It was 2002, with the club in the Second Division (today’s Championship) when years of financial mismanagement resulted in the club being put into administration. A record 534 days passed without a buyer and liquidation became a reality for the oldest club in the football league.

In response to this near-fatal situation, a group of fans formed the Notts County Supporters Trust with the aim of raising sufficient funds to help rescue the club.  In these times, such supporter initiatives where not so common, The Trust raised £300k giving them 30% share ownership and a Supporter-Director on the Board. Local businessmen bought the rest of the shares and the club avoided liquidation. A few years later, due to ill heath one of the businessmen gifted his 30% shares to the Trust. The Trust then became the majority shareholder and elected three Directors on to the Board, one of whom was the Chair.

Surely the club was now in safe hands? And then along came new owners, Munto Finances, with promises of huge investment in the club.

The FA’s own due diligence on the new owners failed the supporters (supporters = why all clubs exists). The club was now under the control of a previously convicted conman Russell King, the man behind Munto Finances. There were some who thought that the Trust-led Board members were blinkered by the promise of vast funds and should not have allowed the sale of the club.

Supporters Trusts can also make mistakes (acknowledged on the current web site for the Trust that highlights none of the Board members involved in 2009 are involved today)

In 2009, the club was in its sixth season in League Two and the new owners Munto Finances declared their target was to take the club to the Championship. They quickly created headlines with the appointment of former England Manager Sven-Goran Eriksson on a salary of £2M per year and this ambition was quickly upgraded to the Premiership. Sven’s contacts enabled the signing of Man City’s reserve keeper, Kasper Schmeichel on a  £1.5M per year contract. This was a League Two club.

Other names publicly linked to the club were international stars Christian Vieri, Patrick Vieira, Dietmar Hamann, David Beckham (still an England international playing for LA Galaxy at that time )  Roberto Carlos, Pavel Nedved and Luís Figo.

Real life Fantasy Football was to be played at Meadow Lane!

As it turned out, the wheels fell off before any of these could consider gracing League Two with their presence (although a 34 year old Sol Campbell did make a one match appearance).

Russell Kings interconnected frauds included falsely claiming to manage the Bahrain royal family’s sovereign wealth, majority ownership of a London Investment Bank and ownership of a multi-billion North Korean mining company. Alas, amidst all this imaginary wealth, the money he promised to bankroll the Notts County revolution didn’t materialise.  

By February 2009 this wild, unfunded spending placed the clubs future once again in jeopardy until local business man Ray Trew bough the club for £1 (along with the £7M debt).

The club then appointed Steve Cotterill as manager and remarkably, amidst the chaos, the team actually won the League Two title. What a season that must have been to be a Notts County supporter!

However, this was their last season to taste success. It may be reassuring for the supporters  that the club was on a more stable footing but on the pitch there was a continuous decline and ultimately relegation to the National League where they have now spent the last three seasons.

After his Notts County days, King continued as a career fraudster and in 2019 a Jersey court handed down a 6 year jail sentence for his crimes.