So it’s official – Notts County are the most popular Football League club IN THE WORLD

The Football League’s Stand Up & Be Counted campaign saw fans of English clubs below the Premier League vote in droves to try and get their team to the top of the rankings – and be in with a chance of winning a trip to England to watch their club in action.

Much to the surprise of clubs unaware of our amazing support all across the world, Notts steadily climbed up the table and entrenched themselves at the summit – at no point did they look like relinquishing top spot.

Today the polls closed and the results were finally confirmed – out of all the clubs in the country outside the Premier League, including a number of champions of England and even Europe, the title belonged to the Magpies.

Leeds United, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Burnley, Queens Park Rangers, Preston North End, Derby County and, sweetest of all, Nottingham Forest – all pale in comparison to Notts in terms of global fanbase.

Pride of Nottingham played its part in the Magpies’ no. 1 finish, by promoting the competition time and time again, and mobilising all of the international fan groups to spread the word and get voting – and it has paid dividends, showing just what a well-supported and historic club Notts is.

Stars of County’s table-topping achievement are without a doubt the Italian Magpies, who contributed 3502 votes out of the total of 6359 cast for us.

We spoke to Giorgio Zunino, the leader of the Italian Magpies, about the marvellous achievement.

Q) How active were you and the Italian Magpies with regards to campaigning for the Stand Up & Be Counted’ campaign?

A) We tried to involve as many people as possible to vote for the Magpies. We focused on the challenge to prove that the Italian Magpies are always interested in Notts County's activities. Our goal was initially to be the first supporters’ group.

Q) More than 3500 Italian-based Notts fan voted, this achieved the highest amount. Are you surprised how high it is? Do you feel the Italian Magpies and Juve connection helped? What are your personal thoughts to this?

A) The result is really high, unbelievable. Also because we have "just" 3.000 likes on Facebook. We tried our best talking about the link between Notts and Juventus to make people conscious of the need to vote and to make them proud to push the black and white higher and higher. We gave updates day by day to supervise the situation. We asked people to vote both for Notts County, both for the Italian Magpies as we strongly wanted to be the first supporters. It was great to see how many votes come from Italy. I though no other team received so many votes from just one country. The Juve connection was fundamental! An English guy we know talked to every Italian friend and spread the word to keep a lot of votes. At the beginning I was just focused on make Notts County arrive in the Top 10. It was quite impossible to get the first three places. And would have been ok as we challenged very big teams! I wanted the Italians to overtake the Hungarians. And when we did it was great. Then we really started to climb up the table. We were third and the two teams ahead lost many many votes due to the reuse of email addresses (they've probably voted more than once with the same email or the same IP). We were finally close to the peak!

3) After the announcements broke regarding Notts having won, what was your reaction and what do you feel this achievement represents to a club like Notts?

A) I am proud for what we did as a great family. There were many moments when other team's votes were growing and we pushed firmly on our call of duty. I am proud for our group and proud to see "Italy" on top of the countries. I really hope somebody from the Italian Magpies will win the final prize. I think is really amazing for the club to prove that is more known and supported than Championship clubs. But I think this could be just the beginning and more has to be done, in particular for the fans abroad that've showed this unbelievable support!

One lucky overseas Magpies follower will be rewarded with a special prize on Monday, which will be announced by the club.

A total of over 52,000 supporters from around the globe took part in the initiative, with at least one fan registered in 247 different territories.

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