It was a strange way to celebrate promotion. Most choose an open-top bus tour; Notts County preferred an open letter.

On Monday morning, less than two days into the party, it appeared on the club’s own website. Chairman Ray Trew wanted to address all of his League Two counterparts.

Trew wanted to put the record straight and shoot down the innuendo and insinuations that have followed England’s oldest league club through their strangest of seasons.

And he stressed that the Magpies were operating well within the division’s salary cap, thanks to a money-spinning FA Cup run and his own investment. No rules were being broken.

But the suspicion remains.

Trew is getting fed up of seeing his club dragged through the press. He insists the financial misdemeanours during the controversial Munto Finance reign are well in the past.

But should rival clubs be so willing to forgive and forget?

Rochdale boss Keith Hill was the latest opponent to question the legitimacy of County’s march towards the title.

There is no doubt that Steve Cotterill has done an unbelievable job in charge since missing out on the City helm.

Still unbeaten after 14 games, his all-conquering side have clocked up 12 wins and 38 points from a possible 42.

Ironically, Peter Taylor’s City are one of the two clubs to stand up to the steamroller.

But with Rochdale falling away in recent weeks, Notts are clearly the best team in the division. The table does not lie.

Except you wonder about the methods that got them there. And the players they can afford to employ.

That was Hill’s beef and it’s one shared up and down the division.

“If we can’t catch Notts County then I’m sure the taxman will,” he stated ahead of their title-deciding clash this week.

Keeper Kasper Schmeichel is reported to earn around £15,000 a week – that’s more than all 11 players put together in most teams he has faced.

Lee Hughes, like Schmeichel playing a couple of divisions below himself, must be on a decent whack up front in exchange for his 31 goals.

And then, of course, there was the Sol Campbell farce. How much was he promised to buy into the “project”?

And how quickly did he bale out after the buffeting he took from Paul Mullin at Morecambe?

And we haven’t even touched on Sven and his allegiance to the cause. It’s been a soap opera.

Something wasn’t right on that boiling hot August afternoon when City were taken to the cleaners – and I don’t just mean the comical away defending.

All the glitz and glamour didn’t ring true for the basement division. And clearly it wasn’t.

Trew is innocent in all this. As he made clear in his letter, the player salary to income ratio – the crux of the salary cap set up for the lowest two divisions – was over the limit before he rode to the rescue.

He has done his job to put that right and can’t understand any lingering bitterness.

County were punished for their indiscretions with, in his words, the maximum sentence agreed by the other league clubs. They were slapped with a transfer ban.

Yes, they’ve had to make do with the players they’d already got. Like a goalkeeper on Premier League wages… It must have been tough but somehow they saw it through and will start next season in League One – phase two of the five-year masterplan Sven trumpeted on his arrival.

Trew hopes the rest of the league will be better informed before giving their opinions on County from now on.

But I wouldn’t expect too much sympathy if, or should that be when, the club start to unravel again.