( CNN ) -- Last Wednesday , in a move that I still do n't fully understand , I became a shareholder in the Spanish football club Real Oviedo . In terms of my relationship with football , I should probably lay my cards on the table . I am a Nottingham Forest fan . Anyone of a certain age with a passing interest in the game will understand that I 'm familiar with disappointment . Having watched Forest fall from the heights of back-to-back European Cup wins to the depths of English football 's third tier I know , all too well , the emotions involved in witnessing a distressing decline . This doubtless explains why some sense of faded glamour or a struggle against adversity tends to attract me to a club . To illustrate this point , my favorite Italian team is Sampdoria , currently lying 14th in Serie A . Winning , as they say , is n't everything . I realise this is perverse , but I 've never been able to understand the appeal of supporting a football giant , going into a season in the confident expectation of wins and trophies . Jerry Maguire . So a couple of weeks ago , when I first heard of the plight of Oviedo , something clicked . I found myself Googling the club , reading about the city of Oviedo , admiring the jagged hills of Asturias . My attention was piqued by Sid Lowe , the British journalist whose animated appreciation of Spanish football has brought La Liga to life for many outside Spain . Lowe ignited the international campaign to save the club , while also warning that investors were highly unlikely to see any return . To paraphrase Jerry Maguire , he had me at 'unlikely ' . Here was a potentially lost cause that I was powerless to resist . I stepped up my research and prepared to delve into the insanity of football club ownership . By the time I was ready to take the plunge , Real 's global coalition of the willing had swelled considerably and the club was almost half way to safety . The share offer 's website looked reassuringly professional , and was helpfully available in English . Estadio Carlos Tartiere . I had initially thought of just buying one share , but then I discovered that owning four shares would entitle me to attend the annual general meeting . Influence , I thought . I imagined myself turning up at the airport , being feted as an arriving hero and bought drinks in Oviedo 's tapas bars just for being me . I rejected any thoughts that this scenario was somewhat far-fetched . I inputted my passport number , transferred the cash , sat back and enjoyed the warm glow of owning something of no apparent value whatsoever . The weird thing is that it really was a glow . I had another look at the impressive Estadio Carlos Tartiere and smiled to myself . I wondered how much flights would cost , and how I would persuade my wife that a weekend in Asturias was a good idea . I started following Oviedo types on Twitter . I re-tweeted a link to the club 's soon-to-be-opened online shop . Mexican Tycoon . As the club 's deadline day of November 17 approached , I kept an eye on the increasingly positive news coming from northern Spain ; this people 's club , now partly my club , looked close to completing its path to safety . Then came the news of Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim 's intervention . As a push over the line goes it could hardly be more emphatic , and suddenly the need to gather more shareholders became irrelevant . Oviedo was in the clear ; 13,000 shareholders and the world 's richest man had made it happen . However . I was n't quite sure how I felt about this new development . The idea that a multi-billionaire was now bankrolling the club was anathema to me ; I still feel that the age of the oligarch has done little but damage to football , at least in England . But it also opened up a world of possibilities . Even Nottingham Forest have super-rich owners now , and at the City Ground the Al Hasawi family have appeared at pains to show the club 's fans that they intend to do things `` the right way '' . Maybe Carlos Slim would be the same . So far my only proof of ownership is my receipt from Paypal , which almost a week on makes me slightly uneasy but I hope is just a sign of how unbelievably successful this escapade has been for the club . I have a genuine feeling of being part of something , and a sense that this is the start of an exciting story . I also fully intend to make it to a game at the earliest available opportunity . I suppose I should probably think about how I explain to my wife that I 've spent a chunk of our weekly shopping money on a Spanish third division football team . She 's a Napoli fan ; surely she 'll understand ? For now though I 'm waiting patiently for my share certificate to arrive in the post . Whatever happens at the very least I have to buy a Real Oviedo mug .
Why would a Nottingham Forest fan invest $ 52 in third - division Spanish club Real Oviedo ? - Hawkins interest in Oviedo piqued by British journalist Chris Lowe . Hawkins bought some shares allowing him to attend Oviedo 's annual general meeting . The third division club had had until November 17 to declare extinction .