Sven-Göran Eriksson charms Notts County set

Gilly Hughes of Clifton was on the phone to her friend, explaining how long she’d been queuing to buy her ticket for yesterday’s Nottingham derby. “About an hour,” she explained, disbelief in her voice. The queue in question for what was a pre-season friendly stretched down Meadow Lane towards the city centre. Come three o’clock, fans of visiting Nottingham Forest had still not been accommodated and the friendly began 15 minutes late.
That overflowing Forest fans had delayed the start reminded us where the footballing power in this city of lace, bicycles and cigarettes lies. Although the preposterously unlikely arrival of Sven-Göran Eriksson as Notts County’s director of football suggests a possible overturning of the old order.
This time last week, the Russian press was agog with Eriksson tales. Apparently, he was in Russia and about to take over Zenit St Petersburg in November, at the end of the Russian season, when coach Dick Advocaat leaves the 2008 Uefa Cup winners to take over the Belgian national side. By last Wednesday, Eriksson and his trusty sidekick Tord Grip were signing on at Notts County, last season England’s 87th most successful club, as director of football and director of football’s trusty sidekick respectively.
County may be on the up (the season before they finished 89th), but with the most benign will in the world, they are no Lazio, England, Manchester City or Mexico. And, oh delicious irony, the man who was fooled by a fake sheikh offering the manager’s job at Aston Villa in 2006, now finds himself in the ultimate employ of a genuine one at little Notts County. Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction.
Stranger still, who County’s new owners are remains a mystery. The British Virgin Islands-registered Munto Finance bought the club on July 14. Munto’s own finance — provided via a Swiss bank — is believed to be Qatari. Even County’s executive chairman Peter Trembling claims not to know exactly who’s who.
Not since England striker Tommy Lawton, at the peak of his powers, moved from first division Chelsea to County of the Third Division in 1947 has there been such heady romance at Meadow Lane. Even so, Eriksson’s motives remain typically delphic. The curiously ageless Swede, whose unchanged expression denoted either a coaching wizard (after England won 5-1 in Munich) or a buffoon (after England lost 1-0 in Belfast) was giving nothing away yesterday.
Still, he has entered into the spirit of his unlikely safari into the lower reaches of the jungle. He claims to be acquiring a property in the area and immediately before yesterday’s match he took a literal bow before the home supporters, who couldn’t have looked more surprised if Lawton himself had returned from the grave. And he waved at the Forest fans as they chorused: “You’re only here for the money.”
“We’ve struggled in the last few years,” explained a steward. “But now, who knows? Before Sven we were 33-1 for the League 2 title; now we’re 7-1. Mind you, I won’t be having a bet. This is Notts County . . . ”
Shortly before the start of the season, a lucky County fan will receive a knock on their door. Their caller will be Eriksson, personally delivering a County season ticket, drawn at random from those who buy one next week. Cynics may note Britain’s only Hooters franchise a couple of minutes from Meadow Lane and Nottingham’s rumoured 4/1 female/male ratio, although that myth hasn’t been true since the immediate aftermath of the second world war.
A contract that apparently includes a shareholding, no get-out clause and which, depending on results, could net Eriksson £2m a year over five years was hardly a barrier to his moving to DH Lawrence country. But pay-offs of £3m (England), £2m (Mexico) and £1m (Manchester City) on not-insubstantial salaries have meant that the 21st has been a good century for Eriksson, financially at least. In short, he doesn’t need the money or a marriage of inconvenience.
Lawton and Eriksson aside, the self-proclaimed “world’s oldest Football League club” have always had a certain romance, being a late-career staging post (albeit a successful one) for Hughie Gallagher, and the home of gifted mavericks such as Howard Wilkinson, Neil Warnock, Jimmy Sirrel and Ian Scanlon who scored a hat-trick in 165 seconds against Sheffield Wednesday in 1974 and quit football soon afterwards claiming (not entirely truthfully it later transpired) he had inherited a fortune.
County have only spent four seasons at the top table since 1926. Since the second world war, the trophy cupboard is bare, save only a Third and Fourth Division title and the 1995 Anglo-Italian Trophy, which attracted just 11,704 to the showpiece Wembley final.
Perhaps we should take Eriksson at face value when he claims he has joined County for the challenge of a role which encompasses “training facilities and player development; the youth academy; transfer negotiations and scouting network; the treatment room, overseas links and community football”. None of which Eriksson seems especially suited for.
As he sat impassively in the directors box, Eriksson would have seen much to encourage him, although down in the technical area, animated manager Ian McParland hardly resembled a dead man walking. County deserved their 2-1 victory. Luke Chambers’s slip allowed Luke Rodgers to run on and score, and Lee Hughes added a second soon after. Kevin Pilkington’s error allowed Lewis McGugan to pull one back for Forest. Afterwards, McParland didn‘t sound like a dead man walking either. “The media fenzy will settle down. Sven will give me advice, I’ll give him advice: that’s how it will work.”
Eriksson stayed until the final whistle and left in his chauffeur-driven Mercedes, although not the one in which he turned up at a local rugby club on Thursday, having lost his way between Meadow Lane and County’s training ground. Whether Eriksson has lost his way or found a vocation remains to be seen, most probably at a wet and windy Burton Albion, to whom County travel in December.
Source:The times