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For those who haven't seen it there is an article in the Guardian about Liverpool v Notts which mainly deals with Notts flirtation with oblivion after the Munto fiasco.

 

Shame they got the date we were founded wrong.

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Notts County savour visit to Liverpool as sign of happier times to come Football's oldest professional club travel to Anfield for their Capital One Cup tie thankful just to be alive

 

Posted by David Conn
Monday 26 August 2013 21.25 BST
The Guardian


Around 3,000 Notts County supporters will travel to the Capital One Cup second-round match at Liverpool on Tuesday night hoping to see a proud display at a floodlit Anfield – and giving thanks, too, that their old, weathered club is still around to play in such a game.

Now battling in League One under their manager, Chris Kiwomya, Notts were plunged three years ago into one of the most extraordinary crises among many that the world's oldest professional club have faced since their foundation in 1864.

The saga, barely believable now that normality has been restored to Meadow Lane, featured new owners, Munto Finance, who claimed to be backed by Middle East multi-millions, and that they were negotiating for North Korean mineral rights and the BMW Sauber Formula One team. They hired Sven-Goran Eriksson as director of football and signed high-profile players such as Kasper Schmeichel and Sol Campbell for a "project" to launch Notts County into a Premier League "brand".

But County's brand mostly stands for doughty survival, not global glamour, and the visions of glory with backing from an investment fund, Qadbak, unravelled into a morality tale frighteningly quickly. The money promised when the supporters' trust, which owned the club, signed it over, never materialised, and an apparent bank guarantee for £5m proved worthless. The involvement in the Notts venture of Russell King, who was linked to the collapse of a company, Belgravia, under investigation for alleged fraud in Jersey, dispelled the mystique around the deal.

Campbell, the former Tottenham, Arsenal and England stalwart, walked away after one game at Morecambe, complaining that promises of improvements to the facilities had not been fulfilled. Eriksson, who had actually gone to North Korea with King and been promised huge earnings from Swiss Commodity Holdings, a company linked to the new owners, later told the Guardian he had been duped.

Peter Trembling, who took the job of executive chairman on similar assurances of mega-money, has since revealed that in fact he had to pay the newly inflated wages himself and now says he lost about £630,000. Within a few months the dream of mingling with football's elite had crumpled into county court judgments for petty debts and a winding-up petition brought by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs.

The club was facing a serious threat to its existence six years after it had been saved from administration and the supporters had come to own it themselves. Trembling took a traumatised club, with contracts it could not pay, off Munto for £1, then in February 2010 passed it on to a Lincoln businessman, Ray Trew, who has since wrestled with stabilising it.

County's accounts to 30 June 2010, covering the period Munto were in charge, show that the club's debts increased by £6.2m to £8m. Eriksson, his status as a football man shaken by the episode, accepted two months' money and walked away, rather than hold out for a huge contractual payout. Schmeichel agreed a settlement of the huge five-year contract he had signed and left for Leeds in May 2010. Other players signed for the Munto journey, including Ade Akinbyi, were also offloaded.

County did, though, win promotion, 10 points clear, going up with "unsustainable" contracts and a dire financial situation, according to the club's current chief executive, the former Rushden and Diamonds defender Jim Rodwell.

"The wage commitments were completely unaffordable," says Rodwell, who also sits on the Football League board. "It was a firefight from the beginning, there was a shortfall of cash every month and there has pretty much been a shortfall ever since. Now, after a lot of hard work by many people including some long-serving staff at the club, the position has stabilised and it is probably not very different from other League One clubs – difficult."

The club's latest accounts, in fact, show debts have risen again, to £5.5m, which Rodwell says is mostly owed to Trew, the cost of financially salvaging the old club and continuing to fund it.

Trew announced that he had asked Nottinghamshire police to investigate what happened at the club; investigations are said to be continuing in Jersey while King is in Bahrain, but so far nobody has been charged with any offences. Kiwomya, the sixth manager appointed by Trew in three and a half years, will take his squad of mostly free signings and young players to Anfield following Saturday's 1-0 home defeat by Stevenage Borough, which was watched by 3,925 fans. Most of those people will be at Liverpool, watching their side play Brendan Rodgers' stars, grateful that their club is there at all, in its famous black and white, and hoping some far-fetched dreams can come true.
 

