NLP says...

Boro bosses are a credit to the game

The story on our back page this week paints another worrying forecast for one of Non-League football’s most storied clubs, with Nuneaton Borough facing the harsh reality of being liquidated if they cannot find new investment to keep the club’s pulse beating. The story has its usual complexities, but in short, with no chairman or board, the club is living off the scraps that it brings in from ticket sales and sponsorship deals. It is a situation crying out for local business investment, but I fear that ship has now well and truly sailed with little on offer in terms of appeal for a new owner or owners to come on board.

Under normal circumstances, I would say there was no hope, but Non-League football never ceases to amaze. In the case of Nuneaton, it is the management team of Nicky Eaden and Lee Fowler that offers cause for at least a smidgeon of optimism. The challenge that has been thrown at them, that of managing a club which appears to have little or no direction, would have seen many managers walking away long ago. But Eaden and Fowler, as manager and assistant, have dug in. They have been working round the clock; their professionalism has rubbed off on their players and their collective determination is inspiring them to have belief on the pitch.

I am told performances have improved; a perilous situation that has made a tight unit even tighter. Victory against FC United two weeks ago lifted Boro off the foot of the table and Eaden says they will just keep on fighting while there is life, however little, left in the club.

There are undoubtedly some very tough times ahead, but where there is a will there is certainly a way. Football drives me absolutely mad at times and I roll my eyes too often at people who think they have it tough when they don’t even know how to spell the word. But whatever happens to Nuneaton, their fans can take heart that in Eaden and Fowler, they have two bosses who respect the true values of what it takes to be a ‘team manager’.

It was nice to see Andy Hessenthaler taking the reins at Dover Athletic this week, even if the Whites’ gain is very much Eastleigh’s loss.

Hessenthaler has always struck me as a guy who will not cut corners when it comes to management. That’s why I was thrilled to hear his views in our interview with him (see page 9) where he slammed the idea that his players, who are fulltime, were only training two days a week. He has already started to identify the type of characters he needs to stay and fight it out as Dover look to climb out and away from the relegation zone, and they came within seconds of registering a superb three points on the road at Harrogate yesterday. Could this be the start of the Great Escape?

Andy’s all white for a Dover scrap