Richard Maxwell Appointed Manager

[AFCRD_Dan]

Frankly appalled at such a shocking decision, but ultimately it does make sense when then person appointed was sat on the board that appointed him! Disgrace! We’re the laughing stock of the league and the other local teams, seeing K*ttering fans on Twitter celebrating the appointment? It just goes to show how far we’ve sunk.

Tuesday was a good win of course, but such a big decision off the back of new manager bounce surely could not have been made on the spot? Surely this was premeditated? It seems like the board have given up on wanting to keep us in the league just to satisfy one of their own! The 23’s will work hard but in this league there’s no substitute for experience when the squad we have is struggling as it is.

Personally, this does it for me at the club. I’ve followed AFCRD for years now through the good and the bad, and I simply can’t watch as the club goes backwards. Why on earth did we ever let Peaks go? Burgess struggled as someone with far greater credentials than this new fella has! I‘ll now be debating whether to go and watch Cobblers or, even worse, K*ttering on Saturday. Really not happy here. Good luck to the new boss - he has a lot of doubters to prove wrong.

Come on now! There’s no amount of money that would make me go and watch or support that shit club, I’d rather give up on watching football and enjoy my Saturday afternoons at home, or go and watch Rushden & Higham United! But absolutely not that scummy club.

[fentiger79]

Yes, even though this is shocking there is a line!!

[BartonRaz]

If this feeling that its fans-owned only in name is that widespread then hopefully an EGM can be called, at least maybe to clear the air. I'm just slightly concerned that there never seem to be that many fans offering to stand on the board. Would this change if the toxic people left? Genuine question.

I think this is the crux of it, the supporters and members need to be able to say there is enough people who will step forward, and these people need to be new who haven't served before, if not then we need to question whether there is a future of being fan owned.

This is a really interesting point and worthy of wider discussion. I think there have only been 4 contested elections in our history and 3 of those were triggered by the same person. Put simply it would seem that not enough people are willing to stand up and do it. With the ever-diminishing fanbase it does beg the question whether there is still the appetite for this model generally.

[AFCRDPete2011]

Frankly appalled at such a shocking decision, but ultimately it does make sense when then person appointed was sat on the board that appointed him! Disgrace! We’re the laughing stock of the league and the other local teams, seeing K*ttering fans on Twitter celebrating the appointment? It just goes to show how far we’ve sunk.

Tuesday was a good win of course, but such a big decision off the back of new manager bounce surely could not have been made on the spot? Surely this was premeditated? It seems like the board have given up on wanting to keep us in the league just to satisfy one of their own! The 23’s will work hard but in this league there’s no substitute for experience when the squad we have is struggling as it is.

Personally, this does it for me at the club. I’ve followed AFCRD for years now through the good and the bad, and I simply can’t watch as the club goes backwards. Why on earth did we ever let Peaks go? Burgess struggled as someone with far greater credentials than this new fella has! I‘ll now be debating whether to go and watch Cobblers or, even worse, K*ttering on Saturday. Really not happy here. Good luck to the new boss - he has a lot of doubters to prove wrong.

Come on now! There’s no amount of money that would make me go and watch or support that shit club, I’d rather give up on watching football and enjoy my Saturday afternoons at home, or go and watch Rushden & Higham United! But absolutely not that scummy club.

I would love to agree! Sadly I think we have to admit that such a gross conflict of interest highlights however that the board (or at least the majority of it given we have no idea how that vote panned out other than approving the appointment!) perhaps is putting certain people’s personal interests first ahead of those of the club. Imagine this happened at Arsenal or Manchester Utd - fans would rightly be outraged! The board needs to explain this decision now before things get ugly (or uglier than it has already gotten!)

[GreekDiamond]

I will laugh my head off if we go and beat Redditch tomorrow…some of you will be having kittens

[Biggles]

We well could beat Redditch but how long before the excitement drains from a young team over the course of the next few games.
Hope i am wrong but the Club has run out of steam, Fan power means little money to sustain the club and with lower gates and costs rising over winter
the appointment to me means we are cutting our cloth to fit a different League.

God i am being very despondent, somebody please put a positive spin on this managerial appointment.

I am happy to have plenty of egg on may face at the end of the season but please make them Free range

[fentiger79]

It will make no difference if we beat Redditch tomorrow, it’s still totally wrong.