 

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I don't know.

Supposedly money put into the club wouldn't be in form of a loan, however maybe the article is wrong or perhaps Mr Trew needs to make some money back. I don't know - If it doesn't effect us I don't mind. It's just a case of fixing and reducing it if we're in debt.

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I always seem to say we should just be gratefull to have a club at all whenever I see fans demanding we sign 20 goal a season strikers and bring in managers like Warnock or Allardyce. We cant, we're not in a position to do so and in truth, the club never really has been in  agreat financial position in its history. Three times we've nearly gone out of business over the years.


 


The panarama documentary that was aired on BBC tells the whole saga very well:


 


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAbJGgDnk7U

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I know the Munto debacle nearly finished the club off but I tell you what wasn't it exciting to have our 15 minutes of fame?


 


We were on the news constantly, Sven, Sol Campbell etc., talk of mono rails, buying famous players, I remember Beckham being talked about coming to Meadow Lane and for a while when we thought we were mega rich we could believe it all. I think for me it was probably the most exciting time I have seen in my long 50 years of watching Notts.


 


If only it had all been true eh? I wonder where we would be now?


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If only it had all been true eh? I wonder where we would be now?

Well on FIFA 13 I'm the manager of Notts and at the start of the 2021-22 season we're one of the favourites for the premiership title. :thumbsup:

 

After losing in the play-off semi finals in my first season, we won league 1 by 2 points in my second season. Took three years to get out of the Championship which we eventually did thanks to a dramatic 4-3 win over Blackburn in the play-off final.

 

We are now a top premier league side and are entering our first ever Champions League campaign having snatched 4th spot on a dramatic final day of the 2020-21 season. We were between 7th and 10th for much of the season but a run of 9 wins in our last 11 shot us into contention and a 1-1 draw at Spurs on the final day moved us above Liverpool into 4th place. We also won the Europa League with a 1-0 win over Roma.

 

As for players, Alan Judge left in my second season for Bolton Wanderers for £1.3million, and Bart Bialkowski went to Chelsea for £4million after two years in the championship.

 

Some of our notable former players now have been goalkeeper Lars Unnerstall; long serving defender Sido Jombati; midfielders Keith Buckley, Medy Elito, Jay Emmanual-Thomas and Marlon Pack. Up front we've been blessed with the likes of Billy Kee, Aaron Johhanson, James Collins, Danny Kedwell and Tom Pope.

 

My current team only has one current Notts player and that's Joss Labadie - who is now a regular England international.

 

My favoured starting xi is:

GK - Jack Butland (Regular England International)

RB - Kyle Walker (Regular England International)

CB - Calvin Naughton (picked up as a FREE Agent - captains both Notts County & England, regarded as one of the world's top defenders)

CB - Obafemi Mensah (FREE Agent - regular for the Ivory Coast)

LB - Antonio Luna (Spannish International)

RW - Nathan Redmond (Regular England International)

CM - Joss Labadie (Regular England International)

CM - Ravel Morrison (England International)

LW - Jamie Pattersen (was actually playing for Walsall last season; widely regarded as one of Europe's top left wingers)

ST - Tyrell Waite (Yep, our Tyrell - regular England International)

ST - Geoffrey Weber (not a real player, but a product of West Ham's youth academy. 6 ft 8, 190lb powerhouse who accelerates like a V8 car and scored 42 last year, German International)

 

we also have Ryan Woods and Oliver Norwood as CMs on the bench, LW Juan Carlos De Silva (Spannish International), RM Maximos Balanos, and two other strikers in Joze Altidore (USA International) and Romelo Lakaku!

 

As you can see, I've not only built an amazing team, but I've done it mostly with young English talent.

 

I'm not one for blowing one's own trumpet, but all together now - "WeymouthPIE's black n white army!" :clapping:    :joker: ;)

 

Oh if only eh? :rolleyes:

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Sounds like we've got a replacement for CK in our midst when the time comes.

Are you reading this Mr. Trew? :biggrin:

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