Alan Hardy is sitting in a meeting room at Meadow Lane, talking about all the dreams he had for Notts County. A flip-chart in the corner sets out the five 'Strategic Imperatives' he mapped out for the world's oldest professional football club when he bought it and saved it from liquidation two years ago. He made its fans a promise then. 'A new world starts today,' he wrote on Twitter.
There are red ticks against his initial targets. Off the pitch, the club has been revitalised. On it, it has withered.
So mainly Hardy talks about mistakes and regrets and failure. His failure. About an altercation with a fan on Boxing Day when the club he has tried to rebuild slid closer to the end of its unbroken stay in the Football League with a calamitous defeat at home by Macclesfield Town.
Alan Hardy took over as Notts County chairman five years ago and has bankrolled the club
But he admits mistakes and failures which have left the club bottom of the Football League
After investing around £5million in Notts over five years, Hardy is now looking to sell the club
'What are you going to do about it Hardy, what are you going to do about it?' Hardy recalls the man yelling at him as he sat in the directors' box. 'I thought: "I can't do any more. I'm giving it all the time I have, the finance, my heart's here, my effort. Please, what else do you want me to give? I've given my all".'
When he bought the club, Hardy thought it would be simple: he'd throw money at a dire situation and watch Notts rise. He had a five-year plan. He'd save the club from relegation from League Two in the first season and get them promoted in the second. Round about now, he figured they'd be pressing for the play-offs in League One. By the end of the 2019-20 campaign, he believed, they'd be in the Championship.
It hasn't worked out quite like that. The error Hardy regrets most was making an enemy of Nottingham Forest when, during a radio interview, he criticised their decision to recall a loan player. The supply of loans from Forest's academy dried up.
Hardy says he sacked Kevin Nolan as manager too soon at the start of this season. Harry Kewell, Nolan's successor, was a bust. Now, with Neal Ardley in charge, escape from relegation looks unlikely.
Last Sunday, with his club eight points from safety, Hardy was still smarting after reading a newspaper article that was sharply critical of his tenure when he became involved in a Twitter argument with a man who was also less than complimentary.
'He should sell up and **** off,' the man advised. 'Absolutely ruining Notts County. Cost them league status. I've no idea how that egghead dare go out in public in Nottingham.'
Hardy's time at Meadow Lane will be overshadowed by a social media gaffe last month
Hardy, who admits to being over-sensitive, noticed the same man had taken the trouble to wish him well on Christmas Day. The juxtaposition of the messages, a month apart, highlighted how fickle fans can be. So he set about posting both messages on Twitter to make his point. That's when technology bit him.
One of his screenshots inadvertently included his camera roll. Among the photographs on the roll was a picture of Hardy's penis, taken while in the bath. Social media fell upon the gaffe with glee. This is what football and the spotlight, can do to a person.
Hardy tries to explain. He and his golf mates have a habit of including a picture of where they are and what they are doing when they message each other, he says. Hardy was in the bath, he says. He got a message from a mate, asking him if he fancied a beer. He meant to take a picture of his legs and feet in the water, he says, but got his angles wrong. He realised his error and just sent a text, he says, but the picture remained on his camera roll and the rest is history.
So now he has a d**k-pic for an epitaph. Now he has put the club up for sale.
