southport reprieve after rushden expelled

Rushden have fans?

Not that much of a surprise really. Back down to where they came from before their sugardaddy Griggs pumped his millions in. It seems a number of the clubs who came up from the Conference have struggled financially after being relegated from the FL - Boston were kicked out of the Conference when they came down, Scarborough went bust, Kidderminster are in a spot of bother at the moment

It's a lesson for Crawley and Fleetwood. You can artificially pump your team through the league with excess cash but what goes up, must come down. The glory-hunters won't hang around once you reach as high as is possible to buy your way to, and neither will the investor(s). The bubble will burst. If you want to establish your club as a FL club, you have to do it the right way, like Yeovil and Cheltenham have done

Wonder if Justin Edinburgh has applied for our job. Was an outsider in the bettering

There have been stories in the Non League Paper about Imraan Ladak being interested in subsuming R&D into Kettering Town and playing at Nene Park under a new identity. Sounds like the old Dorchester/Weymouth "solution"....

Visiting Rushden and Diamonds was always something of a surreal experience in the way you were met with – at our level anyway – a significant degree of footballing opulence amidst the most unlikely of settings and geographical locations. And, to give you an idea of Irthlingborough’s place in the world, I once found myself planning a midweek trip there knowing the town had no accommodation nor post-match public transport. To even take a taxi back to the station at Wellingborough meant booking in advance rather than running the risk of just about the only cab in town being out on the road. But, come what may, I’m certainly glad I made the effort to get to Nene Park on the four or five occasions that I did.

Yet, to tell the truth, I’m surprised the whole R&D venture lasted as long as it did. In fact I was surprised the club dated back as far as 1992 as I would have hazarded a guess at a year or two later than that. Nineteen years – assuming the club folds as many are predicting – when you might not have given the project much more than ten.

That’s because it always looked to be stony ground – leaving aside the Dr Martens wealth - as far as potential spectators were concerned. Not only was the catchment area limited but it also meant merging two clubs together in the smaller of the two communities in an area not too distant from Northampton or Kettering. And, to illustrate how the idea may have been greeted, I’ve often wondered how I would have taken to the arrival of a professional club in Milton Keynes (regardless of its origin) had I been living there at the time. If I was aged under fifteen, I’m sure I’d have been thrilled by the prospect. Had I been retired, I may have gratefully welcomed League football on my doorstep. But, had I been of working age, I would have probably continued with my normal interest in the game whilst being scathing – or indifferent - towards the new arrival.

The same could surely have been said for living in east Northamptonshire when Rushden and Irthlingborough merged (unless I am mistaken enough to under-estimate the area having a distinct identity of its own as opposed to each town being quite separate). For someone who would have been in their mid-to-late thirties at the time I’m sure that – had I been local to that area – I would have been set in my ways watching either Kettering or Northampton. And, had I been one of the few following Rushden Town (8th in the Southern Midland during their last season) or Irthlingborough Diamonds (17th in the United Counties), a brand new club and dreams of the Football League would have been far from my thoughts and not quite why I was interested in either club. Of course, in this latter case, I’m sure I would have gone along for the ride together with, presumably, people who’d mainly been armchair supporters of no team in particular. Then, in time, I guess many local kids would have grown up with the idea of R&D and taken to them in the same way as we did Torquay United. Consequently it makes you wonder if the most disappointed people now are those younger supporters rather than the older ones who never quite had Rushden & Diamonds in their blood.

Having said this, I’m still left guessing who exactly supported the club. Did people switch loyalties from Northampton or Kettering? I doubt it. Were they, indeed, mainly supporters of the former Rushden and Irthlingborough clubs together with a younger generation? Did people in Wellingborough show interest possibly to the detriment of their own town’s club which folded a few years ago before reforming? All told it’s an odd story and I once thought it was like Street and Glastonbury getting together – bankrolled by Clarks’ shoes – and quickly outperforming Yeovil. Or, in a South Devon context, you could say it’s almost comparable to a Southern League club in Newton Abbot merging with a Bovey team in the Western League, playing in a smart gaff next to the A38 at Heathfield and getting to the Football League. No, that seems a bit too far-fetched.....

Go for it, James. Look forward to reading more from you in future.

Rushden entered administration today. That's pretty much game over. Moves already underway to form AFC Rushden & Diamonds