Ours was pretty sensational and dramatic tbf and of course a game less fun, frolics and great escapes but Grimsby's surely is the most dramatic and impressive NL playoff campaign.

 

[Son of Cod]

Another thing McAtee did that never gets mentioned is in the final about 5-10 minutes to go he stops a certain Solihull goal, They have a free kick that hits our wall and deflects then their guy smashes it towards goal and McAtee sticks out a leg and deflects it wide, without that the force he hit and how close in he is there is no way Crocombe is saving it.
Don't think I've ever seen it mentioned but if that goes in were still in non league.

Yeah I don't think that is even on the highlights on MarinersTV now that you mention it. There was an absolutely obscene Danny Amos tackle around the halfway line that went under the radar too, not match winning but I remember it really getting me going.

loved it thay when we signed Mcatee in an interview that Scunny chairman said something like 'with all due respect Grimsby are a small non league club ' or something along those lines - funny how things turned out

Was that still Swann or had the guy who loved a Facebook meltdown taken over by then?

Ours was pretty sensational and dramatic tbf and of course a game less fun, frolics and great escapes but Grimsby's surely is the most dramatic and impressive NL playoff campaign.

Yep, beating a local rival at Wembley is definitely also up there. Was a fun game to watch as a neutral, in all fairness.

 

[GTFCfish]

Yeah I don't think that is even on the highlights on MarinersTV now that you mention it. There was an absolutely obscene Danny Amos tackle around the halfway line that went under the radar too, not match winning but I remember it really getting me going.

Was that still Swann or had the guy who loved a Facebook meltdown taken over by then?

Yep, beating a local rival at Wembley is definitely also up there. Was a fun game to watch as a neutral, in all fairness.

I saw it on a vlog from a Solihull fan after the game with a brilliant view of it as I was filmed from right at the side of where it happened, I'll see if I can find it again.

 

[Grimsby Road]

Yeah I don't think that is even on the highlights on MarinersTV now that you mention it. There was an absolutely obscene Danny Amos tackle around the halfway line that went under the radar too, not match winning but I remember it really getting me going.

Was that still Swann or had the guy who loved a Facebook meltdown taken over by then?

Yep, beating a local rival at Wembley is definitely also up there. Was a fun game to watch as a neutral, in all fairness.

Yeah it was Swànn , the dodgy Dave guy who came after and had lots of different names is now getting involved with Matlock Town somehow .

 

[jacobncfc]

We’re losing our recruitment man Richard Montague to Swansea, becoming their Director of Football.

Bit of a blow as he’s done a fantastic job, but it’s very hard to know how much of it is him and how much of it is the data and algorithms he’s working with, which obviously comes from our owners’ company.

 

[The_Viking_Magpie]

I'm upgrading that to more than a bit of a blow. He's been very good.

Only last month our part time head coach loses his assistant and one of his coaches and now he loses his head of recruitment. If Maynard gets us promoted after all this he's manager of the season without a doubt especially after all the justifiable concerns before and during the season.

If it isn't players, head coaches it now key back from staff who are being poached. You know you are on a good thing when this becomes all too regular#compensationagain

I hope we have someone suitably qualified to press the super computers buttons with next season in mind whichever league we are in#radar

 

[RavenBish]

Certainly not good news given how good our recruitment has been since him and the weird brothers joined but because they coincided it’s tough to assign the glory to anyone in particular.

The hope is he was just the human face to some algorithms and processes that produced the results, the fear is that he’s the main cog in the system. I guess we’ll find out next January when we do or don’t sign a big powerful African striker from Scandinavia

 

[Optipez]

We’re losing our recruitment man Richard Montague to Swansea, becoming their Director of Football.

Bit of a blow as he’s done a fantastic job, but it’s very hard to know how much of it is him and how much of it is the data and algorithms he’s working with, which obviously comes from our owners’ company.

I think it's an enormous blow. Loads of clubs use data analysis but you still need an eye for a player and Richard Montague has made a huge amount of good calls.

 

[RavenBish]

That’s the worry, my understanding is that football radar effectively comprises of a data science team which provides the modelling (never really been able to parse how sophisticated this is from a machine learning perspective but I’d imagine it’s pretty decent) and then an analyst department who are effectively nerdy bedroom scouts who provide the qualitative data to train it - Montague basically oversaw the latter - will be really interesting to see how it plays out

The fact he’s left immediately after January is probably a good sign this has been in the works for a while and it was a timing piece

 

[Bianconeri 1862]

Don't worry folks, I bet the super computer is churning out a short list of replacements as we speak

 

[The_Viking_Magpie]

I think it's an enormous blow. Loads of clubs use data analysis but you still need an eye for a player and Richard Montague has made a huge amount of good calls.

We used to use the Rothmans Football Yearbook and a Tombola.

Some still do.

 

[Scum.]

Well, our new owners and new CEO are certainly looking to make their mark (or at least distract from the on field shit show), by offering our Season Ticket Holders the chance to vote on three evolved badges (or keep our current one).

https://www.mkdons.com/news/2025/february/13/your-club-your-crest-vote-now/

Probably should be in the tinpot thread as they're all yucky and almost certainly took the total of 1 minute of AI time to generate.

