Notts County were left with egg on their face after Kevin Nolan aided Wycombe Wanderers promotion | OneFootball

Nolan allowed Curtis Thompson to join Wycombe on loan and they then beat Notts to promotion.

Notts County and Kevin Nolan must surely regret their 2018 decision to loan out midfielder Curtis Thompson, considering that he ultimately helped Wycombe Wanderers to promotion from League Two.

The midfielder had been excellent for Notts in the 2016/17 season, so it came as a huge surprise when he hardly featured under Nolan in the following campaign.

His loan switch to Adams Park in January 2018 came as even more of a shock, considering that the two clubs were vying for promotion into League One at the time.

Thompson helped Wycombe to promotion and then joined them on a permanent basis when he was released by the Magpies. He went on to enjoy great success in Buckinghamshire, which would surely have left Notts rueing their decision.

Notts must regret allowing Thompson to join Wycombe

The 2016/17 season was a particularly concerning one for Notts, who were in genuine danger of slipping out of the Football League for the first time in their long and storied history for much of the campaign.

They went on a run of 10 consecutive league defeats, the club’s worst run of form in its entire history, but were able to salvage their EFL status in the second half of the season, when new boss Nolan oversaw a timely upturn in form.

While, on the whole, it was a dismal season in NG2, one of the few positives to take away were the performances of Curtis Thompson. The former academy graduate excelled in the middle of the park with his combative, all-action displays, and he rightly received plenty of plaudits for his fearless performances.

The following year, the Magpies were unexpectedly in the promotion picture by the time the January transfer window rolled around, with Nottingham Forest loanees Jorge Grant and Ryan Yates both playing vital roles.

However, although Yates was hugely impressive before he was recalled by Forest at the start of January, Thompson had bizarrely played just four cup games all season and hadn’t featured in the league since March of the previous campaign.

When the then-24-year-old was loaned to Wycombe at the end of January, it instantly stood out as a strange move from Notts. The Chairboys were just one point above them at the time, with both clubs chasing down automatic promotion.

The midfielder went on to make seven appearances for Gareth Ainsworth’s side as they snatched third place (and with it promotion to League One), thanks to a victory away at Chesterfield in the penultimate game of the season.

Nolan’s Magpies finished fifth and were then dumped out of the play-offs by Coventry City in the semi-finals.

Thompson was excellent for Wycombe

Notts’ decision in regard to Thompson then got even worse.

The Magpies opted to release him at the end of the season and the midfielder was then snapped up by Wycombe on a permanent basis.

With the Chairboys now in League One, Thompson made 39 league appearances for them in the 2018/19 season, which saw him sign a new contract in January and then win the Player’s Player of the Season award. By contrast, Notts were relegated out of the Football League.

Things then got even better for the Nottingham-born man in 2019/20, when a controversial, unweighted points per game format was used to settle a season which had been curtailed by the Coronavirus pandemic.

Wycombe were eighth when the league was halted, but were lifted into the play-offs by the metric used by the EFL. They then beat Oxford at Wembley to secure a first-ever taste of second tier football.

Wycombe’s rapid rise then saw Thompson notch 33 appearances in the Championship, but his side were instantly relegated back to League One.

He was ultimately released by Wycombe in the summer of 2023, and has since spent the last 18 months at Grimsby Town, with a brief spell at Cheltenham in between.

It was a confusing decision at the time from both Notts and Nolan to firstly freeze Thompson out, but then also to loan him to a direct rival. The reasons behind that decision have never truly become clear.

Although Thompson is now back alongside the Magpies in League Two, when the two parted ways, he went on a totally different trajectory to the club, which would surely have left a bitter taste for those at Meadow Lane.