Notts County Will Surely Be Targeting A Repeat Of Their Famous Finish To The Season In 2010

Notts County will surely be targeting a repeat of their famous finish to the season in 2010 which saw them race to the League Two title.

After a season of chaos off the pitch, the Magpies lost just one of their final 17 league games to snatch the title from under the noses of Rochdale, who had opened up a gap of 14 points over Notts by the end of February.

With League Two as tight as it currently is, all three automatic promotion spots are currently up for grabs and, with so many clashes between teams at the top of the table still to come, there will be plenty of teams who are still harbouring ambitions of securing League One football for next term.

If Notts could produce a similar end to the campaign as they had in 2010, it would surely see them safely inside the division’s top three come the end of the season.

Notts produced an incredible end to the season in 2010

Although Notts won the League Two title in the 2009/10 season, it’s arguably a campaign which is remembered more for what happened off the pitch than on it.

The world’s oldest football league club was taken over by the Munto Finance group, spearheaded by convicted fraudster Russell King. The club’s ownership at the time was surrounded by secrecy, but at first, at least, there seemed to be plenty of money available.

Sven-Goran Eriksson, Kasper Schmeichel and Sol Campbell all joined the fourth tier outfit, but few people could have foreseen what was to come.

As the season wore on, the takeover came under investigation on numerous occasions by the EFL and Notts were even issued a winding-up order in January. The saga finally came to an end in February 2010, when local businessman Ray Trew purchased the club for £1.

Remarkably, throughout the whole ordeal, the Magpies were performing very well on the pitch. A 1-1 draw away at Aldershot Town in February left Notts 14 points from the top of the League Two table, with just 17 games left to play.

Under new boss Steve Cotterill (the club’s third permanent manager of the season), they went on an astonishing run of form to end the campaign, losing just one of those 17 games.

Incredibly, that run included no less than four 5-0 victories, and 13 clean sheets.

It was such an impressive end to the season, that Cotterill’s side were able to reel in the league leaders, Rochdale, and clinch the title with two games to spare.

A repeat of that finish would surely see Notts promoted

With the current state of League Two this season, a finish resembling the one Notts enjoyed in 2010 would surely be enough to see them return to League One for the first time since 2015.

A lack of consistency from some of the division’s early pacesetters means that all three automatic promotion spots are arguably still up for grabs.

Such has been the competitiveness of League Two this season, that it is highly likely the points threshold to achieve automatic promotion will be lower than in several of the recent seasons.

With potentially favourable clashes against the likes of Salford, Cheltenham and Harrogate still to come, Stuart Maynard’s side have plenty of opportunities to pick up valuable points between now and the end of the season.

There are so many remaining ‘six pointers’ to come in League Two, that Notts’ run-in appears to be favourable compared to several of their promotion rivals – despite the fact it includes games against Bradford and Doncaster.

If they could take maximum points from Salford, Cheltenham and Harrogate (who will all pose their own specific challenges), anything they could take away from their slightly tougher assignments would be a welcome bonus.

While it’s unclear how many points it will take to finish in the top three this season, if Notts can replicate their 2010 finish, they will almost certainly be playing third tier football next season.