Notts County's broken dream
Notts County's mysterious owners promised to bring magic to Meadow Lane.
Their dream of Championship football within five years seemed fanciful, but the .
It's only six months since those heady July days and owners Munto Finance, their .
The League Two club are challenging for promotion, it's true, but they are also and have .
Eriksson and Trembling had big plans but wre unable to bring them to fruition
, is confident he can settle the club's tax bill and HMRC's winding-up order, but he admits they could still go into administration if more debts are uncovered.
When you consider that debts increased by £1m during the four weeks Trew was negotiating to buy the club alone, this is a worrying prospect.
How did the heady optimism of July turn so quickly into the devastation of today?
No-one's better placed to answer that than Trembling, the former executive chairman of the club who was once the frontman and defender of Munto Finance.
He claims he was hoodwinked by , the "acquisition vehicle" formed to buy County.
Trembling says he has ploughed half a million of his own money into the club and feels "bitter" about the last six months.
The trio claimed they had links to the Bahrain royal family and gave a guarantee they would invest a minimum of £5m in the club but instead put in just £50,000, he insists.
"I plan to sue them for leaving the club in the lurch," he told me. "It's about the things they haven't honoured, contracts they haven't honoured. I had a big contract and Sven has even more reason to be unhappy."
The former England manager has kept a dignified silence in recent weeks but is due to release a statement about his time at County, according to his agent Athol Still.
Trembling says he has tried to phone and email the Willetts and King, but "they seem to have disappeared".
He still believes "the project and plan" for County were "perfect", adding "if only they had had the money to do it", which does seem a rather large caveat.
And Trembling wasn't the only person who bought into the improbable dream.
The Supporters Trust, which owned 60% of the club after helping it out of administration with a £170,000 loan in 2003,
Their willingness to believe in the promises of a white knight might seem misguided now, but with the club £1m in debt at the time and Munto providing a guarantee of funds, it was perhaps understandable at the time.
As it is, the aims of County's new owners are now rather more modest than those of their predecessors.
"The Premier League, that's not really part of our plans," new chief executive Jim Rodwell told ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Sport.
"We are talking more about sustainability and taking the club forward. What came before, that was a pipedream."
I'm a sports news reporter and write about most sports, but especially football, rugby union and cricket. I'll try and give you some insight into the stories setting the agenda in this blog. You can also follow me on .
Comments
or to comment.