Greg Abbott has returned to his role of assistant manager at Meadow Lane.
The vastly experienced coach was number-two to Sean Derry when we completed our fairytale ‘Great Escape’ from the League One relegation zone in 2014.
And he has now accepted Neal Ardley’s offer to replace Neil Cox, who’s taken the manager’s job at Scunthorpe United.
“I was quite happy being self-employed, helping clubs with some coaching, recruitment, acting as a consultant and things like that,” said Abbott. “But then Neal rang and asked me if I’d be interested.
“I’ve a lot of time for Neal – he’s one of the game’s good guys, so I wanted to come down and have a good chat with him to find out what the role would entail.
“When he showed me round and I heard him speak I’d almost made my mind up there and then - we didn’t even talk about contracts, I just said ‘Listen, let’s have a go. Let’s see if we can get this club out of this league and take it on to better things.’
“What’s happened at the stadium and training ground in the time I’ve been away is phenomenal. We’ve got a great base to work from and if you looked at the squad on paper, you’d say it wouldn’t look out of place in League One.
“As we all know, this is a ridiculously hard league to get out of but with our facilities, structure, support and squad we have a real chance of competing right at the top end of the table, which has got to be everyone’s aim.
“I loved my time here before – I made a lot of friends and really liked the area so I’m grateful to Neal and the club for giving me this opportunity.
“It’s a wonderful club and we’ve hopefully got some good times to look forward to.”
Ardley added: “Greg’s got incredible experience and standing in the game and achieved fantastic things alongside Derry when he was here before.
“He’s got a wealth of knowledge in terms of players, recruitment, coaching, management and assistant managing.
“It’s going to be a change – but change can bring positives, and I think Greg’s certainly going to do that.
“He has a huge personality and, with the strong characters we’ve got in the dressing room, I think he will help recreate the incredible atmosphere we had last season.”