From 'Pies to the prize - how Alan Hardy survived and sold his successful golf club

Sam Metcalf meets the former Notts County owner

Hello Rainmakers,

As colourful entrepreneurs go, Alan Hardy is right up there.

Some notable successes - tick, a complex administration - tick, football club ownership - tick, and now a patient and successful sale of a prize local asset in the leisure industry - The Nottinghamshire golf and country club - to a sector aggregator.

Sam Metcalf met up with him.

Love him or loathe him, Alan Hardy is a survivor. The uber-controversial one-time owner of Notts County (and more on that later) last week brought down the curtain on a turbulent - yet somehow successful - era by selling that most rare of businesses: a successful golf and country club.