Chairman's choice right man for here and now ... David Rawson's Rotherham United fan column

To go forward, we look back. Nearly ten years after the club and Steve Evans found themselves heading in different directions, our paths have converged again.

Will it work? I mean, who knows? Evans has some misses alongside his hits, but his record in the last two years is as good as anyone’s in the lower leagues. And that’s, after all, where we’re heading.

In the here and now, it feels right. But then devouring a chocolate bar can feel great after a miserable, gloomy day, until the immediate sugar hit wears off and you’re left slightly nauseous and still in need of a substantive meal.

In truth, whether he’s what the club needs is open to question. Football, as an “industry”, is pushing on down a road of controlled details, of airtight professional athletic competence, a strange mix of utter intensity and sterile scientific detachment. Appointing Evans puts us - almost defiantly - on a different path.

Maybe what the club needs is less important right now than what it wants.

Whatever else, we’ve wanted the sort of enthusiastic positivity that we heard in Evans' interviews.

For someone who wanted the job, Richardson spent an awful lot of time seeming utterly fed-up. We’ve had five months of hand-wringing maundering about the “difficult moment” we’re in, the lack of ability in the squad, the poverty of the infrastructure.

In one aside from Evans, the outlook shifted. “This squad shouldn’t be getting relegated, in my opinion.” Does he really think that? Probably not. Is it true? No. But what a difference to hear a manager talk about how good our players are instead of what’s wrong with them.

The result? Nil-nil. Again. But our nil was less nil than the ones against Huddersfield and Plymouth. There were attempts at goal. Their keeper made a genuinely good save.

Games under Richardson and Taylor often looked like submissions for a coaching qualification. The game against Birmingham looked like the result of someone trying to put on a show for entertainment.

Which is why Evans is emphatically the right manager for this chairman. Stewart’s intrinsically suspicious of the KPIs and corporate leadership speak that football’s imported from business. He wants a bit of uncomplicated fun.

Evans is, I suspect, a complex man, but straightforward in his approach to his job. Which, at least, offers the chance of it being fun again at New York, soon.