 

[valefan16]

Well, our new owners and new CEO are certainly looking to make their mark (or at least distract from the on field shit show), by offering our Season Ticket Holders the chance to vote on three evolved badges (or keep our current one).

https://www.mkdons.com/news/2025/february/13/your-club-your-crest-vote-now/

Probably should be in the tinpot thread as they're all yucky and almost certainly took the total of 1 minute of AI time to generate.

View attachment 21597

The left hand badge looks like Man City, the middle Burton and the far right Inter Miami in style!

 

[GTFCfish]

Well, our new owners and new CEO are certainly looking to make their mark (or at least distract from the on field shit show), by offering our Season Ticket Holders the chance to vote on three evolved badges (or keep our current one).

https://www.mkdons.com/news/2025/february/13/your-club-your-crest-vote-now/

Probably should be in the tinpot thread as they're all yucky and almost certainly took the total of 1 minute of AI time to generate.

View attachment 21597

They’re all shit.

 

[Scum.]

The left hand badge looks like Man City, the middle Burton and the far right Inter Miami in style!

This was mentioned on our forum too! I reckon we will end up keeping the original badge as the only one that got any love at all (and love is probably too strong) was the third one.

How about this one...

 

[JJ1990]

Another home game moved for an early Saturday kick off as Doncaster on the 15th March to 12:30pm. That now means that should the inevitable happen and Port Vale 2 weeks after that get moved for TV also, which it almost certainly will do, in a 12 game between Notts County in mid-November and Cheltenham in mid-April, we'll have played 2 home games at 3pm on a Saturday!

This new TV deal is fantastic, how many more years are we locked into it for?!

 

[kieran_vale]

Another home game moved for an early Saturday kick off as Doncaster on the 15th March to 12:30pm. That now means that should the inevitable happen and Port Vale 2 weeks after that get moved for TV also, which it almost certainly will do, in a 12 game between Notts County in mid-November and Cheltenham in mid-April, we'll have played 2 home games at 3pm on a Saturday!

This new TV deal is fantastic, how many more years are we locked into it for?!

It’s really shit isn’t it? Todays game with Notts I am expecting their away following will be suppressed significantly as there won’t be a train home for those of their fans who would have preferred come that way. I fully expect Crewe v Vale to be a midday job as well. One small saving grace is we play Barrow the midweek before that game so at least it won’t be a Thursday night. But then again who cares what the fans think.

 

[JJ1990]

It's a bit of a scheduling nightmare for both Sky and Staffordshire police. I was convinced that game would be moved to either a Thursday or Monday slot, but as you said you are playing the Tuesday before and we're all playing the Tuesday after, so that rules out moving it from the Saturday, unless they dare to make it Friday evening, which would be hilarious, but I doubt they'd do that.

However, the difficulty in leaving it on Saturday is Stoke play QPR at home that same day, so does a 12:30 kick off make sense when 2,200 Vale fans are potentially going to be arriving back in Stoke around the same time 20,000 Stoke fans and 2,000 QPR fans are heading to the Britannia, assuming that game doesn't get moved.

I think the most likely scenario is Stoke v QPR gets moved to either the Friday or Sunday to avoid these issues. But if it doesn't, then what do they do?

 

[valefan16]

It's a bit of a scheduling nightmare for both Sky and Staffordshire police. I was convinced that game would be moved to either a Thursday or Monday slot, but as you said you are playing the Tuesday before and we're all playing the Tuesday after, so that rules out moving it from the Saturday, unless they dare to make it Friday evening, which would be hilarious, but I doubt they'd do that.

However, the difficulty in leaving it on Saturday is Stoke play QPR at home that same day, so does a 12:30 kick off make sense when 2,200 Vale fans are potentially going to be arriving back in Stoke around the same time 20,000 Stoke fans and 2,000 QPR fans are heading to the Britannia, assuming that game doesn't get moved.

I think the most likely scenario is Stoke v QPR gets moved to either the Friday or Sunday to avoid these issues. But if it doesn't, then what do they do?

It’s got Sunday kick off with the Tuesday games moved to Wednesday or Friday night written all over it.

 

[Si Robin]

Our trip to Swindon has been moved, ruling me out of being able to go. My son is gutted!!

 

[Optipez]

It’s really shit isn’t it? Todays game with Notts I am expecting their away following will be suppressed significantly as there won’t be a train home for those of their fans who would have preferred come that way. I fully expect Crewe v Vale to be a midday job as well. One small saving grace is we play Barrow the midweek before that game so at least it won’t be a Thursday night. But then again who cares what the fans think.

Think we'd have taken 13-1400 to yours if it was this Saturday.

 

[Alan Partridge]

Well, our new owners and new CEO are certainly looking to make their mark (or at least distract from the on field shit show), by offering our Season Ticket Holders the chance to vote on three evolved badges (or keep our current one).

https://www.mkdons.com/news/2025/february/13/your-club-your-crest-vote-now/

Probably should be in the tinpot thread as they're all yucky and almost certainly took the total of 1 minute of AI time to generate.

View attachment 21597

Shouldn't take too long to count all 5 votes, anyway!