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A brief history of Notts County FC
By Nathan Jackson July 23 2008
Notts County have a long and proud history. They were amongst the first collection of teams and they have since gone on to have varied success throughout the years, competiting at both the top and bottom levels of the Football League pyramid, as well as having several managers who have gone on to take charge of a team in the Premiership.
Notts County are the oldest League club in the world and one of the oldest clubs in England. Formed in 1862, they pre-dated the Football Association, also becoming one of the first clubs to be formed, the first being Sheffield FC. The Magpies played most of their initial games at Park Hollow before playing at the Trent Bridge cricket ground. 1888 saw County become one of twelves sides to form the Football League.

Their first season didn't go well, finishing 11th out of 12, only Stoke FC finishing lower. Two sesons later came their highest ever League finish, third place. The Magpies were also involved in one of the first few FA Cup finals, losing the 1890/1to Blackburn Rovers at the Oval. Three seasons later and County reached the final again, beating Bolton Wanderers 4-1 at Goodison Park. Three of those goals fell to Jimmy Logan, the first ever hat-trick scored in an FA Cup final.

County's time in the top flight ended in the 1925/6 season. County were relegated at the end of the season and thus set in a period of midtable mediocrity before World War Two. During the war, Notts County was bombed several times before the strange occurance of the River Trent overflowing and flooding Nottingham Forest's City ground. They would use Meadow Lane until the City Ground was fit for professional football again.

The arrival of Tommy Lawton quite literally added 10,000 onto Nott's gates and this helped the club beat Forest to the Third Division (South) title in 1949/50. The following season was the final time that Notts County would play in a division higher than Forest, a run that has stretched nearly 60 years.

County struggled both on and off the pitch in the 1960's. However, the appointment of Jimmy Sirrel change the club's fortunes and the club remained unbeaten at home in the 1970/1 season, unsurprisingly winning the Fourth Division. 24 months later and Notts were promoted again before Sirrel departed for Sheffield United in 1975. However, he returned two seasons later and by the time the 1981/2 season had come around, Notts County were back in the top flight of English football.

County were relegated within three years and Sirrel retired. However, he again returned a few months later but couldn't prevent County from suffering a second successive relegation. Sirrel final confirmed he would stay retired in 1987 and he found himself eventually replaced by Neil Warnock.

The infamous wheelbarrow song (I use the word "song" very loosely considering that it only has two lines) appeared just as Notts County won promotion back to Division Two and Warnock guided the Magpies to a second successive promotion the following season, being Brighton in front of a crowd of 60,000 supporters. Their time in the top flight lasted one season, missing out on the first Premier League season by just a couple of months.

Warnock quit in the middle of the next season and was replaced by Mick Walker. He oversaw County's Anglo-Italian cup defeat to Brescia in 1993 and it wasn't long before Notts County were relegated again. A second successive relegation followed and they found themselves in the bottom division just 5 calendar years after leaving the top flight.

However, County's 1997/8 season was a record breaking season. Winning the division by a massive seventeen points and being the only side since World War II to win promotion from the fourth tier in March.

However, Notts County continually struggled against the drop for several years, eventually being relegated back to the newly named Coca-Cola League Two. County have struggled against relegation to the Conference in the majority of seasons since then. A lot of fans blame Steve Thompson for this. Thompson's final season saw him leave with County in the midtable area, Ian McParland replaced him and the club quickly slid down the table, barely avoiding relegation.

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