When the Reedtz brothers took over from Alan Hardy in July 2019, Notts County were in a deep mess. The world’s oldest professional club had just been relegated to non-league for the first time in its history, were due in the High Court for a winding-up order and the financial issues had left Notts unable to sign players that summer.
To say that it was a step into the unknown is an understatement. Alex and Chris Reedtz were aged 31 and 36 respectively, had built the analysis company Football Radar but had never been involved inside the game like this. They had taken on one of the biggest challenges in English football: rebuild a historic club that had long since allowed the weeds to strangle all positivity.
Since then, extraordinary work. Notts took four seasons – and three failed play-off campaigns – to get out of the National League, latterly recording 107 points behind AFC Wrexham. For the last four seasons in a row they have finished in a higher position than the last and that is likely to be five come May.
Notts are a point off the automatic promotion places in League Two. Only twice since 1981 has this club managed automatic promotion. It would be a magnificent early legacy.
Notts County became a test case for Football Radar’s data analysis and database. In raw terms it helps determine who to sign and when to sell, but broadly it helps to work out how to best extract value from the playing budget. They know that this is no exact science. But they firmly believe that the proprietary nature of their data can give them an advantage.
The key bridge between owners and the coaching staff is Richard Montague, the director of football who worked with Alex and Chris for a decade at Football Radar. Montague left Notts County for the same role at Swansea City in February last year but is now back at Meadow Lane and delighted to continue his work.
Some people have perceptions of how data can be overused in football. They suppose that the humanity of football, its emotional relationships, sit outside the remit of numbers and thus “the data guys” can fall down on that point. Which is where Montague comes in.
“I think the really challenging thing for clubs to do well is that it’s so hard to not let emotion get in the way of decision-making and yet you cannot ignore the significance of emotion,” he tells The i Paper.
“What Chris and Alex work incredibly hard on is making sure that those of us who help them make decisions try and think in the same way as they do: try and reduce bias in decision-making as much as you possibly can.
“Data is such a catch-all term for something that powers so many of our industries now. The people who do that best are the ones who can marry that cold, rational, objective data with real-life situations and try and pick the way through those to get the perfect marriage. Football presents a unique challenge within that because you have players, managers, coaches and supporters who all play into the human aspect.”
Talent identification and player trading lie at the heart of the ownership model, but the real legacy here is sustainability. The Reedtz brothers are not fabulously wealthy by English football standards. Notts County have the highest average attendances in League Two, which helps.
The owners want to be here for a long time. They are as desperate as supporters for the obvious markers of success – promotion – but sustainable success is the only real success because it is the only way this can last into the long term.
That is what some of the conjecture about data-driven decision-making can miss: it is not just about who you buy, but how the money gets spent. At Meadow Lane, the improvements are significant: new fan zone, new pitch, new electronic advertising boards, refurbished hospitality areas, padel courts (the first in the area and thus ahead of the curve), a new PA system.
The Nest is a vast new supporter hub – big screens, bars, tables – that hosts home fans on matchdays but also away supporters when Forest are at home and hundreds of non-footballing events annually that creates income during the week and off-season. Find new, innovative ways to generate revenue and you can increase the playing budget. Last year, the brothers waived a £10.8m loan from Football Radar that allowed Notts to register an annual profit. These are the marks of their commitment.
Sustainability is not easy; breaking even is almost impossible if you want to move forward. This has been a brilliant season for balance sheet overachievement in the EFL, with Lincoln City and Bromley top of their respective divisions, but Montague is acutely aware that the landscape incentivises overspending. It takes effort to persuade all football supporters against keeping up with the Joneses.
“It’s a really interesting time to be talking about lower league football,” he says.
“Like: what is it for? Should people care that owners are losing three or four million pounds a year to stay in League One? I don’t know, but it feels important to me anyway. We need to work out what and who the English pyramid is for.
“If you aimed to break even, even as a regular-sized club in League Two, you would be probably tying yourself to a very low playing budget relative to your peers. I do think it needs a bigger conversation about what we are happy with. I think it’s pretty clear that the way it’s set up currently, it just encourages teams to spend more and more on wages.”
Whatever happens between now and the end of May, I reckon Notts County are in good hands. Two Danish brothers who were obsessed with football and found their own niche decided to take the plunge. Some, in 2019, feared that their club was being used as a plaything or a petri dish for a data system. Alex and Chris have done everything since to show that they have submerged themselves in the culture of this club and its community.
Promotion would be a significant statement: Notts County back in the third tier after more than a decade, the years before the dark days. But it matters and does not matter. Home attendances are higher than they have been since the early 1990s. The community arm is being allowed to do magnificent work and has been brought closer to the bosom of the club. The team is playing well, the aim is to play decent football and score goals and none of that has been built upon sand.
As a resident of this city and a supporter of its other club, that brings me joy too. For too long Notts County was a punchline, the historic club for whom the present was grim and the future looked worse. Now Notts County can be proud of what it represents again, thanks to Chris, Alex, Richard and all that they are working towards. And that is just about all you can ask for.
from Football - The i Paper https://ift.tt/ykfZtm0
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