Notts County and the conman: Following your team through a football scam

The first game of the new football season feels the same no matter what team you support. There's a heady mix of excitement and anticipation, a first look at new signings, a clean slate to dream that this might be the year.

When I took my seat at a packed Meadow Lane for Notts County's first game of the 2009-10 season, that first-game buzz was like nothing I had ever experienced, because something incredible had just happened.

Less than a month earlier, in July 2009, League Two Notts County had been taken over by a mysterious consortium called Munto Finance. They had stated their bold ambition to reach the Championship within five years and pledged to back those plans with untold wealth.

The club's younger fans, myself included, immediately began to dream of surpassing city rivals Nottingham Forest. The more battle-hardened supporters took some of the loftier claims with a pinch of salt. They had seen too many false dawns to get too carried away just yet.

Then days later Sven-Goran Eriksson was unveiled as Notts County's new director of football.

Even the old campaigners watched agog as the former England manager addressed the world's media at a news conference. Suddenly talk of aiming for the Championship was banished because Eriksson was going to take Notts County to the Premier League.

This is the same Notts County who only six years earlier emerged from a nightmare 534 days in administration. The same Notts County who had lurched from one relegation battle to the next and failed to muster a top-half finish in League Two since 2005.

That same Notts County were now heading straight to the top flight, with one of football's biggest names leading the way.

Our journey to the big time could not have got off to a better start.

Wit