On a typical Saturday at Meadow Lane less than a quarter of the stadium is in use. Meagre gatherings of 4,000 gawp and grumble as former Forest bit-parts and football league journeymen stage laborious tussles.
With the smattering of stooped elderly men and planes of empty seats it has an unfortunate feel of non-league. And, until the arrival of Munto Finance, that’s where County were heading.
The latest Middle Eastern invasion was cordially dismissed to begin with. Sky Sports News stretched to an afternoon mention and the local press were happy to regurgitate the soundbites.
But a £50,000 bid for Jack Lester wasn’t quite enough to push Manchester City’s £25m surge for Adebayor off the back pages.
Then came Sven.
All of a sudden everybody in the country has a curious eye on Notts County. And Forest fans are raising a cautionary eyebrow too.
After all, the new men at Notts are talking about a club for the community, about foreign links, about a true Nottingham rivalry. And if they’re prepared to open their wallets for Sven, they might just be serious after all.
Let’s face it, Eriksson won’t be spending an awful lot of time inside the solemn red-bricked walls of Meadow Lane. But even for his fleeting assistance he is likely to be taking well over a million a year.
Why else would he bother?
Mexico forked out £2m to get rid of him, Thai maniac Shinawatra paid him £2.5m for a year in charge at Manchester City, his England salary was £4.5m and his compensation for leaving the job cost the FA another £4m lump sum.
Sven doesn’t do projects. He does money.
With Forest again outspending every single club in the Championship, and assembling a City-style arsenal of strikers, I suppose we have to wonder whether or not Nigel Doughty is a little flustered about the notion of a thriving Notts County.
His plans for a flat-packed 50,000 seat commercial bowl do not make room for a big-spending city rival skimming its share of the next generation.
Notts have a long way to go before they repeat the stratospheric rise of similarly-subsidised Hoffenheim in Germany. For starters, cranky old Charlie and co will probably have to be paid off before the ball really starts rolling. But this week’s statement of intent is food for thought, nonetheless.
Whether Doughty’s sudden urge to spend was inspired by Billy’s impassioned demands or indeed the arrival of money to Meadow Lane, we’ll never really know.
Either way, I'm not complaining.