[NN10-Nige]

To be fair, we do seem to be one of the most unusual fan ran clubs out there.

A fan run club is one where they have many votes, decisions are put to the fans, the lines of communication are there with the board etc, the board are chosen by the fans.

An AFC Diamonds fan run club seems to have become one where communication is rare, decisions are just made and one of the chairman is a fantasist.

It's not really a fan ran club, we have a meeting and then for the next year people just make the decisions and as someone as pointed out on this thread already - when they want our money they will communicate.

Look at the appointment of Burgess - people on the board thought that we would all love the appointment because he used to play for Rushden & Diamonds, we are not Rushden & Diamonds and we will never be spending the money that Rushden Diamonds spent so we shouldn't be trying to implement parts of Rushden Diamonds into AFC Diamonds.

Richard Maxwell fondly remembers watching Rushden & Diamonds at Nene Park - now he's in dreamland to be managing them... well he isn't managing them is he, he's managing a much smaller club that must live within its means if it wants to survive... everyone needs to stop the obsessions with the old club because it's dangerous... the younger fans don't even know who Rushden & Diamonds were.

When I refer to one of the chairman as a fantasist I'm talking about Matt Ward, Matt Ward said that we a lot more professional now than we were 9 months ago - that is an absolute fantasy, Matt Ward said we need to a manager who knows the league - he has not delivered that, these statements may not be Matt Ward's personal opinion but he is happy to put his name to them and put them into the public domain so it lies with him.

Those statements give false impressions - my personal opinion is that the fans will never fully unite behind the club while people who make such false statements are on the board, it's like a relationship if you don't trust your wife or husband - then a large part of your relationship is gone, if you don't trust members of the board because they have gave false impressions of the club they are running for you - then the club will never reach it's true potential because distrust will always hold it back.

I don't disagree with Maxwell's appointment, carrying on after seeing such an improvement makes sense, what I do disagree with is the strangeness of it being after just 2 games and that Matt Ward makes comments which build up the fans expectations - and delivers absolutely nothing, we urgently need integrity and credibility back at the club.

[elizabeth]

If this feeling that its fans-owned only in name is that widespread then hopefully an EGM can be called, at least maybe to clear the air. I'm just slightly concerned that there never seem to be that many fans offering to stand on the board. Would this change if the toxic people left? Genuine question.

I think this is the crux of it, the supporters and members need to be able to say there is enough people who will step forward, and these people need to be new who haven't served before, if not then we need to question whether there is a future of being fan owned.

This is a really interesting point and worthy of wider discussion. I think there have only been 4 contested elections in our history and 3 of those were triggered by the same person. Put simply it would seem that not enough people are willing to stand up and do it. With the ever-diminishing fanbase it does beg the question whether there is still the appetite for this model generally.

I don't think it's as simple as people can't be bothered or willing to step up. I think there are quite a number of people in the fan base who would maybe consider it but perceive the current board as an unwelcoming environment, rife with power struggles, and wilfully uncommunicative. Why would anyone willingly put themselves into that situation? Yes, we all know they are volunteering their time and that it's hard work, and I for one, mostly, thank them for it but you have to ask why people think that. People see other long standing, hard working, loyal volunteers stepping away and obviously question why it keeps happening. It's sad and it needs addressing.

[Andrew]

Frankly appalled at such a shocking decision, but ultimately it does make sense when then person appointed was sat on the board that appointed him! Disgrace! We’re the laughing stock of the league and the other local teams, seeing K*ttering fans on Twitter celebrating the appointment? It just goes to show how far we’ve sunk.

Tuesday was a good win of course, but such a big decision off the back of new manager bounce surely could not have been made on the spot? Surely this was premeditated? It seems like the board have given up on wanting to keep us in the league just to satisfy one of their own! The 23’s will work hard but in this league there’s no substitute for experience when the squad we have is struggling as it is.

Personally, this does it for me at the club. I’ve followed AFCRD for years now through the good and the bad, and I simply can’t watch as the club goes backwards. Why on earth did we ever let Peaks go? Burgess struggled as someone with far greater credentials than this new fella has! I‘ll now be debating whether to go and watch Cobblers or, even worse, K*ttering on Saturday. Really not happy here. Good luck to the new boss - he has a lot of doubters to prove wrong.

I’m sure things will work out for the club in time. There’s always a warm welcome at Cogenhoe and the football being played by a young set of lads is pretty decent