ALL LEAGUE ONE & TWO REPORTS
start again on Monday. But on that day, you’re finished, done.’
Exeter are now top of League Two and have won nine of their first 12, despite having sold star striker Ollie Watkins to Brentford, teen prodigy Ethan Ampadu to Chelsea and Dave Wheeler to QPR.
Last November they were bottom of League Two and Tisdale, who after 11 years is the longest-serving manager in English football after Arsene Wenger, was given notice on his two-year rolling contract by the supporters’ trust, who own the club. They effectively saved the club in 2003 when it was football’s most bizarre bankruptcy, which involved a visit from Michael Jackson and two directors eventually convicted of financial irregularities.
Si nce t hen t he cl ub have rebuilt, initially under Eamonn Dolan, Alex Inglethorpe and then Tisdale, who took them back into the Football League where, after three seasons in League One they have become a respectable League Two club despite having one of the smallest budgets.
Then on November 19 last year Carlisle beat them with a goal nine minutes into injury time, leaving Exeter bottom of the league. ‘When you’re bottom there’s no choice,’ says Tisdale. ‘ When yo u ’ r e mid- t ab l e there’s a choice. You can put five games in and can go through the motions. If you’re bottom, if we stay where we are, we’re all losing our jobs. You have no choice in terms of your focus. I was saying in September and October: “This is the best bunch of players we’ve had for five years… the sadness is that they’re not fit.”
‘We had worked for three or four years to create some wealth [helped by the sale of Matt Grimes to Swansea and an FA Cup third-round tie against Liverpool]. Then you have a couple of years to use that. The sad- ness was that we had a heck of team. I kept saying it but people must have thought I was an idiot. I knew we just had to get most players fit and get the wheels turning.’
They brought in psychologist Mark Wilson to help stop the rot but what he found surprised him. ‘I went in expecting to find panic, tension and crisis management,’ he said. ‘But there was a belief in what they were doing and they trusted in what Paul was saying.’
After the Carlisle defeat they lost just one game in 17, taking them to the play- offs. ‘ We got this huge clean bill of health from February and we were just a juggernaut and got so close to promotion,’ says Tisdale. ‘But we had started so far back.’
Having endured such extremes of emotion throughout the season, the defeat at Wembley seemed like a setback from which they might not recover. ‘You have to disappear and find some space from each other,’ says Tisdale. ‘You do feel hugely down. But I had that when I won at Wembley as well. When we beat Cambridge in the Conference final, I felt the same. And when you’ve