How Maynard went from 'man in a van' to Notts boss

Stuart Maynard takes charge of his 50th game as Notts County boss on Saturday

Stuart Maynard has Notts County flying high in League Two - when 12 months ago he was fixing wi-fi.

Saturday's trip to Accrington Stanley comes a year to the day since the 44-year-old gave up his 19-year career as a BT engineer and left his post as a part-time manager of semi-professional National League side Wealdstone to take over as Magpies boss.

It is not often a club could turn to its head coach to fix issues with its broadband. Not that the Magpies have - yet.

"Oh yeah, I'm fixing the wi-fi all the time," Maynard laughed as he went on to explain the club's IT team is safe from interference.

"There is the odd joke about if the internet goes down in the office, but I haven't yet been asked, or it hasn't got to the critical stage of being without the internet long enough. But if we were down for long enough, then potentially."

It is getting Notts County over the line for promotion, rather than online, that has been Maynard's only focus since he walked through the doors at Meadow Lane last winter.

A turbulent introduction to full-time management with the oldest professional club in the world, and see-sawing fortunes in the fourth tier has given him much to reflect on and to potentially look forward to as they try get back to League One after 10 years away.

"When we first came in, I think I learnt more in those opening three to six months than I have in all my managerial career," he told BBC Sport.

"And I think it has put us in a really good place now leading into this season. I feel that we have got the rewards from it with where we are in the league."

Notts are sixth in the table and in the exact same position as they were when Maynard took charge.

Two days before he came in to replace Notts' National League promotion-winning head coach Luke Williams, who had left for the Swansea job in the Championship, Maynard had received news of the Magpies' interest while still doing his day job.

"I was in the van at work," Maynard recalls with a smile.

"It was a massive whirlwind. It [life] kind of changed overnight.

"I got a call from the Wealdstone chairman to say Notts County had made an official approach and they wanted to speak as soon as possible.

"It happened very quickly."

Asked how brave he needed to be to give up a stable job of nearly two decades for the notoriously fickle existence of professional management, Maynard laughed as he replied: "From me, not very. But for my wife, very.

"Obviously, from her perspective, it's security. I know I stepped away from a job that was a job for life, with the pension and everything.

"But I believed in everything I wanted to do. I know I have stepped into probably the craziest industry in the world, where you can be in a job for five games and then be gone."

"It's something I always had an ambition to be, a full-time manager, so I was always kind of prepared."

The Notts side he took charge of has stalled in their quest to back-to-back promotions, losing nine in 15 matches in all competitions before his arrival.

Still, they remained in the play-off places.

Maynard would go on to oversee just five wins and suffer 11 losses from their remaining 19 matches as they finished 14th in the table - a run that had sections of Notts supporters calling for him to leave with banners of 'Maynard Out' appearing in the crowd.

'I demand so much of myself'

"I always look at the pressure I put on myself as being bigger than any pressure from the outside," he said.

"Whether we are good or bad, I demand so much of myself in always trying to get better every day. I try to block out all the noise in football; social media is not something I look at because you have to be so focused on what you do.

"That is something I did, and in the end I coped. You know when you are losing games of football there is going to be pressure on you; that is the nature of the beast. I'm not naive to know that you are not under pressure, especially at a club of this size and where we were.

"The key was that we had a plan; we knew what direction we needed to go in, and that in the end we needed to get to the summer to make changes.

"And we got there, we made changes, and we have come out strong on the other side now."

Having League Two's top scorer, Macaulay Langstaff, and record-breaking assists provider, Jodi Jones, was not enough to keep Notts among the contenders last season, as the Magpies also had the worst defence in the league.

While Langstaff was sold to Championship side Millwall, and Jones' influence has been hampered by injuries, they have the prolific pairing of Alassana Jatta and David McGoldrick - who have 22 league goals between them - and a more resolute backline that has kept nine clean sheets in the league to date this term.

"I've said from the start of the season that the starting XI won't bring us real success, it's the squad that will help us in that promotion push," Maynard said.

"They have adapted so well, the whole squad. As a collective, we have stepped up to the plate and stayed right up there in the division and in the mix."

Notts' game at Accrington on Saturday will be the first of five games against sides in the lower half of the table - a run that includes home games against bottom two, Morecambe and Carlisle United.

While Maynard refuses to look beyond their next fixture, he is certain of where he wants to get his side.

"Being promoted to League One is a big ambition of the football club," he said. "We don't want to stand still."