During my first two years as a sports journalist for the Nottingham Evening Post I managed to do something for Notts County that not even six years of blood, sweat and toil as a player could achieve. I guided them to two successive relegations.
It was not entirely my own fault. The players and management did their bit to transform Notts from a tabletopping First Division side (two games into the 1983-84 season) into a team humbled 4-0 by Brentford in front of 3,857 fans at Meadow Lane in the Football League's third tier (March 4, 1986).
In that respect, I have always been indebted to Larry Lloyd during his brief but unsuccessful tenure at Meadow Lane. It was a time when many of my former team-mates were still active in the pro game, for Notts or elsewhere, so it was not uncommon for people to inquire about my current status as a journalist and why any semblance of a playing career was now at an end so relatively soon.
If Larry was in earshot, and strangely enough he seemed almost ubiquitous when that question was posed, before I could even muster a mumble of a lamentable excuse the answer would be provided by the current Notts manager: "Lack of ability. That's right isn't it David?"
Well, given Larry's glittering prizes gained primarily with Nottingham Forest, it was difficult to argue, and given his expanding girth and frame back then, it was also unwise.
It's probably one of the reasons for Steak Diana Ross II, some sort of purgative endeavour to remind myself that I could at least kick a football in a straight line. Now and again.
Oddly and sad to report, the more I re-read some of the notes I made during my last two seasons with the Magpies, the more I could see that Larry's pithy barb contained more than an element of truth.
