Dagenham coincidence (10 years ago on Sunday)

A decade ago this Sunday we were away to Dagenham and something very odd happened there that, to my knowledge, has never been satisfactorily explained.

it was the Munto season and apparently Sven went into the dressing room pre-match and told the players that they'd found a buyer or investor and that everything was going to be OK, the "project" was still on.

So was there really genuine interest? what went wrong or did Trembling just make it up to buy more time? We won the match, the first league fixture we'd played in a month due to bad weather, which was the reason we fell a bit behind in the table. Another year later, Paul Ince was in charge and we were about to play Manchester City in the FA Cup.
Today our cup run is in the FA Trophy. :(

Trembling also gave a lengthy pre-match interview on Radio Nottm (which I recorded and I think I still have the file somewhere) in which he said exactly the same thing - that an investor had been found with all the money needed to take the club forward. We never heard anything about it again, and the only explanation can be that it simply wasn't true. I think that Notts had another winding-up hearing in the courts looming a day or two later, so draw your own conclusions.

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Originally Posted by tied_up_in_notts

Trembling also gave a lengthy pre-match interview on Radio Nottm (which I recorded and I think I still have the file somewhere) in which he said exactly the same thing - that an investor had been found with all the money needed to take the club forward. We never heard anything about it again, and the only explanation can be that it simply wasn't true. I think that Notts had another winding-up hearing in the courts looming a day or two later, so draw your own conclusions.

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If that was the case, it would have been well out of order to lie to the players in that manner. Sven must have believed it at least, maybe there was something in it for a brief period.

A bizarre and largely forgotten episode, but I was certainly full of hope again during those few days.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tied_up_in_notts

Trembling also gave a lengthy pre-match interview on Radio Nottm (which I recorded and I think I still have the file somewhere) in which he said exactly the same thing - that an investor had been found with all the money needed to take the club forward. We never heard anything about it again, and the only explanation can be that it simply wasn't true.

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Was that the infamous "95% certain of future funding" interview?

On a par with JAH's "cast iron guarantee"!

It was something like that - unfortunately I can't recall his exact words, but I do remember listening to the lengthy interview and gaining the impression that all the problems had been solved and that we could now press on with the "beautiful project". I remember because my son was at Dagenham for the match (which was on a Tuesday night btw, not a Sunday) and I immediately phoned him on his mobile just before the kick-off to let him know the "good news".

Unfortunately I can't find the recording I thought I had. I do have some copies of news stories from around that time though. Notts were facing a winding-up order in the high court over an unpaid £600,000 tax bill the day after the Dagenham game, and as a result of Trembling's announcement of new investment the club managed to get another 28-day stay of execution. Trembling was reported as saying of the new investors: "Fortunately everything worked out as we had hoped. We've been talking to these people for three or four weeks. We made contact with them from the outset and they are people who know football and have worked in football before. They had to do their due diligence, as have we, to make sure they have got the funds and the appetite for going forward – and they have. It could be a great partnership."

Then the plot thickened. About a week later reports began to surface that "a consortium of Midlands-based entrepreneurs" led by Sukhi Ghuman, founder of Nottingham company Octavian Security, was on the verge of taking over the club. However, the Post reported on 3 February that this deal had collapsed at the eleventh hour. This caused a lot of confusion on NCM as to whether or not these investors were the ones that Trembling had been referring to before the Dagenham game, and on 4 February the Official Site issued a statement to clarify that "the consortium who announced a 'collapsed takeover' deal this week are not the proposed investors that we announced last Tuesday." The statement went on:

"As was explained at the time, that investor was in the process of extensive due diligence and that process is still ongoing but last Tuesday that investor did provide the Club with sufficient proof of funds in writing to satisfy the court the following day to grant the 28-day adjournment. Our apologies for any confusion."

But this, I remember, only served to cause MORE confusion for the fans. Why, everyone wanted to know, had the club been negotiating a takeover by Sukhi Guman & co. if the necessary investment had already been found from elsewhere?

We never got the answer. A week later Trembling sold the club to Ray Trew and that was the last we heard of the investment that had been announced before the Dagenham game. The timing of the announcement was certainly very convenient for getting the 28-day extension in the High Court, but whether it was based on a genuine ongoing deal that didn't materialise or just pie-in-the-sky I suppose we'll never know.

Peter Trembling's name used to be sung so loudly and with such pride by The Kop. I guess understandable at the time albeit you could never be anywhere close to 100% with anything Munto , so I refused to join in. People had their doubts

There was indeed only one Peter Trembling.

I remember seeing the Trembling interview before the game, when asked certain questions his eyes would look up to the left, a 'tell' meaning he was searching for a lie. I knew it was all a load of BS at that moment.