Comment on Paul Carden's return to Warrington Town

And that stretches way beyond the new additions to the ground.

Still, his familiarity with how things run at the club has ultimately been the deciding factor in chairman Toby Macormac’s decision to bring him back.

> FULL STORY: Paul Carden returns for second spell as Warrington Town manager

In order to protect the club’s future, he has felt it necessary to delve back into its past.

When Mark Beesley’s departure was confirmed, there were plenty of Town supporters citing this as an opportunity for a fresh start and new ideas.

Bringing back the man under whom their now departed manager served as assistant for five years before replacing him in 2021 in a strange moment of circularity does not quite fit that bill and as such, there will no doubt be plenty who will take some convincing.

Paul Carden and Mark Beesley - the man he is replacing as Town manager - worked together for five years at Cantilever Park between 2016 and 2021, with Beesley serving as Carden's assistant manager (Image: John Hopkins) Detractors will cite their new/old manager’s body of work since leaving the club as evidence for their stance – his last experience of the league he now finds himself in saw him leaving AFC Telford United rock-bottom, albeit having turned around a pretty desperate position in the previous season to survive relegation.

He also could not save Nantwich Town from dropping out of the Northern Premier League Premier Division in 2023 – again with the caveat that he did not arrive until February – nor get them back into it last season.

There will be stories behind all of that, but they are the bare essential facts that those unconvinced parties will turn to.

However, a closer look at Macormac’s words in terms of what he was looking for from his new manager join up the dots.

A manager with experience in the National League North who is undeterred by budgetary constraints, is well-connected in terms of recruitment and perhaps most pertinently of all, would understand, accept and appreciate the unique way in which the club works in comparison to its divisional rivals.

When all of that is considered, all signs pointed to Carden and his return starts to make a lot more sense.

As the chairman stated, this is not a time for taking gambles with the club’s future and Carden represents the safest pair of hands.

He is familiar with a large portion of the squad and even signed plenty of them. Dan Atherton, Evan Gumbs, Bohan Dixon, Jay Harris, Matty McDonald, Matt Grivosti and Josh Amis were all first brought to Cantilever Park by Carden during his first spell in charge.

And it must not be forgotten that, while he may not have been the man to ultimately lead the club to the promised land, his first spell cannot be judged as anything other than a success.

In any other season, the play-off final win at South Shields he helped to mastermind would have brought promotion four years earlier than it actually came, only for defeat in a one-off ‘super play-off.’

Carden celebrates the 2019 play-off final victory at South Shields (Image: John Hopkins) Macormac himself is on record as saying that, were it not for that never-before-seen, never-to-happen-again quirk, he is adamant that the club would be operating at a level even higher than where they are now.

His Yellows teams were notoriously hard to beat and rock-solid defensively – having kept only one clean sheet this season while leaking some alarmingly soft goals in the process, the current Town vintage could use some of that steel.

If Carden can implement that while bringing about a level of threat that brings potency out of the undoubted attacking talent at his disposal, a safe National League North position is more than achievable given the situation he finds is far from irretrievable.

In short, this is an appointment that certainly fits the advertised bill and while Carden has some minds to change among the fanbase, a quick improvement in fortunes will soon see to that.