Tommy Widdrington demonstrated footwork as fast as anything son Kai, a professional dancer on TV’s ‘Strictly Come Dancing’, could have delivered. Within 18 hours, Widdrington had left King’s Lynn Town and waltzed into the manager’s chair at Aldershot Town, replacing Ross McNeilly, who has returned to the Shots academy.
With the NL Full Time podcast’s team including Rob Worrall, BBC Radio Surrey’s Aldershot commentator and a lifelong Shots fan, we didn’t have to go far to get reactions to the events; however, as there are two sides to every story, we also sought the views of Greg Plummer, who covers the Linnets for the Lynn News newspaper.
Widdrington’s quickstep was deftly executed, and as with any dance move, the feeling was that it must have been rehearsed. Lynn chairman Stephen Cleeve, who is never shy of expressing a view, wasn’t impressed with his former manager’s foxtrot, so we tried to pull together all of the steps with the help of Rob and Greg.
Plenty was happening elsewhere too. In both of the Isuzu FA Trophy semi-finals, there were late, late goals, taking each tie to a penalty shoot-out, whilst in the Vanarama National League itself, Maidstone United became the first team to be relegated across the three divisions, and more look likely to follow over the Easter weekend.
The unexpected death aged 50 of Jason Turner, the chief executive of Notts County, shocked the football world and sent the Magpies into mourning. Everyone at the NL Full Time podcast wishes to add their condolences and good wishes to all those to whom Jason was closest.
Wrexham‘s financial results prompted plenty of discussions, both informed and ill-informed.
Fans of rival clubs were quick to seize upon the figures. To most people, debt equals bad, and certainly true that Wrexham has debt. The loans made to the club by the RR McReynolds Company do show as a liability but are only an issue as long as Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney don’t ask for their money back.
A situation of that sort has arisen elsewhere in the National League, and events affecting the future of York City are something that sadly just do not go away.
News that players and staff had been paid by the York City Supporters’ Trust (YCST), rather than owner Glen Henderson, broke on Friday.
YCST issued a statement saying that they’d stepped in due to Henderson’s refusal, something the chairman subsequently denied when releasing his own information.
YCST has been seeking a buyer for the club after Henderson intimated a desire to sell, after an acrimonious spell at the helm that began only last summer. Claim and counter-claim about the conditions being set by Henderson for the sale have cast doubt on whether anyone will step forward.
With YCST only having limited resources, i.e. not enough to cover running costs on an ongoing basis, the club are back in the kind of situation they thought they’d left behind when Jason McGill sold to Henderson via YCST.
Deep down, most supporters recognise that Wrexham appear to be in good hands, and that talk about the club being financially unsound is wishful thinking, designed to irritate. York City’s genuine financial uncertainties haven’t attracted the same kind of response. Fans acknowledge that their club could only be one ‘bad’ owner or a few poor decisions away from being in the kind of state the Minstermen find themselves.
The NL Full Time podcast is available weekly throughout the season, sometimes we even throw in a midweek special edition too, and all podcast episodes are available should you fancy a delve into our archive.
Find us on your preferred podcast platform; a selection of popular ones is below:
Spotify: spoti.fi/3n3luzg
Apple: apple.co/3GuyRj5
Google: bit.ly/3FAzqlm
Subscribe to us on iTunes or Spotify and follow and interact with us on social media: @NLFullTime on Twitter.
