Who Are The League Two Managers? No.17: Kevin Nolan (Notts County)

Although his managerial career is in its infancy, Kevin Nolan has a great career as a player behind him. Frequently cited as the best player never to win an England cap, he actually holds the record for the most Premier League appearances (401) without being capped. He also has the distinction of being the youngest manager in League Two.

A stalwart of Bolton Wanderers’ modern golden age (i.e. when they somehow managed to run up catastrophic debts of £174 million), Nolan built his reputation as a tough-tackling midfielder with a fine eye for goal. Indeed, Nolan was in at the start of Bolton’s renaissance, beginning his career with the club’s brand new academy and making his first team debut at the age of 17 in 2000. He became a regular almost immediately, making 33 appearances as Bolton won promotion to the Premier League via a 3-0 play-off final win over neighbours Preston in 2000-01.

Life in the Premier League got off to a great start, with Nolan scoring twice as Bolton topped the table with a 5-0 win at Leicester on the opening day. Bolton won the next two as well, but that was as good as it got, falling away to finish just 4 points clear of relegation. A personal highlight came on 20 October when Nolan scored his first Premier League goal in a 2-1 win at Old Trafford. Bolton finished the season with three successive defeats, and started the 2002-03 season with two more. Nolan scored again at Old Trafford in a 1-0 win in September, but the season was to prove another fraught one. Bolton went into the final day of the season out of the relegation places only on goal difference, and needed a 2-1 win over Middlesbrough at the Reebok to keep them up at the expense of West Ham, who could only draw 2-2 at Birmingham. A call-up to the England U21 squad was received in October 2002, although Nolan had to wait until February 2003 for his solitary appearance as a 62nd-minute substitute in a 1-0 defeat to Italy. He has not been involved with England since.

The narrow escape in 2002-03 sparked a run of four successive finishes in the top eight of the Premier League. The 2003-04 season hardly got off to the best of starts, with just one win from the opening ten games, but five successive wins in April and May carried them to 8th, their highest final league placing since 1960. The season also included an appearance in the 2-1 League Cup final defeat to Middlesbrough in February, but Sam Allardyce’s side had established itself in the top flight. The 2004-05 season was even better, with a sixth-place finish guaranteeing qualification for the UEFA Cup for the first time in Bolton’s history. Furthermore, Bolton finished just one solitary win short of a place in the Champions League. The 2005-06 UEFA Cup campaign saw Bolton reach the Round of 32 with wins over Lokomotiv Plovdiv and Zenit Saint Petersburg, with Nolan scoring in both. In the Premier League, another shot at Europe appeared on the cards until the distraction caused by Sam Allardyce’s connection with the vacant England manager’s job created a slump in form to finish eighth.

Nolan started the 2006-07 season as Bolton captain and led his side to UEFA Cup qualification for the second time with a seventh-place finish, one point ahead of Reading. Nolan also picked up the first red card of his career – after almost 300 games – in the local derby win at Blackburn in October. To finish on a statistical negative after such a comparatively good season, Bolton set a new English league record by completing their 68th top flight season without winning the title. The 2007-08 UEFA Cup adventure ended at the knockout stage, although Bolton secured a very creditable 2-2 draw away to Bayern Munich before exiting the competition. League form dropped dramatically, as one win from their opening thirteen games under new manager Sammy Lee left Bolton in the bottom three. As it transpired, they avoided relegation by a point from Reading – the second season in a row that one single point had been decisive over the Royals. Bolton’s bubble had burst, although the arrival of Gary Megson eventually led to a minor revival in 2008-09. Performances generally at the Reebok were not up to the expected standard however, and after criticism from some sections of support, Nolan joined Newcastle for £4 million in January 2009. His departure ended 10 years at the club in which he made 345 appearances in all competitions, scoring 50 goals.

Newcastle were struggling in 16th place in the Premier League, just two points clear of the drop zone, and without a win in seven games. Form did not pick up, and a meagre two wins from their remaining fifteen games saw Alan Shearer’s side relegated to the Championship after a 1-0 defeat at Aston Villa on the final day. Newcastle’s case for survival was not helped when Nolan missed four weeks through suspension following a red card against Everton. In keeping with their traditional yo-yo existence in the Football League, Newcastle bounced back to the Premier League at the first attempt with a record points haul of 102. Nolan’s best ever goals return of 17 in 44 games, including his first hat-trick at Ipswich, made him joint top scorer with his lodger Andy Carroll and earned him the Championship Player of the Year title.

