NOTTS' ROAD BACK TO EFL

ONE hundred and seven points, 117 goals, 32 wins from 46 games and just three league defeats all season.

- Matt Badcock

Notts County may, incredibly, not have won the National League title, but they arrive with a set of stats that will have the rest of League Two taking a very deep breath.

In any other season, the Magpies would have been popping the bubbly at Easter and enjoying a lap of honour around Non-League’s top flight before returning to the EFL.

But with only two promotion spots from the National League — one automatic and one through the play-offs — the numbers didn’t add up.

For anyone living under a rock, their remarkable record-breaking season happened to fall in the same window as Hollywood-backed Wrexham’s.

The Red Dragons, owned by actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, finished four points ahead of County — ending their 15-year stay in Non-League — and jetted off to Las Vegas to party.

Wrexham were a powerful force who would run teams over with their unrelenting striker Paul Mullin leading the line.

With Notts it was more death by football. Neal Ardley and Ian Burchnall laid the foundations following the club’s relegation from the League in 2019.

A hat-trick of play-off heartache followed - including losing to Harrogate in the final at an empty Wembley Stadium at the height of Covid – before Luke Williams arrived and elevated their game even more.