Description

During the 2009–10 English football season, Notts County competed in Football League Two, the fourth tier of the English football league system. Shortly before the season began, the club was subject to a high-profile takeover by Munto Finance, purportedly a wealthy Middle East-based consortium with ambitions to take the club to the Premier League. The former England manager Sven-Göran Eriksson was appointed director of football, and lavish spending began in apparent early efforts to achieve these ambitions. In reality, Munto Finance was controlled by the convicted fraudster Russell King, and the club had been acquired as part of an elaborate scheme to list a fake mining company on the stock exchange. The promised money did not exist, King fled when the scheme collapsed and Notts County were left deeply in debt. Eriksson resigned following a further takeover by Ray Trew, who prevented bankruptcy and oversaw a successful conclusion to the season, with the team winning the League Two championship and promotion to Football League One. The team also fared well in the FA Cup, reaching the last sixteen of the competition.