Consolidation was the name of the game in 2010-11, The Magpies managed a mid-table finish after a difficult season which included another classic Newcastle FA Cup embarrassment, this time at Stevenage. Nolan was named captain and wrote himself into Tyneside folklore in October with a hat-trick against rivals Sunderland. In the summer of 2011, and with two years of his contract still to run, he surprisingly headed south to sign for relegated West Ham on a five-year deal. The attraction was undoubtedly the opportunity to play under Sam Allardyce again, who had just taken over at Upton Park. After a season-long battle for the championship with Reading and Southampton, West Ham had to settle for third place, but a 2-1 Wembley win over Blackpool in May 2012 took the Hammers back to the top flight at the first attempt. It was Nolan’s third promotion to the Premier League, and this time he was destined to stay there with no further relegations.

West Ham finished tenth in their first season back, with captain Nolan adding the third hat-trick of his career in a 4-2 win over Reading on the final day of the 2012-13 season. The hat-trick took him to ten for the season, the fourth season in a row the midfielder had reached double figures. His career began to wind down in 2013-14. Now into his thirties, the long-awaited England call had never come. To compound matters, two red cards in a month in mid-season led to a £100,000 fine and the removal of the captaincy. Five defeats in their last six games saw West Ham finish just seven points clear of danger. However, the 2014-15 season saw them enjoy their best start for many seasons, sitting in a Champions League place in December. By contrast, Nolan had fractured a shoulder in August and scored only one goal in an interrupted season. Supporters grew critical, and the writing was on the wall; at the end of August 2015, Nolan left West Ham by mutual consent.

On 21 January 2016 Nolan was appointed player-manager of the curious entity called Leyton Orient. If any writing was on any wall, Nolan was the fifth manager appointed by Italian owner Francesco Becchetti in eighteen months. Previous manager Ian Hendon had been sacked with Orient sitting eleventh, just two points off the playoffs. Nolan might have been forgiven for looking at his two-and-a-half-year contract and wondering whether two-and-a-half-months would be more realistic. He would have been almost right, because he was removed by Becchetti in April with Orient sitting eleventh, two points off the play-offs: exactly where they were when he arrived. Presumably Becchetti was desperate to see National League football at Brisbane Road, and Nolan was not going to deliver that.

Having left Orient completely in July, Nolan remained out of football until being named manager of another struggling club – Notts County – in January 2017. County were in such poor shape initially that Nolan could not even register as a player because of a transfer embargo on the club. County had just lost 10 successive league games which saw them plummet from sixth to twenty-second, just one point clear of the relegation zone. Nolan was handed the job by new owner Alan Hardy with one objective – to avoid relegation to the National League. Safety was achieved with relative ease, Nolan winning nine of his first sixteen games before things levelled off towards the end of the season.

Much better things were to follow in his first full season, with County getting away to a great start. An opening day defeat at Coventry was quickly forgotten as eight wins and a draw from their next nine games gave them a three-point lead at the top of League Two at the end of September. County sat in second place at the midway stage, but form over the second half of the season saw the automatic promotion dream slip to a place in the playoffs. Forty-four points were gained from the opening twenty-three games, but just thirty-three came from the second twenty-three, meaning that County finished fifth. Some dubious refereeing saw them lose heavily in the play-off semi-final to promotion-bound Coventry, and another season in League Two was guaranteed. County also enjoyed a run to the fourth round of the FA Cup, which ended with an 8-1 hiding at Premier League Swansea.

Entering the second year of a three-year contract, it is now unlikely that Nolan will appear as a player again despite remaining registered. Having invested substantially in the transfer market this summer, much will be expected of Notts County this season. Backed by a large support, County are certainly one of the bigger clubs in League Two and will be one of the teams to beat. More so than in his first full season, Kevin Nolan has all the tools he needs to make his mark as a manager, and promotion is certainly the objective at Meadow Lane.

Key:

P = Promoted; R = Relegated; SF = Lost in play-off semi-final; F = Lost in play-off final; PO = Won play-off final; D = Demoted.

Figures are league games only; cup matches and playoffs are not included.

League position shown is either the position at the end of the season or the position at the time of departure.

Writer: Scotimp