How A 19-Year-Old Student Became Bookies Favourite To Be The Next Notts County Manager

A 19-year-old student was named joint favourite for the vacant Notts County job after his mates 'convinced a bookies' that he was a promising manager in the Swedish fourth division.

Omulo Bennun, who is currently studying at college, is a keen Football Manager player.

In fact, after eight gruelling seasons and three play-off final defeats, the teenager recently helped Crawley Town climb from the depths of England's fourth tier to Premier League glory. "It's going rather well," he tells SPORTbible.

Omulo's success in the virtual world is certainly admirable. I mean, how many people can say they have come up against Manchester City and Liverpool at the Broadfield Stadium of late?

That being said, Bennun didn't expect to be linked with a real life managerial post this week – and that's exactly what happened.

According to the man himself, his mates decided to ask bookies BetVictor for odds on 'promising' Swedish fourth division manager Omulo Bennun to become the new County boss.

The National League side, who finished fifth during the 2021/22 campaign, are currently without a first-team manager after newly promoted Forest Green appointed Ian Burchnall as their new head coach.

After starting his coaching career in Norway with Sarpsborg 08 and Viking, the highly-rated Burchnall would eventually pick up a job in Sweden's top tier with Östersunds before taking the job in Nottingham last year.

The 39-year-old achieved successive play-off spots with Notts County before his recent appointment. So what has this got to do with Bennun?

Well, it turns out Burchnall's previous experience in Sweden played a crucial role in the joke. Bennun's friends decided to pretend the 19-year-old student was the current manager of Swedish 'team' FC Sodåstreäm.

"They chose the fourth division side because they thought it would be convincing with the Ian Burchnall links," Bennun tells us.

"My mate Will Bewsey was the person who put the FC Sodåstreäm idea together and he asked them for odds on putting a bet on Omulo Bennun to be Notts County's next manager. And somehow it got onto their site."

News of the unusual betting odds soon began to emerge social media.

East Anglian football editor Alex Jones tweeted on Tuesday afternoon that you could get 16/1 on @odb1912 being the next Notts County boss via BetVictor.

Those odds were soon slashed to 2/1 – making him the joint-favourite alongside Luke Tisdale, who recently left his role as U23's manager at Coventry City.

"I still can’t believe they thought I was a real manager," Bennun says. "But it's meant we have enjoyed one of the funniest ever moments between us.

"I never thought the numbers would go from 16/1 to 2/1," he added. "But when that happened, oh my god. I was in shock seeing the odds getting slashed. It was honestly mad."

When he was younger, the teenager "absolutely wanted" to become a manager like Jose Mourinho or Arsene Wenger; two individuals he really looked up to growing up.

And following a small mishap, Bennun was ahead of Kenny Jackett, Michael Carrick and Neil Warnock in the race to become a National League boss.

"The reaction on social media has been funny," he said. "It's been funny seeing so many Notts County fans worrying about how some random kid who manages ‘FC Sodåstreäm’ could potentially be their manager.

"Even people who aren’t even massively into football are finding out about it."

After an entertaining week, Bennun has since been removed from the market but he now plans to start a new journey. "In the future I'm going to start a Notts County save on Football Manager."