What went wrong with Sol Campbell in Notts County?

Saga of the transfer of an excellent, experienced English defender to the ambitious fourth-league club was over even before it started. Sol Campbell broke the five-year contract with Notts County after only one match and this move might cost him a break from professional football till next midterm, that is to say January. According to FIFA regulations, a player who breaks a contract after the closing of the transfer window, cannot sign a new contract, change the club before the next transfer window, without a reason. Excuses like “I changed my mind…”, or “ I had a slight misunderstanding with the coach or the president…” are definitely not considered legitimate. Since Sol is a free player now, it is more than obvious that the option of going somewhere on loan is out.

I wonder what made him do this. The media speculate that he realised that the new owners of Notts County, the oldest professional club in the world, arch-rivals of Forest, a much more famous club from Nottingham are actually not going to pursue the ambitions they announced. New director of the club from Nottingham, famous Sven-Goran Errikson still hasn’t had his say. The only one who knows the secret of Campbell’s departure is the 35-year old defender himself, the man who spent his best days in Tottenham, Arsenal and Portsmouth.

By the end of August, Campbell surprisingly signed a contract with this club from League Two, for 40 000 pounds a week. The only match he played was few days ago, when Notts County deserved to lose 1:2 to Morecambe away. It seems that Sol at first didn’t realize that the project of building a club cannot be done in five days or five weeks but at least in five years. So it dawned on him that until County emerges as a respectable club, his playing days will be over. He probably changed his mind and decided that it would be much better to play a year or two in a higher rank (a weaker Premiership club or Championship) than dragging around League Two and across stadiums in the countryside where the opposing players will go out of their way to “take him down” or make a ridicule trying to stop him.

But what are faithful Notts fans, who bought black-and-white jerseys with his name on it, to do? President Peter Trembling promised them a voucher, with which they will be able to replace Sol’s number 32 for another one. Except for Campbell, the club from Meadow Lane also signed keeper Kasper Schmeichel (the son of more famous father Peter and former Manchester City and Cardiff keeper), as well as striker Karl Hawley, who scored plenty of goals in Preston in the last two seasons. These are also famous players that went to the lower rank to play football, earn money and take part in creating the new history of a respectable club.

Sol gave up on the first step. There are also some speculations that Harry Redknap, Tottenham boss might sign him and bring him back at White Hart Lane. However, this is clearly not going to happen, first of all because Hotspur fans bear a grudge on him for replacing the white Spurs jersey for the red jersey of their biggest rivals, Arsenal. Regardless of Harry’s lack of defenders, this is just a rumor.

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